The subject surfaced repeatedly over the summer and recently has become a hot topic at the dining room table as Mary Appleton prepares to send her 14-year-old daughter back to school.
The talk usually concludes with an exasperated Appleton asking her daughter Lorraine, an incoming freshman at Whitney Young Magnet School, “Why do you really need to have your tongue pierced?”
“Because it looks cool,” insists Lorraine, who starts her freshman year Tuesday at Chicago’s most academically competitive high school. “I’m growing up, and I’m going to get one and maybe even a tattoo.”
The start of school traditionally has been a time for frayed nerves and hand-wringing as students and parents recognize their lives are about to change. Whether one is going off to preschool or college, taking a seat in front of a desk or behind it–in late August, apprehension as well as anticipation hangs in the air as surely as the humidity.
Last spring’s shootings in Littleton, Colo., focused the nation’s attention on school security. But for most kids and parents more mundane concerns occupy attention at home. Some are age-old: Will I get the teacher I want? Are my friends in my classes? Will I have too much homework?
But others have a distinctly contemporary ring: How will my classmates react to my body art? Will my T-shirt get banned? What about interracial dating?
Such issues bubbled to the surface during Whitney Young’s registration last week. Mary Appleton said she worries that Lorraine could be shunned at school, or worse, considered strange for having a pierced tongue.
“I know kids are doing this more and more,” she said, shaking her head. “I’m at the point where, if she wants it, then she’ll have to wait until she’s 18 because I’m not signing the papers to have it done.”
After an hour of sizing up the incoming freshman class, Lynette McNeal, an African-American mother from Chicago’s Austin neighborhood, glanced over at her 14-year-old son Jovan and offered him this advice on dating: “Stick to your own.”
The youth, who has never been on a date, said he is attracted to lots of girls, not just those who are black. Though the obligation to follow his mom’s wishes is strong, he said, it might be impossible.
“I look at all kinds of girls, and they seem so pretty,” the new freshman said. “I want to listen to my mom, but I don’t see it happening. Do you see all the girls around here? Wow!”
Lynette McNeal said she asked her son to date other black students because “there’s so many nice girls out there that are like him. And they’ll have a lot in common.”
Parents are also gearing up for a transition. The thought of rifling through book bags in search of late homework assignments, crumpled teachers notes and wayward library books is enough to have most parents reaching for the Maalox.
Across the state line, in Hammond, parent Annette Ortiz couldn’t be savoring the last days of summer any more intensely if she were Huck Finn.
“I haven’t hit the apprehensive stage yet,” she said last Wednesday. “That doesn’t usually start for me until a teacher calls home about behavior.”
As a parent of a daughter with attention deficit disorder, Ortiz knows that it isn’t a question of if–only when.
“I’m worried about getting a teacher who is compassionate and flexible,” said Ortiz, an administrative assistant for a Loop accounting firm. “If you get someone who is rigid, it’s a disaster.”
The last two years, Nastasia–who is entering the 5th grade at Jefferson Elementary School in Hammond–has had the same teacher, who understood both her assets and liabilities. But now, who will fill that role has cast an ominous shadow over the last week of summer vacation.
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“Last year at this time, she was really excited about school, but not now,” said the girl’s mother. “It’s all about the fear of the unknown.”
Parents and students aren’t the only ones with a lot of school-related issues. Carol Gilbert, a newly minted special-education teacher, has felt her stress level ratchet up, too, in recent weeks.
After a 21-year detour to raise her children and get her master’s degree, Gilbert finally has her own classroom. But along with achieving that lifelong goal has come a new crop of issues about juggling work and family.
“How am I going to fit everything in? Home, errands, exercise, friendship. But, most of all, I’m worried about meeting the needs of my students,” said Gilbert, who will teach in Oak Forest.
She is galvanizing herself for the transition. Her husband, a lawyer, already has volunteered to do dinner detail, welcoming the opportunity to support his wife, as she has supported him. The couple also hired a tutor for their own 13-year-old son, liberating mom from the daily homework battle so she can work on her own lesson plans.
Gilbert’s son Jacob, who starts at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore next week, is more laid-back, though he acknowledges the glue that comes from living in the same place all his life will be gone.
“I probably should be worried about the work load, but I’m not. . . . I’m worried about what people will be like,” the Homewood-Flossmoor High School graduate said. “I’m afraid I’ll go up to someone and joke about how bad the Bears are, and they’ll say `What are the Bears? A hockey team?’ “
Alex Polinski, 13, of Orland Park, said he’s looking forward to the start of school and thought about showing up at Jerling Elementary wearing a new T-shirt with characters from the controversial cartoon “South Park.”
But the reality is, the school might not allow him in, he acknowledges.
“I heard that another kid got in trouble last year ‘cuz he wore a South Park T-shirt to school,” Polinski said. “I think it’s kind of stupid because South Park is not violent or nasty or anything, but I’m afraid I’m going to get in trouble.”
As the last days of summer vacation slip into oblivion, Nick Panozzo, a 12-year-old from Orland Park, kicked back on a park bench after a long day at an in-line skating park and contemplated the end of his freedom.
“The summer is never long enough,” he lamented. “It’s like we’re finally having fun and they’re making us go back. We’re just getting into our summer `groove’ and it’s over.”
“It’s like really scary and really exciting all at once,” said Steven Lucas, 12, who moved from Alsip to Tinley Park recently and will be starting at a new school. “I’m excited to be going to a new school, but I’m afraid I won’t be able to make friends.”