December Has
Arrived
As the calendar page flips to the final month of 2015, I
am reminded of the many thoughts December brings each year. Holiday shopping,
greeting cards, travel plans or decorating for the season top most personal
to-do lists. Here at school, the students begin a buzz in early December that
continues to amplify as the holiday break nears. The hallways are louder and
rowdier. Focus in class is harder to maintain and the chatter is filled with
adolescent excitement for the season. It is that time of year where
anticipation hovers and everyone counts down the days until the holiday break.
At the beginning of the school year, Mr. Cross challenged
our Cougar family to “Dare Greatly” this year. With that mission in mind, I tried
focusing on ways to encourage my student publication staffs to elevate their
game too. First, I should explain that I have advised the County Line student news magazine and Panorama yearbook staffs the past ten years, and taught English I
and English II my first five years at Cinco. Tack on four years of teaching before
arriving in Katy ISD in 2001 and the math adds up to nearly two decades in the
classroom.
Over the years, I’ve been blessed to work with amazingly
talented student writers, designers and photographers. Our CRHS journalism room,
fondly referred to as “1221” is adorned with yearbook and magazine covers from
prior years along with UIL medals, plagues and banners that hang proudly
symbolizing the effort and accomplishment of past students who realized they
had a voice and a good story to tell. I’m proud of the work they accomplish and
the skill sets they develop here, but I’m most thankful for the opportunity to
observe my students (who come from diverse backgrounds, cultures, ethnicities
and social circles) develop a working bond based in a collaborative learning
experience which requires them to drop their emotional guard and be real and
dependent upon one another. That is not always a common behavior in high
school.
As yearbook finishes their second deadline this week and
with the arrival of County Line’s second
print issue, I took time to examine our student storytelling to see if we are
making progress in elevating “our game.” One of my challenges is determining
how to actually measure that, so I went back to our archives and looked at some
student stories from prior years. What I found were articles about the sudden,
unexpected passing of CRHS biology teacher Mel Aimar, and the tragic deaths of
students Chris Saiz and Terra Kuballa from automobile accidents. Then, I
realized that all three of those deaths happened in December. The timing isn’t
really significant until you think about the paradox of sentiment normally
associated with this holiday month. The same month normally filled with joy,
hope and excitement instead delivered a floodgate of emotional sorrow for our Cougar
family in December, 2007, December, 2011 and December, 2014.
Looking back at what our student journalists wrote, they
remembered their deceased teacher and peers with storytelling like this:
“Going into his class for the
first time and feeling nervous about how hard or how strict he would be, I
planned on staying quiet and just doing my work.” That proved to be difficult
as Mr. Aimar’s humor drew out my own. He would engage in witty conversation
with us…He was more than a teacher, he was a friend…He would help us plan
pranks on other teachers (like the classic Ms. Shank rivalry)…If you stopped to
visit him, he would drop what he was doing and focus on you, just talking
friend to friend.” -Scena Nayak ‘09
“As his parents unleashed three
white doves, and his friends freed personal messages on balloons, the memory of
Chris Saiz radiated through the gathering at his funeral. As the balloons
soared, Saiz’s soul ascended to meet with what those three doves represent: the
Father, the Son, and the Holy spirit.” -
Shaun Lal ‘12
“There was a bitterness in the
December air and the cold months after, but also a sense of hope and
perseverance – a feeling that Terra Kuballa inspired in many. Even though she
is no longer physically present, her hopeful and beaming spirit remains.” - Maria Salome Cadavid ‘16
This trip back in time helped me remember that our work
in the journalism room should never be focused on the end product. “Daring
Greatly” is about experiencing the journey – about absorbing and connecting
with every human moment one experiences - even the moments filled with tragedy.
Each of the student journalists above knew the person they wrote about. Each
had a personal relationship with the deceased and chose to express their sense
of loss in words that told a story that helped others understand the character
and person of a life too soon lost.
“Daring Greatly” happens when teachers make that
connection with students and it happens when students see that modeling, shed
their vulnerability and peel open a new understanding about themselves and the
world around them. It happens when students reach out and create a friendship
that is genuine and authentic and it happens when that reaching out to someone
extends beyond a social circle that one is comfortable in. Reading those
stories again helped me realize how meaningful our responsibility is in
providing students a tangible voice to share with their peer audience and to
encourage them to share the common human bond of compassion.
As our current students at Cinco and Seven Lakes remember
the friends they lost a year ago this weekend, my encouragement to them is that
they will not lose track of the empathy they felt for each other during last
year’s time of sorrow. The great gift that Mel Aimar, Chris Saiz, and Terra
Kuballa left all of us is a legacy of human caring.
“Daring Greatly” isn’t about what we produce with our
work and efforts, it’s about genuinely connecting, openly communicating, honestly
listening, and reflecting in the glory contained in each day of life, so sponge
in each day this month as you “journey” toward Christmas.
-
Ed Larsen
Student
Publications Adviser
CRHS
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