Dig Up Your Yearbook
The end of the school year is upon us (some teachers might even tell you the exact amount of days, hours, and minutes left).
This time of year is steeped in tradition, or pressure depending on who you are asking. From the glitz and glamor of a way too overhyped Prom season to the gauntlet of testing that acts as the final send-off gift for students and teachers (a gift that can only compare to an ugly itchy sweater during the holiday season), the Spring brings with it a right of passage in the education world.
One tradition that has stayed consistent since the start of the 20th century has been the yearbook. Dating back to 1885 with St. Albans' alumni magazine, yearbooks originally acted more like scrapbooks with pasted-in photos, articles about the students and faculty, and advertisements.
With nothing more than a facelift over the past 138 years, the message of the yearbook has stayed the same. For most, it represents a simpler time, a time of growth, innocence, and definitely awkwardness.
Looking back on it, I can definitely refer to this time in my life as “the good old days” and I hope the same for you. When thinking about how far I’ve come since that time (the freshest mushroom haircut included), I often wonder about the lessons that shaped me into the person I am today, with an underlining theme on values and beliefs.
Looking around the education world today, and even our greater society for the most part, I believe we’ve all forgotten these lessons. The core makeup of our self. Our identity, values, and beliefs during a time of self-discovery.
This is when that old trip down memory lane hits home.
Needed more than ever, it’s time to think about what your younger self would say about the person you have become today. Do you still have the same beliefs? Values? Passion?
There’s one way to find out.
Dig through that garage, comb through those boxes in your attic, we’re going treasure-hunting for knowledge from a different era, one that takes the form of the yearbook.
A Time Capsule
Yearbooks are not just a collection of pictures and memories from our high school days. They serve as evidence of how much things have changed or stayed the same throughout time for both schools and students while giving a sense of community. With a pop-culture overload of styles, newsworthy headlines, and relationships with friends, diving back into a yearbook can be a valuable exercise in self-reflection and growth, helping us to learn from our past experiences and shape our future.
Here are the four lessons that stand out to me…
The importance of community. Yearbooks capture the spirit of our school and the people who make it up. We can see the diverse range of people and interests that create our community, and how they interact with each other. By looking at our old yearbooks, we can remember the people who made a positive impact on our lives and appreciate the value of those relationships, ideally replicating that same experience for others today.
Staying true to our values. Taking that trip down memory lane gives us the ability to see the things that were important to us at a time when life hopefully wasn’t so complicated, and how those values have evolved. For example, we may have been focused on sports and social events during our high school years, but as we look back as adults, we may realize the importance of academic achievements and community service. The key here is not to judge these values, but to acknowledge how they have made you into the person you are today.
The value of self-expression. Yearbooks are often filled with student artwork, poetry, and other forms of creative expression (mine definitely included Counting Crows lyrics and questionable AOL-away messages). By looking back at these pages, we can remember the importance of creativity and the freedom to express ourselves in different ways. This is extremely important for those who may have forgotten how magical self-expression was to them decades ago.
The power of memory and the importance of preserving our history. By looking back at our old yearbooks, we can see how our memories have evolved over time, and how we have grown as individuals. I find these memories are best shared with others who were right there beside us during that time. In our current day and age of social media feed overloads and clickbait headlines, reflecting on memory makes us appreciate the value of preserving our own history, both for ourselves and for future generations.
Thinking about these four areas, I can’t help but dream of what a learning environment could look like if all educators and administrators remembered, embraced, and shared these past lessons in their life.
Knowledge From Your Younger Self
If your younger self met you today, would they be proud of the person you have become? Even better, would they want to spend time with you?
Reflecting on what has transpired around the education industry over recent years, not to mention what is yet to come, these questions hold so much power and self-discovery in the practice. They are a compass, guiding our journey closer or farther away from our core self, the one we are sharing with our peers and students today.
The most important thing we can be doing for this group is to give them a sense of community that celebrates and nurtures their values and passions.
Without knowing it, the teachers who have stayed true to these core areas are the ones who are naturally excelling. They are a lead voice within their building, regardless of their title. Their classroom acts as an entry point into a world of possibilities and security. Ever seen a classroom where kids stay way after the final bell just because they want to be there?
There’s a reason for this.
It’s because the teacher treats and respects them as they would want to be treated if they were sitting in their seats today. It mirrors an idea of their own experiences a lifetime ago during their school days.
I’ve touched on School Culture in a previous post, and believe there is no better reality check than taking a look at who we once were and what we have become today.
What type of environment will spark creativity in your students to confidently express themselves? What experiences are going to create those lasting smiles plastered on the front of their yearbook? What values will they acquire during these paramount years that will better themselves and their communities for generations to come? Whether we are looking to reflect on our past experiences or to shape our future, our yearbooks can be a valuable tool in helping us to grow as individuals and influential community members.
Throw on your old denim jacket, fire up the tunes, and enjoy your trip down memory lane.
Connect with Evin on Twitter to learn more about his work.