I’ve noticed recently that students at my high school are
getting pretty comfortable.
A few seniors bragged to me that they skipped and that they
felt like they were entitled to it because they have been working for the last
12 years and they deserve some days off.
So I am thinking about writing new poem about Senior Skip
day; so here is my brainstorming.
I worked in industry for 20 years, and was allowed to only 2
weeks of vacation a year. One week of
sick leave.
I designed anti-terrorist security barriers. My tests cost $50,000.00. My math better be right or it will cost
another $50,000.00 if I don’t lose my job.
Lose my job and I lose credibility in the industry and won’t find another
job like it.
So take your day off.
I'll work on more of this later
Hey Mr. Davidson, this post really made me think.
ReplyDeleteI read this back when senior skip day actually happened. It made me think back to days before senior skip day occurred, I had a friend come up to me and ask if senior skip day was an excused absence. All I could do was blink and try not to look flabbergasted. I wish I could say that I did not skip that day because I was a hard working student or something along those lines but to be honest, I did not skip that day because my math teacher threatened a hard test if we skipped her class that day. I had countless friends that skipped that day.
It got me thinking, our generation is really selfish. I am not an exception to this, I will be the first to say. Not only are we selfish, we think that we are always entitled to something that we did not work for. We forget the hardships that our parents go through to provide us with the lives that we comfortably live in today.
It might be the collectivistic, traditional Asian family that I was raised in, but I learned from an early age that not only do my actions reflect and affect me, it affects my family as well. Elders are held to the highest respect.
I hear kids complaining that their parents did not give them the brand new truck they were hoping for for their birthday or complaining that teachers do understand the workload of the students and they give too much work.
My parents work 11 to 12 hour days, almost 7 days a week on some weeks to provide me the life that I have. I will be damned if I dare to complain. They sacrificed everything for me, the least I can do for them and for myself is to get a good education and give back to my parents. I attribute everything I do to my parents. Yes, they may not have told me to sign up for the classes that i sign up for or tell me to join the extracurricular activities that I do, but they gave me the tools to build a successful life-I am the carpenter.
My apologies for the tangent I went off on, back to teachers. My issue with complaining students is factored into two main issues. First issue, why complain when you can use the energy and the time that you use to complain to actually do you work and be done? Second issue, our teacher's jobs are to prepare us for college, not to give us a break (especially if we do not deserve it). College is a brutal battlefield and those that slack on the work in high school or complain instead of doing their work are equipped with only a bayonet compared to the students that did their work and are equipped with machine guns.
To wrap up my point, the kids today (me included) need to stop thinking that the world owes them something. We need to grow up and realize that we need to take the world by storm, to show everyone what we are made of. This quote below is how I intend to live my life.
"Be so good they can't ignore you." - Steve Martin
Xing, it's funny about senior skip day and the entitlement issue. Somewhere someone started planting this idea of working hard up to senior year and then "take it easy" your senior year. this is really a BAD idea. College is 4 times as hard. Seniors should ramp up their efforts. For the last 12 years students have gotten 2 1/2 - 3 months off every summer. You get off two weeks minimum for a holiday break in December, 3 days for Thanksgiving, and a week for Spring break. Days off school all through the years is a burden on families where both parents work.
DeleteI don't give much homework in classes. Most of the work is in my classroom, and for someone to skip means , that I have to stay late a couple of days after school so a student can make up the missed work. Out in industry if you are lucky you get two weeks of vacation, one week of sick leave, and 6-8 holidays per year. I'm not saying that you shouldn't enjoy the days that you do have have off. I am saying make the most of them, but please, please, please do not be a burden to anyone else. Not that you have for me. I'm just hoping others will read this and understand from my point of view.
Exactly, I was talking to one of my friends who is now a freshman in college and I was asking him if high school/governor's school prepped him well for college (He is at Georgia Tech right now) and he said that the workload in college in incomprehensible to what we have to do now. Now, procrastinating can still work but in college, it will give you nothing but failing grades.
DeleteI think this could serve as the basis for a very interesting poem. I'm assuming you will be taking a sarcastically negative view on senior skip day, which I feel is very appropriate. In the real world of jobs and work, there is no senior skip day. Work has to get done whether you are there or not. You can't just skip days. When we are in school, that is our job, and our teachers are our bosses. I have heard you make this reference many times in the past and I feel it is appropriate. I hope you write this poem so I can see this idea brought to life.
ReplyDeleteIt would be interesting. Xing helped my flush out a few ideas with her comment. I can't help but think of JFK, "ask not what your country can do for you...."
DeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
DeleteWriting of those who brag or complain or feel entitled I feel that you could really use the same concept to develop a meaningful and defined opinionized poem, but as for senior skip day I feel as if the audience or point is just kind of iffy, not everyone participates, some kids skip random days they feel approproate, there's probably teachers that take off more days than you can, or in general the fact that you do not feel entitled and that you work hard for what you have, by going at it with this angle you can tackle a broader spectrum of the concept of being "entitled". Senior Skip day gave you the idea, but that could be hard to build a poem with.
ReplyDeleteI don't know. Being a teacher I get to have off a lot of time. I don't get as many days as the students get. I don't get very many sick days or personal days. Often is is more of a hassle to take time off than it is worth because you have to make sub plans, etc. I learned after about 2 years to make each day off count because I spend so much time grading papers and formulating ideas to make learning fun. I work hard. It looks like I'm having a ton of fun all of the time, and I am. But this job wouldn't be nearly as fun if I didn't prepare is diligently.
DeleteI would be like playing basketball, field hockey, soccer or some other sport. It might be fun to play, but the real joy comes in celebrating the win.
I promise you that when the seniors walk across the stage to receive their diploma, you are more likely to think back to the moments where you worked hard, the nights you stayed up late working on a science project, the evenings where tears streamed down your cheeks because you were struggling with the math homework before you think of the days you skipped.
Agree or disagree?
I really would love to see this poem play out! I like poems (as well as literature, movies, works of art, etc.) that poke fun at our generation. We are a lazy bunch indeed, and the premise behind senior skip day exemplifies this. Personally, however, I never even really thought of senior skip day as a much-deserved "break". Or as a break at all. When I think of senior skip day, I think of a chance to have fun. To me, it's like one last hoorah, you know? I didn't participate this year for a couple of reasons, one of them being the reason Xing stated above (We're in the same calc class), another being that I really didn't want to take finals, another being that it would have been difficult to get my parents to sign off a not advocating that, but the main reason being that the point, to me, is to do something FUN. I hadn't planned anything, and I didn't want to just go to the movies or something. That defeats the purpose! It should feel like an exhilarating day out, worth the loss of class and things, not just a break where everyone stays home complaining about how much work they have. This makes me want to write my own poem on the topic. Perhaps I'll add that later. How I digress....
ReplyDeleteOn a side note: I really liked the format of this poem. It's very matter-of-factly free verse. It seems like this is the best way to get your sarcastic, unimpressed tone of voice to come through. And as a senior who might think that we are entitled to a day off, a poem like this would be a real eye-opener. Thanks for sharing!
The funny thing about Senior Skip is that it wouldn't bother me, if you all coordinated it well enough to all meet at Kings Dominion, or Hike Old Rag, or do something together as a class. Then it wouldn't bother me so bad. But this idea of sitting around and "chillin'" is such a waste of time.
DeleteI never really understood senior skip day. To me it was just an excuse to sleep. But why waste time sleeping the day away when teachers are spending their precious time in life trying to motivate and teach us how to succeed in our future.
ReplyDeleteI really like your brainstorming. Even though I can't fully grasp the potential problematic math errors of the industry world, I can still see the straightforward "Stop complaining about the best years of your life" message. I especially like the last line. It made me giggle and want to shove this little excerpt of your thinking in the face of the majority of my class and scream, "SLACKERS!" So, I think that explains that you bring emotions to your readers' tables.
One miniature piece of advice I could give for the future is to remember that word choices are everything. You're in the industrial workforce. Maybe try using technical terms to describe your emotions. You don't have to use this advice for this particular poem, because I do like the free-verse/ literal aspects of the piece, but for future writings you may want to consider it.
Of course we all love our time off! Time to sleep in and do nothing all day. Personally I find senior skip day rather silly. Almost a waste of time to sit around all day instead of making yourself useful. I like how you're thinking though in the fact that it could attract a lot of younger people to read the poem and understand it but some may not. It is a good topic to work off of. I do not fully understand the math aspects of it all. The poem was rather humorous as it came off sarcastic which I enjoyed. It was something different then I'm used to reading. I'd really enjoy if you wrote this poem, and how deep you can go. At the same time I think about the teachers that skip more then me and it makes me wonder how many people will agree. I know many seniors will though!
ReplyDeleteI used senior skip day to work on my college applications, instead of having fun. I do still think it was worth it because I got a lot done. Between work and homework I think it's a good idea to set a day aside to work on something very important-your future! I wonder how long this tradition has gone on for. I do think it's a cool tradition and you don't have to skip. If you do skip and missed a lot that day, then you are the only one suffering. I have always thought senior skip day was a fun tradition and it doesn't necessarily mean we are selfish because everyone gets there chance when they are seniors. Senior skip day has been going on for quite awhile, I think. Did you have senior skip day Mr. Davidson? I think your job is a whole different story. Of course you shouldn't skip a day at work, but highschool is different, especially since it does count as an absence. You will also have a lot of makeup work to do.
ReplyDeleteFirst: I did skip on senior skip day. I used the time not just to lie around but to work on essays for college applications. Does that make it “better?” No. Could I have done that work earlier? Could I have done it instead of relaxing any other day of the week? Yeah. And I hesitated to comment on this post because I do understand where everyone else is coming from, and it’s justified in a lot of ways; nevertheless, I still very much disagree with a lot of the rhetoric I’m seeing here. I’m getting kind of needlessly worked up about it, actually, so I hope that I can be relatively concise without letting this get too heated.
ReplyDeleteSo. Adults spend a lot of time these days calling teens “lazy” and “entitled.” I’m kind of astonished to see so many of my classmates saying the same things, though. Yes, there are people like that, but isn’t it kind of hard to call that a fair generalization? I’m not talking about myself. I’m talking about the people who work part-time jobs, attend whatever club activities they can squeeze in and still face extremely intense pressure to earn the straightest-possible ‘A’s in every one of their three or four (or even more) AP classes. The people who wish that they had time to sleep more – and then, given an excuse to enjoy a day of rest and fun, take it.
(continued in response)
We’re not adults yet. We’re still kids, and we don’t have a lot of time left to enjoy that with few restrictions and less terrible consequences. Why should a teenager feel obligated to “make him/herself useful” every day? When did it become unacceptable to “slack off” every now and then at least? Why condemn kids for being kids? There’s so, so much pressure on us. Probably more than our parents faced at our age. But we’re not inherently more mature than they were. This is sort of a go-to argument for me, but it stands; teens are not nearly as neurologically developed as adults. You probably hear about it all the time when people talk about poor judgment and risk-taking. But that’s not all. We are also biologically less capable of maintaining the same level of motivation – among other things.
DeleteSo waste some time! Be lazy! Do what you have to do, and when that’s done, when you’ve got the chance: do nothing! Just for a little bit! It’s okay. Those chances to make yourself useless won’t keep coming forever. When you’re really stressed out, yeah – you can complain a bit. You’re not always wrong just because you lack the age and experience of figures of authority. It’s even worse to keep it all perpetually bottled up. Don’t be a jerk, but don’t feel like you need to be one hundred percent positive, either.
I’m seventeen, and I don’t want people to pretend anywhere in the backs of their minds that I’m an adult. Getting close? Sure. Should I be preparing for that? Yeah. But at eighteen, I’ll still be an immature punk who doesn’t know the first thing about living as an “adult” – independent, hard-working, and motivated by my conscious understanding of rewards and punishments – consequences. I’ve got a lot to learn and a lot of maturing to do. Most – if not all – of us do to some extent. The future beyond graduation is still a big unknown. In poetry as well as in prose, I believe that it’s important to consider counterarguments while making a point – especially, but not only, if the work is intended to be persuasive. <--- (important point!) I think that most of us seniors realize how much more serious and strict the adult world is. We know that there are no “senior skip days” in the real world. We know that college is much, much harder, and we know that now is the time to work hard in preparation. We’re doing that. We know that we’re living relatively easy now; we’re told as much all the time. And what may make some of us feel like taking breaks is just how overwhelming all of that is. It’s probably hard for adults to remember the feeling, but I can tell you how I feel: I have moments sometimes where I’m just absolutely terrified. For the first time in my life, I don’t know how to what to expect of the future. I don’t know where I’ll be or what, exactly, my life will be like a year from now. I don’t know what to do. I’m about to take a huge step. I’m about to take on a ton of responsibility, and how do I know if I’m ready for that yet? I just don’t.
So, yeah, it’s scary. And sometimes I – and plenty of my friends and peers, too – feel like escaping from the stress. Sometimes the thought of finishing high school is exhilarating – so, like Abby said, little transgressions like senior skip day function as a “last hoorah.” Relax. Realize that there are still consequences and that what you do may affect others, but enjoy the fact that you’re not yet an adult. You can still get away with those little immaturities and screw-ups at least some of the time. So why not? And why does it have to be a heavily-coordinated chance to socialize more with your class? Some people enjoy that, but others genuinely benefit from alone time. Introverts need that just as much as extroverts need time with others.
Everyone’s got their own ways of staying sane, y’know?
(continued in response)
Some students – like me, apparently ;) – may take offense when confronted with a poem like this one, just because it definitely takes a little stab at high schoolers. Acknowledge what we feel, and we’ll be more receptive to it. Otherwise, it’s just a creative and nicely-written scolding – and I, at least, feel that we get enough of those as it is.
DeleteDon’t get me wrong! You bring a really interesting perspective to this. The bit about the harsh monetary consequences of messing up are similar to those my dad faces working with a major technology/engineering company. It’s something worth thinking about, and the bluntness of the poem’s language lends its point strength. The only problem is that that strength can also hit people the wrong way. It’s probably good to also keep that in mind.
(Sorry that the length of this ran away from me...!)
Kuranda, I like that this may rub some people the wrong way. It's bold, as poetry should be. Those that make any form of art need not be concerned with who may be offended by it, unless it is truly intended to harm or offend. I think, however, that Mr. Davidson offers a wake up call. One that is much needed among not only our senior class, but among all young people without real jobs, and among all young people really. If the poem doesn’t pertain to you (for example if you did not decide to participate in senior skip or you chose not to do so for the reasons he implied in his poem), you shouldn’t be offended. And if it does pertain to you, maybe you need it.
DeleteHere's my senior skip poem I was telling you about.. It's a work in progress but I thought it was neat how the idea changed as I wrote it. It is more about me personally. I wanted to incorporate something about how, despite all the negative things we have to say about high school, it has become familiar to us, and we can't pretend we won't miss it even a little. Or rather, that's what this became about.
ReplyDeleteAnyways here goes:
If you have any feedback let me know!
Is it weird
that I enjoy
long, busy days
and even longer, busier nights
Is it weird
that I don’t want to leave just yet?
Is it weird
that I don’t see the purpose of
neigh, the desire to
to spend a day away
from this
what some consider a hell or prison
I consider my home away from home
where I’m comfortable and known
And how would I spend such a day?
Watch a movie, play some games
Is it worth it
to spend a day
Missing those I see only at this home away from home
And falling behind
Am I weird?
Do you feel a senior shouldn't do at least one senior skip day? Isn't it a tradition that seniors have carried out for generations? Is "entitlement the same as tradition? That is my question to you, Mr. Davidson.
ReplyDeleteI really like the idea behind this poem and I think a lot of people took senior skip day as an opportunity to a) relax and get away from the rigorous school atmosphere, or b) to work on applications to further their education in college. I think there are a lot of ways you could go with this poem. Personally, when I was brainstorming ideas for a senior skip day poem I gravitated towards slightly bittersweet feelings. It is wonderful to be old enough to finally get senior privileges, I mean, we've worked most of our lives towards this, right? Yet, at the same time, we are putting our childhoods behind us and making our way into adulthood. My parents gave me the choice on senior skip day, I could either skip or stay home. It seems trivial in the grand scheme of things, but it was kind of symbolic to me. If I stayed home I would get to relax but I would also miss tests and be more stressed when I finally returned to school. Being a senior is bittersweet, and to me, a poem about senior skip day should be just that.
ReplyDeleteMr.Davidson,
ReplyDeleteYou sound a little bitter but if the roles were reversed and then switched back again we would all feel sorry for each other so just keep that in mind. I admire how you made senior skip day a controversial subject! I think that's a good sign that you'll get a strong response of you do go through with q the poem. U I think it would be cool if you wrote it from the perspective of the principal from Ferris Bueller's Day Off (I just recently watched it for the first time) some other unexpected perspective. By the way I thought that writing about Richard Petty from the perspective of Buddy Baker was gold! It just might take a lot research if you want to get it just right. I see that in many of your posts you discuss possible poem ideas so my question is how do you know when a subject is worthy of writing about? Also when you write a poem and you use enjambment or an internal rhyme or something of that nature do you do it on purpose or is it something you sort of stumble upon? Do you think you would ever like to attempt writing a poem in any kind of meter?
106065
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeletei don't know, i think i'm going to have to disagree here. right now we are young, we are in the area of our lives we get to make mistakes and maybe not see the harsher consequences that come with adulthood. isn't that more what the end of our childhood should be about? i don't want to squander this time thinking, "oh, how would this work in the real world?" with that being said, i'm not going out and doing anything really stupid because i think life has no consequences. i did, however, observe senior skip day and enjoy it. i've had some experience with the real world, i've worked in it at the very least. in my little experience i've decided that it is important to savor the last few seconds of childhood we have left, enjoy every little moment of joy we can. i am a very hard working person, i work in school, at work and in various activities. no, i don't think that senior skip day is something i have earned or deserved. it's not really about that, it's about enjoying the little bits of freedom we have left to have childlike fun. like you said, in the real world we can't just skip so i say we should enjoy the last time is our lives when we can enjoy a blissful day off. carpe diem, they say. don't always be looking toward the future, enjoy the time you are in.
ReplyDelete