Fact: When it comes to the Blues, I’m as blue as you can get. I’m terrible. Everything I try, it comes out tacky, or junior high-ish, or obnoxious. I can’t create anything tasty. Nothing even close to jazz emerges from my creative banks.
Today, I made that fact known to everyone at summer jazz. “My blues skills are beyond repair…” I said. A couple people laughed a bit, and so did Mr. Summers. But he thought I was referring to my junior high band director, who unfortunately has become the butt of everyone’s jokes now that we’re in high school. Our conversation went like this.
Mr. S: ”How can I put this… Halversen came over the other day–”
Me: “Was he sad?”
Mr. S: “…Yeah.”
Me: “oh…”
Mr. S: “Not everything is said, exactly, but just the attitude… well, he picks up on the vibe, so I do think you guys could be a little nicer to him.”
Me: “I’m not mean to his face!”
Everyone: *laughing* *’oh, i’m only mean behind his back’* *snicker*
Mr. S: “Well, just maybe when you’re around him, be a little more sensitive,”
Me: “I know, I try. I’m like, the ultimate kiss up.”
And that was the end of it. Now, I could start ranting about how I feel really stupid about having said all that, and how everyone probably thinks I’m a heartless jerk now and I’ll need to act a little more decent next time to prove any bad opinions wrong, or how I can’t believe I totally didn’t pick up that Mr. S. was trying to be a teacher and I should have agreed instead of made excuses, or how I should have avoided the whole embarrassment thing by informing everyone that no, I wasn’t actually referring to my junior high band director… buuuut we’re not gonna go there. I really shouldn’t care what my bandies think of me, but it doesn’t help that Mr. S. is my favorite teacher and teaches my favorite subject. Like I said, I’ll ignore all that and instead shed some light on what that conversation was all about.
For my bandies and I, now that we’re in high school, anything and anyone with any connection to junior high has become a laughing, mocking matter to us now. Junior High was, to my memory, one of the worst educational experiences I’ve been through, and probably the hardest period of my life so far. I think it is the same for everyone–not only were we smooshed between elementary school and high school, but it was a transition period between being a child and a teenager. My hormones were all out of whack, everyone around me was desperate to prove their distinctive personalities, etc. I won’t bother explaining further because I think you know what I mean.
Junior High band was a good experience. In seventh grade, I all but dropped to my knees and worshipped my band director. He made me feel special, talented, important, and a part of something. Eigth grade, my respect dropped a few levels. After being pushed into saxophone (I later came to accept and love it), forced to deal with living in my section leader’s shadow (we are now friends sharing lead in high school), and having to fight for the number 2 spot (with a kid who also, became good friends with me. He goes to another school now…), I started to be negative about and towards my once-favorite teacher. In ninth grade, it was even worse. I still enjoyed moments where I thought he was pretty cool (he was probably complimenting me…) but for the most part, I snickered about his obnoxious flirting, about his dumb jokes, about his musicality, about his personality, let’s face it: I was a jerk (not to his face, though. I really did like him as a teacher…).
And now, that I’m finally free of that personal Heck called Junior High, I can see that relations with my band director have descended to new lows. He’s a common joke in our band room–we make fun of his everything. We blame past insecurities and failures on him, we associate him with that deep dark past of the grades 7-9. It’s sad, really, and I kind of feel bad.
But it’s unavoidable. We all look back at our days in junior high with disgust because we think our hobbies, friends, drama, were infantile. We are ashamed of our various attempts at "growing up", we hide that we were so excited, at the time, to be accomplishing something BIG.
For me, at least, a lot of my problems have dissolved between junior high and high school. Now, my life is nothing near perfect and I still have some insecurities, some situations I don’t really want to dwell on. But it’s a whole lot better than junior high, I can tell you that. I have aspired to new heights. : ) And–I’m sorry to admit this, but I really do look back on junior high with a critical gaze. I don’t want to understand myself at that time, I’m too ashamed of what I might find, I think it’s embarrassing–all the crazy things that I did, thought, and went through.
Because of this, I scorn everything that is related to junior high. The assemblies, the teachers (with the exception of Ms. Moe, who was amazing), the classes, even the library! Unfortunately Mr. H. belongs in this category.
I feel bad, I really do, that we are such jerks to him. I actually think I’m one of the more decent ones, for while I occasionally let a little comment slip, I don’t actually think that way. Yeah, I thought his flirting was a little uncalled for. Yeah, the way he taught jazz left a lot to be desired. Yeah, he tried too hard to be “one of the kids”. But really, there are some great things about him. For instance. He’s a great teacher. He is really good at getting kids excited about band. He is a talented director. He has a fun personality. He is responsible when it counts. All that makes a good junior high band director.
I think what we as students need to realize is that he’s not. that. bad. And neither is Junior High. It is our pride, not our maturity, that causes us to cast down our trials and experiences. There’s no need to be embarrassed about them. So why hide them? Why scorn them? Maybe in doing so we’ll discover that it wasn’t all so bad.
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