Unfinished People

By Carol Miccinilli

As a teenager I placed becoming a teacher in a typical adolescent's ‘never-never' land. How'd I become one? Today, I'm preparing to retire from 26 years of teaching over 4,500 high school students. How'd I arrive here? Looking back I'm amazed at how I discovered myself and my passion for teaching along with a love for almost all of my students, even in the midst of their disruptive ‘happenings' as they searched for self-identity. What'd they do? How did I respond? Sometimes I'd tell them: "Pay attention! Someday you'll know more than me but along with my teaching experience, I've been in college for more than fifteen years and right now, know more than you do!" I remember Zachery in my Anthropology class saying: "That long! You must really be stupid!" I laughed: "Perhaps!" In my ‘re-visiting' process, I've realized what I learned from them. What could they possibly teach me? Much! Answers to these questions along with other shared experiences with teens and colleagues, become the curriculum for my tales. Would you like to meet me and my extended family of ‘unfinished people' in our journey? -- Carol Miccinilli My years in college provided — Bachelor of Arts; majors in both Anthropology and Psychology (Ramapo College of New Jersey) — Post Baccalaureate Program N.J. Department of Education; dual certification for Social Studies and Psychology — Master of Arts (Montclair State College, New Jersey) — Master of Arts in Liberal Studies (Ramapo College of New Jersey) I have also been listed three times in "Who's Who Among America's Teachers, Honoring Our Nation's Most Respected Teachers."

• Language: English
• Publisher: Page Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: Oct 22, 2019
• ISBN: 9781645846604

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Unfinished People

"Unfashioned and unframed…

Of jarring seeds and justly claim’d…

Were all confused…

And each disturbed the rest…"1*

A Teacher’s Tale

CAROL MICCINILLI

---

¹* Publius Ovidius Naso—Metamorphoses (43 BCE–17 CE)

Copyright © 2019 Carol Miccinilli

All rights reserved

First Edition

PAGE PUBLISHING, INC.

New York, NY

First originally published by Page Publishing, Inc. 2019

ISBN 978-1-64584-662-8 (Paperback)

ISBN 978-1-64584-660-4 (Digital)

Printed in the United States of America

Table of Contents

Part 1

Me! Become a Teacher? Never!

What Not to Do in High School

Becoming a Resident Feminist

College Becomes My Second Home

The Unintended Teacher—Me

Part 2

My New Frontier

My Confidential File

My Stockpile of Teen Toys

Teen Excuses: The Nature of the Beast?

Meet Students’ Parents to Better Understand

Part 3

Adolescent Babel

A Special Gift to Me

Lest We Forget Teachers Are People Too

Truth

Others do not see my yesterdays the same as I do.

My writing arena does not share the same stadium

of memories from which those who have

individualized segments of my journey,

project their own perspectives.

It’s their right.

While honesty and accuracy are important to me,

to create a written work of art, I claim shading

to contribute color to my palate, depth

to my perception and rhythm in my life.

I paint my own landscape.

It’s my right.

—Carol Miccinilli

Acknowledgement

Foremost I thank my students who contributed either stage presentations or shared their concerns in pursuit of self-discovery with me. Those interactions have become special moments in my teacher memory.

Here I add my gratitude for Gotham Writers Workshop in New York City and want to recognize the entire staff for their combine effort for all who attended classes to succeed. A special thanks goes to Cullen Thomas for his expert teaching and encouragement in this undertaking.

I also thank my daughter Gina Miccinilli, for her sometimes unsolicited but always appreciated advice, and want to thank the rest of my own family for their support throughout my writing mission.

What’s past is prologue

and I tote it everywhere I go.

*The Tempest; W. Shakespeare

My narrative memoir begins on an early morning in late June. I’m alone in my classroom facing retirement from the 26 year high school teaching career I didn’t want, fell into, discovered I loved and not prepared to abdicate. Today my plan is to dispose of my files, clean out my desk, say goodbyes and make my exit. As my students’ would say: ‘not happenin.’ The intended removal of my person is continually postponed as present and former students and colleagues stop in my classroom to say goodbye and wish me luck in retirement. Conversations with my well-wishers trigger a flow of memories delaying my moving out chores. Here, I use an excuse I picked up from my students: It’s their fault I’m not cleaning out!

Instead, I reminisce over episodes I shared working with and learning from between 4,500 and 5,000 teenagers. I came to love most of my students, adopted a few and had to force myself to locate positive characteristics in a couple of them. About 8,000 parents were somewhat monitoring me, almost all supportive. However, a few parent-teacher confrontations also intrude on my memory. Re-visiting some of my not-forgotten experiences along with discovery of the teacher me, appears to be my first step towards moving on.

I remember how much I learned in my journey with unfinished students. I saw how teenagers place themselves center stage and assume everyone is watching their performances as they tread the ups and downs inherent in adolescent development. I observed how academic achievement and personal success contribute to a positive self-image or screw-ups fracture them—depending on the time of day. Yes, their emotions and actions can change that quickly as shall be seen in some of the tales on my shared experiences with them.

In my classroom their tendency to make mistakes, create problems, at times spawn havoc, made every day unique and at times, caught me off guard. The standard method in dealing with classroom disruptions was to kick the culprit(s) out. I didn’t. Based on my own teen experiences, sense of humor—at times questionable, and education background, I selected to ‘fly by the seat of my pants,’ which I liken to the flight of the hummingbird, my adopted totem; explained in an upcoming chapter. I catalog these experiences under: What can’t be individualized in college teacher education instruction is learned in on the job training.

I also observed communal essentials in teenagers’ trek towards adulthood; want of approval, desire to belong, need for understanding, guidance—at times unappreciated, and vital to the process, teacher patience. I witnessed how the absence of these staples for positive development could metamorphose into a sense of exclusion, loneliness or anger. These unfulfilled cravings could be camouflaged in acting out, or the opposite, concealed in withdrawal or heart rending self-destructive behavior.

There were times when my students’ academic efforts and care and support of one another warmed my heart and made me proud of them. There were times when my own three offspring contributed to my pride during their evolutionary journey. Then there were times when students’ behaviors were questioned or unacceptable and their excuses incredible fabrications. My own kids were disadvantaged here: Do you know how many times I’ve heard that excuse!

I include some teen justifications which entertained or annoyed me, while others reminded me of my own obnoxious high school antics. Never to be admitted to students or confessed to my own kids, those adolescent misadventures sneak into reflections on my past—if I don’t lose my nerve for inclusion and honest evaluation.

I have a sense of responsibility in my writing. This is not a disclaimer providing Memoirists license to invent. (Meghan O’Rourke) I am not asking for leeway to circumvent authenticity nor petition license to distribute marketable sensationalism—which my teenage students have been targeted and victimized by. Those exposes when truthful, are left to professional adjudication. Rather, my memoir is simply a review of what I learned in and outside innumerable classrooms, about myself and what my students collectively presented amidst their educational pursuits. I’ve included examples of inherent adolescents’ struggles in their experiential search for self-identity as they trek towards maturity in the midst of today’s wavering cultures, while the involved adults are trying to ‘catch-up!’

To grant anonymity to my students and the adults who participated in my journey, I use disguise in narrative, descriptions, situations, and incidents. Not necessary for those who personally gave me their trust. Thank you. I also disclose my bias. I object to my students being grouped in labels such as ‘the me generation, millenniums, etc…’ and indicted in widespread criticisms such as—drunk, drugged, and promiscuous. If a few of my teens are as muddled as critics claim, who made them so? In this I’m a mother bear seeking recognition for my cubs’ successes and adult realization of why certain of them fall by the wayside. Who pushed them? In the few discussions on my difficult interactions with challenging parents, I put forward attempts to get them to understand their influence and request their support. At times I failed.

To further responsibility in my tales, I clarify that the town where I’ve taught is middle-class and while there is racial, religious and ethnic diversity in student composition in the high school, it’s observable make-up is primarily white. I have no idea on ethnic or religious composition. None of these factors have influenced my expectations, praise, annoyance, admonishment, and my affection. I can’t imagine what teachers experience in geographic areas where the visible injustice of poverty and related crime encroach in their students’ learning and at times, claim lives. There have to be broken hearts on all sides. They are my heroes!

A few of the essential truths I became aware of in my career are teenagers’ rewarding responses to knowing they are not alone, people care about them and they are loved. Perhaps the most important truth in education is when students’ feel good about themselves, they do their best work. Remember, they are being prepared to be our future.

In my attempt to maintain integrity, I am merely a messenger attempting to share what I’ve learned about myself and what my amazing adolescents taught me. A few colleagues who played a role in my teacher education are included. Our shared experiences provide curriculum for this narrative memoir. Please permit me to introduce my extended family in the pursuit of education.

Part 1

How I Got to Where I Didn’t Know I Wanted to Go

Education is the kindling of a flame not the filling of a vessel

—Socrates (c. 470–399 BCE)

Chapter 1

Me! Become a Teacher? Never!

During my high school years, if anyone had prophesied I would become a teacher, I would have rebelled. No one did. I agreed with their silence on the subject. Looking back today, I realize the standardized 1960s curriculum bored me. The traditional methods of instruction didn’t stimulate me either but would have a profound impact on the future teacher me in what not to do in the classroom. As a teenager, I was preoccupied in experientially learning the syllabus for adolescent social development. Way back then, I didn’t know enough to ask, What’s social development? It would take a few years before I could answer my own question. I needed to learn life skills such as assuming responsibility for my own behavior, coping with societal pressures, ability to make choices separate from my group, and how to establish and maintain relationships within the context of my own comfort zone. Where was that?

I saw teenagers throughout my teaching tenure continue the universal struggle (in the quickening pace of wavering cultures) to identify their own personal boundaries and sympathized. I recognized their sometimes confusing, painful, or humorous experiences were all part of a necessary process pushing them toward adulthood. I didn’t know who I was back then and gave little thought to what the future me was going to be. The only thing the teen me was sure of was that I didn’t like high school and knew I’d never be a teacher. How wrong I was! How little I knew about myself! Oh, the tales I could tell on how I became the unintended teacher and the innumerable ways my students continued to expand my awareness of their collective journey through adolescent development. I could write a book. Maybe I have.

Today is my last high-school teacher day. The time is 7:20 a.m. on this warm, breezy June morning. I’m already at school, sitting at my desk, looking at the empty rows of golden desks, but instead of getting on with moving out, I begin to reminisce over the more than twenty-five years I’ve spent in the career I didn’t want and discovered I loved. The school year is officially over, students released, final exams and year-end grades turned in. There’s much to finalize, throw out, or take home (and do what with?), but I’m presently infected with a contagion my high school students dispersed—lack of motivation, to relinquish my job. I begin to sense my departure is going to be more time-consuming and emotionally draining than I’ve anticipated.

Young, happy, perhaps relieved voices in the hall become louder as stray students pass my open classroom door. They may be in the high school early this morning to return a late sport or band uniform, need to question a grade, or check the lost and found for some item they realized—only after disappearance—they can’t live without. All typical after the fact of adolescent concerns.

One of my senior psychology students from first semester pops his head in my classroom. It’s long, tall, and lean, six-foot-three Jason, a forward on the basketball team. I remember watching him play one Friday night. He kept pulling up his uniform shorts and wiping face sweat on the shoulder of his shirt. He also spit on the sideline as he ran the court! Is that permitted? Jason was more serious about his hoop scores than his grades in my class. I hope his focus will include academic success in his college run.

Hi Jason, back again? Didn’t find your shirt yesterday?

With a thumb up, he smiles. Nope. I get the contradiction between his body language and failed mission.

I was in the main office yesterday when Jason decided not to search through the locker clean-out bags for the unwanted shirt his grandmother gave him as a graduation gift. He told me there was a blue moon and some leaves on it. Some old bald guy who sits on a beach can wear it. His mother had insisted he wear the shirt to school on the last day of final exams to please his grandmother who was visiting to attend his graduation ceremony. He’d thrown the really disgusting shirt in his locker as soon as he got to school. Never to be seen again? I knew Jason wanted the shirt to stay lost, but his mother insisted he find it. Alice, a secretary in the main office in charge of the expanded lost and found from student lockers, pointed out to Jason the pile of large bulging black plastic bags thrown in the corner beneath teacher mail cubbies. Look for yourself.

The look on Jason’s face yesterday when he glanced at the search pile, broadcast visual disgust. I smiled at his evaluation of the chore. After opening the first of the bags, he stated, I’m not going through that stuff. It stinks. I’ll tell my mother someone stole the shirt. I wouldn’t want to touch the left-behind student locker debris myself!

Custodians did a final clean-out of lockers quickly after student contact days were over, probably to avoid infestations. Paper wrappers with moldy remains of Big Macs, wormy fries, pizza crusts, empty Starbucks coffee cups, juice boxes, water bottles, clear plastic cups with moldy foam who-knows-what, and smelly (by association) notebooks, crumpled papers, old tests and items not necessary to mention were all pitched into black garbage bags. Only teenagers can explain the origin and purpose of the stinking, untouchable Dumpster-headed trash. The custodians then sifted through the rank balled-up items in locker bottoms; dirty socks, stained shirts, a sneaker or pair, messaged T-shirts such as Teenagers do it better also went straight from locker bottoms into the U-Haul bags.

I was familiar with students’ sometimes amusing, sometimes questionable apparel broadcasts. I too had an announcement for my granddaughter, Hannah, age thirteen at the time, put on a pink T-shirt at a kiosk in the Paramus Park Mall. I thought it was funny. She didn’t.

My divorced daughter had a Thursday night meeting, and her middle child, Hannah, stayed overnight with me and her grandfather. She was supposed to go over to a friend’s house for the evening but got mad when I reminded her we both had school the next day and I’d pick her up at 9:00 p.m. I needed her curfew more than she! I don’t remember what she said about the early time, but her annoyed tone tripped me, and she got to stay home with us. Young teens don’t seem to consider others in the context of having their plans disrupted.

Saturday morning while at the mall, my sense of humor kicked in, and I bought a T-shirt to let her know I loved her, but at the same time as a funny way to remind her there was a consequence to her sounding off at the early curfew. The words Because of my mouth, I got to stay home adorned the front. When I gave her the T-shirt, she cautiously laughed. I never saw it again and wonder what trash she buried it in. I’ve had similar experiences where I wanted to bury some of the messaged T-shirts a few of my students tried to insert in my classes over the years.

I remember walking into my anthropology class and seeing students gathered around Billy in the back corner, pointing and laughing at various stick figures he was wearing on his T-shirt. Okay, people, bell is going to ring. Get into your seats. As they left the show, I went over to check it out myself. His shirt had three vertical lines of stick couples in different sexual positions. Billy! This is disgusting! I couldn’t believe some of the pretzel angles myself.

Do your parents know you wore this to school? Do they know you have it? Where did you get it?

C’mon, Mrs. Mitch, it’s just a joke!

Not in my class! You have a choice, turn it wrong side out, put something over it, or go to the vice principal’s office and let him check it out!

Billy went out into the hall, turned the shirt wrong side out, and returned. I thought the display more humorous adolescent curiosity (didn’t that kill the cat?) than hormonal inquiry and redirected students’ attention to whatever anthropology lesson (I don’t remember) I’d planned.

Then there was Jake, one of my sophomore history students, wearing an unacceptable T-shirt declaration in my class. He knew his broadcast wouldn’t pass in my room and semi concealed it under an open cotton shirt. His classmates were smiling; they knew, but it took a few minutes into teaching before I was able to piece the whole message together: Never mind your mountains, show me your bush. I stopped the class and told him the vulgar communique wasn’t permitted in my room, and he had to either button up the shirt or… The undercurrent of students’ amusement became boisterous laughter as he left to get another shirt from his locker, and I said, I hope it’s more acceptable. I doused the spotlight from his performance by not participating in the students’ anticipated angry-teacher response from me, the resident feminist, an upcoming tale reserved for another chapter.

Jake returned. One of the girls asked what he did with the shirt. He said he threw it in his locker. Did his offensive shirt occupy one of the black bags for the end of that year’s disposal? No, I think he saved it for future performances. I wonder what custodians do with questionable souvenirs such as Jake’s shirt if, or should I say when, they come across them at the end of the year in locker bottoms?

There are other more savable items in the large plastic garbage bags stashed in the main office that Jason determined he wasn’t going to touch. I saw an almost new, expensively labeled jean jacket, which I examined myself and thought, Some mother’s going to be mad about its disappearance. There was also a cashmere sweater, a hoody, jeans, shorts available for retrieval. Jason’s moon shirt was probably embedded in the bottom of one of the pungent piles, and his lack of effort to find the unappreciated gift was covered up by his stolen claim. However, that was yesterday. I don’t know why Jason’s back at school early this morning, but I assume from his thumb-up message at my classroom door this morning that the gift has safely disappeared.

I’m sympathetic thinking about him, his mother, and grandmother all caught in the quagmire of a really hated gift. I’ve learned with most teenagers, it’s not the gift-giver’s choice, it’s the receiver’s reception that counts. I understood Jason not wanting the beached shirt, but what happened to honesty—Thank you, but I’m not going to wear this and exchange or refund? Some teens caught up in their horror of the gift, fail to take time to appreciate the affection, time, expense put out by the giver. Grandma, thank you so much for the shirt, but do you mind if I exchange it? Did my granddaughter, Hannah, ever appreciate her pink mouthy shirt? I’m sure it went into the trash, but did my message stay with her? I’ll ask if she remembers when she’s home from college.

I decided some time ago not to buy presents for my offspring and theirs. My granddaughter, Chelsea, put forward the don’t try to buy me anything message when I bought her a Free People jacket I thought she would look great in.

Wow, I love it. I’ll really wear it. Grandma Sissy [Yep, that’s me!], how did you do that? She looked shocked. I realized I had accomplished the impossible and knew better than to try and top that—stay with gift cards.

The plastic bags filled with items left behind, forgotten about, or too smelly to reclaim were kept in the main office for a couple of days for students’ topical searches and then turned over to Goodwill organizations. During that time, the office area took on the look of city-street-corner rubble during a garbage strike! Smelled like it too.

Valuable objects such as ambiguous keys, stray pieces of jewelry, and watches were left at the main office counter, extending opportunity to be found. I don’t know what happened to those items if no one claimed them.

My conscience returns me to last-day teacher responsibilities. The father time wall clock (why doesn’t mother time fit?) yellowed and crinkled with age (yeah, let it be male) indicates 8:15 a.m. I have to stop these mental meanderings and start erasing my teacher career, but my duty is happily interrupted again.

A beautiful young lady knocks on my open classroom door and walks in. Her dark hair is pulled back in a ponytail. Her dark eyes are accentuated with liner. She’s dressed in tight slacks and a revealing knit shirt. It’s Betsy, home for the summer from her junior year at the College of New Jersey.

Hi, Mrs. Mitch, I heard you’re retiring and want to wish you good luck. What’re the kids gonna do without you here?

Thanks for the good wishes. I’m sure they’re going to do the same things teens have always done—learn a lot, mess up, move forward, and grow up. I’m going to miss them. You look wonderful, Betsy. How are you doing?

Great! College is good, just one year left. I have to get to my summer job, but I wanted to tell you good luck and say you’re one of my favorite teachers. Thanks for all your help. You’re the best. I love you!

Works both ways, Betsy, stay in touch. She left.

Seeing Betsy again plummeted me back to a traumatic episode she shared with me in early April, her senior year. I place the ordeal she shared with me under a heading, Situations Not Prepared For in Teacher School. Some students do, however, ask a teacher for advice.

Betsy came into my classroom about 7:15 a.m. on an early spring day. I remember listening as hints of sunlight were snapping ice crystals from branches of my solo courtyard tree. Their shattered landings became a presage of what Betsy was about to drop.

Mrs. Mitch, can I talk to you but promise you won’t tell anyone? She walked up to my desk and stood silent for a moment, her huge dark eyes seeping.

Betsy was a beautiful eighteen-year-old senior, petite, with a figure she showed off and other girls envied. Instead of wearing her usual tight jeans and a low sexy knit top, she was uncharacteristically dressed in baggy sweats, wasn’t wearing her perfect makeup, her hair was disheveled, and tears began to slide down her cheeks. I became concerned and thought, What’s happened?

Betsy, you know you can trust me, but you know my rule [which had evolved through my experiences in working with teens]: As long as what you tell me doesn’t indicate you’re hurt or threatened in any way, I’ll respect your privacy. However, you know the rest.

All my students knew if I thought one of them was hurt or in a difficult or dangerous situation, I wouldn’t hesitate to get assistance from a guidance counselor, the school social worker, psychologist, or, yes, call the parents.

I know. She then paused, took a deep breath, hesitated in an attempt to control herself, then started to really cry and blurted out, Rick raped me last night. I caught my breath, my unspoken response—fury. Rick was her best friend Mary’s significant other. The three of them hung out together. Betsy continued crying. I got up, went around my desk, closed the door, and, disregarding school law against any type of physical contact with a student, gave her a motherly hug. Yes, I hugged her!

Her crying subsided, we sat down in student desks, and she told me between gasping sobs what happened. I was with Rick at his house waiting for Mary to call us when she got out of work at the Paramus Mall. We were going to meet there at the pizza place. She called to say her boss asked her to stay for two more hours. When Rick hung up, he said, ‘We have two hours to kill, what do you want to do?’ We were alone at his house, joking around, and started dancing, then he pulled me too tight. Mrs. Mitch, he tried to kiss me, and I pulled away. Then I don’t know how, we were on the floor. He didn’t hurt me, but he forced me. I cried the whole time. When it was over, I told him I was going to tell Mary…

My hand was shaking with anger directed at Rick as I handed Betsy a couple of dinner napkins, which I always kept in my desk (stronger than tissues) to wipe her face. Between sobs, she continued her story. Rick got mad and said, ‘Go ahead tell her. She won’t believe you.’ Then he got really mad and said, ‘I’ll tell her you tried to fuck me, but it didn’t happen. I’ll tell her you’ve been trying for months now. You’re a slut.’

Betsy bawled, Mary won’t believe me. I thought, You’re right about that. I had some difficulty believing her myself but didn’t interrupt. Mrs. Mitch, everyone’s gonna think it’s my fault. I shouldn’t have been at Rick’s house. We were alone. I shouldn’t have let him touch me. It’s my fault.

I didn’t see the Rick I knew in this aggressive sexual attack and checked my initial fury with him. Was Betsy going along with or enticing Rick’s advances? Is there truth in her confessional my fault? Listening to her, I wasn’t sure the sexual encounter was entirely Rick’s doing. Had she contributed in some way, encouraged him, only to regret her behavior afterward, or did they both get carried away? Only she and Rick could answer that. I didn’t ask.

I knew Rick well—a big macho, first-string football player who, yes, assumed the somewhat extended liberties of the high school athlete. He was smart, funny, and also seemed to be a sensitive person. Rape didn’t equate with the young man I knew, and it was unfair to automatically indict him. Was the biblical assumption of woman’s original sin—ever after female guilt—now being applied to males? Is this reverse criminalization?

Over my teacher years, I became aware that teen interpretations and accusations rooted in disabling emotions, such as fear, fury, hate, betrayal, guilt, circumvent accuracy (in adults too?). Perhaps one of these emotions was slanting Betsy’s story? I didn’t know.

Betsy, can you talk to Rick, and the two of you together work through what happened? Her eyes looked away; she didn’t respond. I continued, I have one real concern here. It’s not my business, and you don’t have to answer, but was a condom used?

Her face flushed, eyes down, perhaps embarrassed, Betsy quietly said, Yes.

A different interpretation of their sexual encounter was implied by both her body language and response, and I suspected Betsy was confronting her own conscience over the situation. Her teary statement, It’s my fault, hinted she willingly participated, but the two (and Mary, if she became included) had to struggle through the situation themselves and learn from it. Hopefully, they would learn to avoid or keep enticing sexual attractions in check and, specifically, control powerful drives. Did Betsy and Rick also discover what fidelity and commitment really meant to them? Are there adults still trying to master those intricacies?

Keeping my teacher position in mind, I didn’t have to or want to know. The sexual encounter was between Betsy, Rick, and, of course, Mary. I didn’t discuss the incident with anyone else. It was a private home matter between the adolescents. I did, however, give Betsy the phone number to a rape hotline. She said she’d call and agreed to check in with me every day before school for a couple of days. Her last check-in was a couple days later. She was back into somewhat sexy clothes and called from my classroom door, Morning, Mrs. Mitch! See, I’m here, I’m good. I smiled back. Thanks, Betsy, you look beautiful today.

I observed the significant couple remained tight while Betsy joined a different clique of friends. I don’t know the specifics beyond our initial discussion and the change in Betsy’s social group I witnessed at school. My not knowing results in adolescent traumas such as hers became experiential learning for me throughout my teacher career. I didn’t need to know everything and, although difficult, learned to accept lack of closure. But I did gain insight on teen potential to quickly move from one traumatic episode on to the next.

Over the years, my understanding on adolescent interpersonal relationships increased. I observed students clarify their own contributions to a stressful incident from listening to themselves as they recounted their ordeals. I wonder if my nonjudgmental listening was perhaps what they needed most at the time. If asked, Mrs. Mitch, what should I do? I did offer considerations they could think about but never probed further than they were willing to divulge. No, there was never a follow-up Well, tell me what happened… Conclusions were left for students to bring back to me if they thought of it or wanted to. That didn’t happen. However, I question the impact these early traumas and conflicts have on their behavior patterns in future relationships and adult social interactions. What did they or, unfortunately, didn’t they learn from their adolescent experiences?

Teenage self-analysis can produce biased justifications to appease themselves at the time,