Orelia Thottam, Marcus Kim

Point of View Host Marcus Kim speaks with teachers Mr. DeLong and Mrs. Pope about their high school experiences and how they compare to what they observe in their classrooms today. Listen on Spotify or Apple Music. 

Marcus Kim: Hello, and welcome to point of view where we give students a place to listen, learn and lean in. I'm your host, Marcus Kim, and today we'll be interviewing Mrs. Pope and Mr. DeLong about their high school experiences. So Mrs. Pope and Mr. DeLong- how are you today?

Mrs. Pope: Great! Thank you. How are you, Marcus?

Marcus Kim: Not so great. It's a day in school.

Mrs. Pope: Right! Yeah.

Marcus Kim: Yeah. See, unlike you guys, I don't get paid to be here.

Mrs. Pope: I don't know if you can say I'm paid.

Marcus Kim: Oh, this is this is very true. All right. So, of course, a lot of students kind of forget that teachers were once High Schoolers too. So, if you guys could describe your past high school selves in one phrase, what would it be?

Mr. Delong: I think mine would be quiet and reserved.

Mrs. Pope: And I'd say mine would be nerdy, but nerdy and in love with learning. I wanted to be at school. I wanted to learn. That was-

Marcus Kim: So you would wake up every day excited to go to school?

Mrs. Pope: Yeah, I was that little nerd that enjoyed just the activity of being here at school in the learning process.

Marcus Kim: Would you say that- so for those of you that don't know, Mr. DeLong, was actually a student of Mrs. Pope. So, Mr. DeLong, was there ever a day that you didn't want to go to Mrs. Pope's class?

Mr. Delong: Not for Mrs. Pope's class because her class was always very fun to be in. But there were definitely times in other classes that I would just not want to try.

Marcus Kim: And Mrs. Pope, you said that you enjoyed going to school every day. So were there any classes you didn't like?

Mrs. Pope: Um, you know, I think a lot of you will identify with this, that the first time I remember ever needing to leave a class because I needed to cry was math.

Marcus Kim: Oh, I see. I think a lot of Northview students can relate.

Mrs. Pope: I think a lot would identify with that. So that moment, that math moment, when I realized that the A's I had been achieving in math were crashing, and so I sort of reached my limit in my math experience.

Marcus Kim: So you went to high school in South Africa, and was there as like a specific teacher in your high school experience that made you decide, "Yeah, I want to be a teacher."

Mrs. Pope: Um, you know, it, I really want to be honest, I don't think it was a teacher. Funny enough, there was an elementary school teacher, my seventh grade teacher, she was really inspiring. But high school, not particularly, it was more college. If I go actually towards the college experience, which you guys are still going to experience, it's often the college professor who maybe has more creative freedom to really inspire you in a direction. Also, my parents both came from teaching environments. And so I grew up in the world of having parents who had taught and have been teachers and in a family that were teachers. So I think that was part of what inspired me more than actually the teachers in school.

Mr. Delong: Yeah, I mean, similar to me, son of two teachers. I would say in terms of teachers that Northview when I had, he's not here anymore, but Mr. Pfeiffer was my ninth-grade math teacher. And he was very eccentric and he also stuttered like me as well. And I don't meet a lot of people that stutter or like so like, blatantly, as I do from time to time, and it was different, but refreshing to see someone who was in this profession who could overcome that and sort of own it to a certain degree.

Marcus Kim: Right. Do you have any students like yourself that have stutters?

Mr. Delong: Not to my knowledge? No, I mean, some students will stutter but that's just from being nervous, not from like, just an innate inability to say something because of genetics.

Marcus Kim: Are there ever times where like, you see some of your own students and relate your past high school self to those students?

Mr. Delong: Yeah, I mean, I was pretty awkward at times and a lot of these kids can be pretty awkward too. I think being able to communicate with adults is very effective. And that's definitely something that like, I've learned to get better at and obviously, being an adult now too. But there are students who are very difficult to communicate with because they either can't make eye contact, they can't articulate their ideas in a way that I can understand them the way that they want me to. So that's things that I tried to pick up on and I will go out of my way to try to help them.

Marcus Kim: And Mrs. Pope. Um, well, you've been on this earth a little bit longer. So you- no offense- you do so what do you say you remember your high school? Like your high school experience fairly well?

Mrs. Pope: Um, you know, I do, I think we've got to remember, I think sometimes when you get caught up in the high school experience, you think this is the be-all and end-all. And you're really at the start of the journey of your life, you know, graduating high school is one tiny step and the full extent of what your life becomes. But hey, I remember particular moments, you know, like, like a time I failed math and realized that come to the end of my math journey, or like, like, making the first team for my field hockey team. So those were kind of moments where, you know, those academic moments? Meh. You don't remember, near as half as actually those social moments and the interactions you had with people that sort of cement that memory for you and make the high school experience you remember.

Marcus Kim: Yeah, and I've actually experienced three different high schools. And Mr. DeLong, as alumni from Northview, would you say that, from the time you graduated, was the cutthroat super strict, academic kind of environment the same?

Mr. Delong: Yeah, I mean, I think Northview has always been really competitive. I think also, Northview is very cliquey. I mean, I think we're very diverse, but like students have very set sets of friends. And I know that’s the same for all high schools, but I feel like Northview has it pretty severenstill. So like, students are very set on who they want to communicate with, and share ideas with and whatnot. And a lot of my friends are also former students of Northview and almost all of mine, I actually never talked to when I was a student here, it was after high school, in college, or just outside that, like those barriers kind of broke. But I feel like at Northview, there are very high barriers to be able to communicate outside of like your friend group.

Mrs. Pope: Just to add to what Jason is saying, I think, you know, it's funny, we want to say, you know, Northview has a lot cliques- every high school does- I think it's the nature of high school, the nature of being teenagers and, and university was a different experience. I think you break those boundaries, and you find bigger connections and deeper connections with people than you do at the high school level. I don't know if it's a safety aspect at high school, you're still discovering yourself and your identity and who you are, that creates these cliques that we find comfort with. We're not, we're forced into whatever the situation is.

Marcus Kim: Right. So, both of you as teachers at Northview, of course, Mr. DeLong, in Math and Mrs. Pope in English, you've definitely seen some students that are super, super stressed and getting perfect grades is their absolute number one priority. Now that you guys are adults, do you have a different retrospect and kind of a different view on life?

Mrs. Pope: I think, when I look back with my larger experience, a few more years on this earth, this perspective, you know, looking back, I think it's so hard because you get caught up in the high school experience, and I don't blame you. I mean, that's your narrow worldview at the moment and what you're feeling. So I think the stress is, is worse than possibly what your parents had? And you know what I'm going to say? I'm going to say yes. And I think for you to recognize a real sense of stress and to feel an extra pressure, I'm going to say yes. I feel like every generation almost demands of the next generation, a closer move to this perfect student and this perfect place. And there’s that, you know, if you're going to be successful, what job are you pursuing? And what career are you getting to to the point that we've lost sight of just being human beings in the moment and enjoying things in the moment? There's a real pressure to try and meet this outside expectation. And I don't think it's got lighter. I think it's gotten harder.

Mr. Delong: Yeah. I mean-

Mrs. Pope: I think, you know, what I'm gonna say, the more global we become, it's almost more like how do we meet the global competition? We're not even talking about local competition because you know, if you think back to your parents, often it was, where they went to school was where they were going to work and get their jobs, maybe not your parents, but your grandparents. Now, your work can take you anywhere in the world. But then who are you competing against? What does that look like? And when we're up against a world of more and more educated people, it's closing in on us.

Mr. Delong: It's a vicious cycle. My opinion has ever evolved about this pursuit of perfection. I think that because it's a vicious cycle, you're almost forced to. Where, like a lot of these college professors today couldn't be professors if they were students now, because like the barrier for entry is so much higher now. And I think the best way to combat burnout would be to just find the profession, find the job that like that, that you want to do. And I think if you can't, if you can find that route, then burnouts going to be a huge problem.

Marcus Kim: Oh yeah, I've seen amongst my peers a lot of burnout. And I see it basically any class I go to, right. Like, it might seem mean to say, but sometimes I see some of my friends have gray hairs from all the stress they've been under.

Mrs. Pope: And maybe it's not necessarily the pursuit of a career or finding out what it is that you want to do. Because there’s so much out there that we don't know what we want to do, but maybe your passion, you know, like that you can follow your passions, so that you're not being forced into things that are not you. And we know so many students that are being told, you know, you're going to have to follow this technology route or this business route, because that's where you're gonna find success. And then you're like, wait, I want to draw pretty postcards and send those to my friends. Yeah.

Marcus Kim: Yeah definitely, because a lot of people or a lot of my peers are like, oh, yeah, I need to do so well, to prepare me to get into a good college, right, and to then get a good job. So then an interesting narrative comes up, where it's: are you truly preparing yourself for life after high school by studying immensely and always being so absorbed in academia?

Mrs. Pope: No! Um, and, you know, it depends on who you are, like, I think you've got to find that, that route of academia that inspires you and moves you, you know, I love reading great essays. And, you know, with AP lang experience, all of the grades, right? And the great writing that’s out there, I love that pursuit of academia, but I'm not going to sit and learn how to code. I think you've got to decide what it is that, that you like, the most, and, and to put yourself out in that direction.

Mr. Delong: It's, it's a balance, it's a balance thing. But I've definitely seen people that have changed their lives from purely moving to academics, where they didn't, they didn't have a direction in life. And they sat down and they taught and like, they taught themselves coding, or they, you know, they did the work. And, you know, I think, you know, there comes a time when being a college kid is fun, but then you got to start paying the bills. And it's like, yeah, I did an art major, but that's not gonna, you know, pay for my rent or pay for my water, so.

Marcus Kim: So it's all about the balance, right?

Mr. Delong: Yeah, the balance and I think the practicality of just, not anything you do will work. It has to be lucky or pick a business major. Yeah, they make a lot of money.

Marcus Kim: All right. Well, thank you so much for your time here. I'll let you guys get back to your classes so you can teach the future generation of America or other countries, who knows, but thank you so much for your time.

Mrs. Pope: Well, Marcus, anytime.

Marcus Kim: This concludes our talk with Mrs. Pope and Mr. DeLong thank you so much for listening. For a transcript of this episode had to the NHS Point of View tab on our website nhsmessenger.org and follow us on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook @nhspointofview for updates and new episodes. I'm your host, Marcus Kim, and this has been Point of View.