I was six years old the first time I got busted for skipping. My mom—my sweet, exhausted mother—was unaware that I was hiding in the way-back of the station wagon after she dropped her half dozen kids at a church activity.
The next time I skipped, I was twelve, and didn’t want to tell my parents I hated jazz dance class, which I begged them to enroll me in. Every Wednesday for six weeks, my mom dropped me at the front door of the Oregon Dance Academy, where I feigned excitement at watching my rhythmless self jump around in front of a mirror. Instead of hitting the class, though, I rounded right back out the door once she drove away, and secured myself on the lawn with a book until her return.
By the time I was in high school, I was skipping class regularly, usually to get high, sometimes to meet a boy, always to get out of having to sit still for hours at a time. And it wasn’t unheard for me to miss entire days of school. One semester, I would later find out, I skipped an absurd 42 classes. And where, one might ask, were my parents?
My parents were nearly done raising kids by the time I was in high school, the sixth of eight. While my dad worked endless hours away from home, my mom was exhausted, and although we had breakfast and dinner on the table every day, she was otherwise checked out. Not that anyone could blame her, of course, but to a degree, we were taking care of ourselves.
So, every evening, the phone intrusively rang during dinner, the recorded deep voice of Principal Glenn Gwen at the end of the line, snitching on one or more of the kids in our household who missed one or more classes on that particular day. I became adept at jumping up to grab the phone, acting out an incredulous response before hanging up, declaring irritation at those pesky sales calls always interrupting dinner. And I kept on skipping school.
As a junior, my parents wisened up, grabbing the phone before I could, and it wasn’t long before the jig was up. My mom decided to try shame as a form of punishment, joining me at school one morning, escorting me to each of my classes in her hot pink tracksuit, and sitting quietly in the back of the room. Third period English, I took a long bathroom break, leaving her in the classroom while I went out to the smoking section for a stinky. Yes, I was kind of a dick by that point.
By the start of my senior year, as I became determined to apply myself, I also came to understand there was literally no way I would be graduating with my class. And after meeting with my Counselor, I knew I wasn’t staying in high school for another two years to gain enough credits to walk. Nope. I was not going to do that, and I prepared myself to move the hell on.
By this point, my parents didn’t argue and came to agree that additional schooling was not the answer. My lack of desire was obvious, and the absence of discipline from mom and dad over the years surely stunted my high school career. (And, eventually, our understanding of ADHD answered a lot of questions, too.) I got my GED and moved into adulthood at 17, starting the long treadmill of living to work.
Since, I have become a lifelong learner, although I still don’t do well sitting in a classroom. But, I find I have an insatiable curiosity about the world, near and far. I have translated that curiosity into exciting adventures, faraway travel, and cultivated personal treks. And in this, the world has become my classroom. And that’s the kind of schooling I can get behind.
