Back to School Basics

Freshmen and their parents fill the BHS gym

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I went back to High School this week. And let me admit to you here and now, it's been 40 years since I was a freshman. Things have changed. And then again, they haven't.

Bentonville High School, home of the kick-butt Tigers, has 3500-plus students to its name. This year there are 1100 freshman converging in from two junior highs. It's a Blue Ribbon school with a good reputation and good grades, and it was easy to see why. Administrators were organized, efficient, armed and ready. Mandatory orientation was held for freshmen only on this particular day, and students were encouraged to bring their parents. Brilliant. Just brilliant.

So here we are, the over 40 and the under 20 all bumping into each other in the hallway as we hunted down our classrooms. Teachers introduced themselves, shared their backgrounds and a smattering of family life, served students and their parents the course expectations and, of course, the caveats of day.

What's changed in 40 years? Everybody chews gum. Everybody has a cell phone or iPod (which can't be on). Lunch includes fresh fruit and other items one can actually recognize as food.

What hasn't changed? Lockers are impossible to open. Textbooks are heavy. Teenagers are self absorbed and unfocused. Algebra is still a foreign language.

The biggest change, of course, was my attitude. If only I had known back then, what I know now.