Common Languages Across Years

If nothing else, teaching will provide me with new input for writing. The context it creates for understanding the difficulty of communication from one soul to another, for one thing, is of immeasurable value.

I'm not old, by any measure, except perhaps by my students', all of whom were born a couple years after I'd moved along from being their current age. To them, I'm in that vague, distant category beyond mandatory (and effectively mandatory) education. Moreover, I existed in that mysterious world of Before Them, and I've already experienced and incorporated the titillating lessons of adolescence and young adulthood.

And yet, they seem older than I remember feeling at their age. It may be that the school system in which I grew up placed us at the bottom of another stack — junior high — in seventh grade, whereas these kids are one step away from the top. Maybe times have changed. Maybe I see them in comparison with my children and nieces and nephews, most of whom are younger. Whatever the case, to what slice of my memory ought I to make reference when attempting to understand what they're thinking and going through?

The question is made more difficult by the fact that I remember being — and remember those around me being — more mature than they are. Again, perhaps the differing school system explains some of the disparity, but activities that I remember doing at younger ages, they have difficulty with. For some activities, they just haven't developed the skills; for others, they lack the concentration. To what slice of my memory ought I to make reference when attempting to teach them?

One thing's for sure: cultural markers are out. I attempted to illustrate a point by citing the geographic focus of grunge music — grunge music! — and they had no clue what I was talking about. Of course, grunge to them is like Led Zeppelin to me, meaning that they won't discover it, if at all, until their "retro" phase in high school or college. Perhaps the intimate knowledge of tangible examples is one of the values of peer tutors.

I wondered, as I watched my students leave the classroom, today, what they would do over the weekend. What would I have done, at their age? I barely recall. Not that my memories would necessarily be applicable; there are so many factors involved in the way in which we see the world and act that a sea of ifs lies between us. I guess it's enough to teach what I can and to help them to develop the common language of maturity. (And hope that the effort doesn't make me prematurely old.)