Been there…

Where has your time at LHS taken you? I’ve had the great fortune to travel across Europe several times as a sponsor of students who were expanding their horizons. We’ve stood in the footsteps of Caesar in Rome, imagined ourselves crossing the plains of Spain battling the foes of Cervantes, tripped down the cobbled streets of Lucerne to honor the brave Swiss Guardsmen who stood their posts during the French Revolution, and slipped quietly down the Seine aboard a Bateaux Mouche in Paris watching Notre Dame slide out of view. With my students, I have learned how grand the world can be, and how small it is at the same time.

I can’t deny that those travels were highlights of my time here at LHS, but in my classroom I’ve made great journeys as well. Any thoughtful discussion leads me and my students down roads of shared ideas. We may disagree, but we listen and learn from each other. Those journeys last longer than the summer sojourns because they may influence thoughts and eventually change lives. Thoughtful discussions can travel across years as they influence those who take the time to listen.

                                                                    Done that…

How many times have I re-read The Scarlet Letter, The Adventures of Huck Finn, Hamlet and Beowulf? Have I lifted my hand to form an L and sung the school song? Have I sat at graduation, misty eyed at the thought of all who were leaving or who had already left? Does repetition make me less enthralled at the language, less engaged in camaraderie of the crowd, or less moved by the thought of endings and beginnings?

If we measure our lives by firsts and forget to count the times we have returned to something that we love, might we stop loving it? Parents take joy in the first step our children take, their first day in school, and their first dance, but what makes our children’s confident walk across the parking lot at the start of their junior year any less momentous than that of the freshman year? When all that matters to us is that this day, this experience, this thought is new, then we have abandoned the joy that familiarity brings in moments of quiet reflection.

Got the T-Shirt…

So, can you fit any more t-shirts into your dresser? I’ve got shirts that commemorate everything from a great win in some sporting events (Girl’s Softball Wins State!), to hopeful dreams (Find the Cure!), and to confident declarations (Now This is a Story All About How My PSAT Score Got Flipped – Turned Around And I’d Like to Take a Minute Just Sit Right There; I’ll Tell You How I Became a National Merit Scholar!). If I hadn’t tossed some into recycle piles, I’d have a hundred shirts crammed into my life. My husband, who used to work at Coppell High School, had a devious way to empty his drawers of t-shirts. When we traveled over the summer he’d pack four or five shirts that he would pass out to homeless people we encountered in the great cities we visited. He’s always hoped to see some guy pushing a shopping cart through Chicago wearing the logo of “Coppell Cowboys!” He hoped that someone from Coppell would see the incongruity and wonder how it was even possible!

Now I’m ready to move on…

What lies ahead is no greater than what lies behind, if we understand that every day is full of possibilities. Don’t give up on the here and now, but certainly, don’t ignore the next step in life.That’s the one constant of life: the future eventually arrives. We’ve got to be ready for it, but people who only look ahead miss out on the joys that ordinary life can give.

Seeing friends in the halls, hearing the rousing verses of “Time Lords” at the pep rally, knowing that tomorrow will look suspiciously like today – we find comfort in these predictable parts of high school life. But we all move on. We all graduate. For 950 of you seniors that day will arrive on June 6th this year. For me, it will be a few days later when I empty out my room. We all start a new life. For me, thirty nine years have passed, but they have been grand years, ones that were full of times I will never forget.

Editor’s note: Karen Cooke has taught English at LHS since 1978. She was selected as the school’s teacher of the year in 2010-11. She is retiring at the end of the school year and will provide commentary on her final year of teaching at LHS as well as reflections on her career in this series of columns.