Yearbooks are a real page-turner
This time of year is always an exciting one in the world of
education. Students are eager to begin their vacation, or graduate,
or sleep in until noon, while teachers are eager to begin their
vacation, watch seniors graduate, or sleep in until noon.
We’re not so different.
Yearbooks are a real page-turner
This time of year is always an exciting one in the world of education. Students are eager to begin their vacation, or graduate, or sleep in until noon, while teachers are eager to begin their vacation, watch seniors graduate, or sleep in until noon.
We’re not so different.
This week’s arrival of the San Benito High School yearbook truly signaled that the end of the year is near.
For me, the yearbook is a 10-month labor of love – kind of like a pregnancy, but without the comments about my healthy glow or people asking to rub my belly. Managing a class of 38 students in a classroom with 24 computers is a bit challenging, though the quality of students that I have been fortunate enough to have makes it not seem so bad.
The delivery of this year’s 324-page book of memories was as surreal as ever. After four years, I still find it hard to believe that the 39 of us worked together to produce a book that showcases the people and activities of our school.
Most projects that students produce in any class are an integral part of the learning process, but most of those projects don’t live beyond the classroom like a yearbook does. It’s not that yearbook students are doing world-changing work; rather, they are serving as the historians for their class, their friends, their school.
The fleeting nature of communication these days – with texting and Twittering and blogging – sets a yearbook apart that much more.
Yearbook students often groan when they’re told early in the year that they need to have captions with every picture they put on a page. What’s wrong, they wonder, with just running a picture of a person?
“Everyone knows who they are,” they say.
No one knows everyone and, what’s more, I tell my students that they’ll be surprised how many names they’ll forget and how many faces change with each passing year after high school. The yearbook captures moments in time that range from mundane to funny to absurd.
The older we get, the sweeter those memories get.
Students love to look back at old yearbooks to laugh at the crazy hairstyles and funky clothing of their predecessors.
“Wow, they were dorks back then,” they say, probably looking at my yearbook from the late ’80s.
Twenty years from now, this year’s “cool” teenagers will become the target of those laughs, as their children look back and wonder why dad sagged his jeans or mom wore a “hoodie.”
My purple sweater and feathered hair was not so bad in my 1987 senior picture, but they are officially and seriously dorky in 2009 – I’ll admit that. That’s what makes the yearbook so great.
Saving pictures on a cell phone or posting them to MySpace is a great way to share a person’s life with others instantaneously, though these modern conveniences don’t come close to the longevity of a yearbook.
The photos of friends, the senior favorites, the autographs punctuated with “Have a great summer;” they all become more valuable with each passing year.
