How Much Information Is Too Much Information

With the exception of two other colleagues, I am the oldest teacher at my high school. Following the considered advice of one of my students, I call them my "homies." The three of us eye each other in the halls, definitely craggier than the rest of the staff, and have learned to expertly fist bump when we pass close enough by one another -- which cracks the kids up.

It took my students almost seven weeks before they asked me how old I was. We were learning about the Executive Branch, and I mentioned that I'd been appointed to the Justice Department during the Reagan Administration. Those who had heard of Reagan were shocked. You should know that when students talk to each other in class, they presume a teacher's deafness; there is no self-editing. So, one student promptly asked another: "How old is she?!" I answered right away: 51. Which absolutely blew them out of the water. They couldn't imagine themselves ever being that old, and they hadn't imagined I was, either. I became an immediate and perplexing curiosity. First, they suggested I prove it which, unless you travel with the paperwork and are prepared for the question, is sometimes difficult to do. Then they began comparing me with their grandparents, which was distressing for me.

I wonder a good deal about how much I should share with my students. As a trial lawyer, I was trained to speak up and speak out. My opinions were my stock in trade, and if I didn't present them openly and with confidence I would lose the war. Prosecutors, as I've mentioned, have a strong sense of right and wrong -- we have to be very certain where we stand, because the charges we file against others, the things we say about others, and the penalties we cause to be imposed upon others would otherwise be impossible to countenance. As a prosecutor, I identified first and foremost with the victim, if there was one; after that, I identified with my responsibility as an Officer of the Court and an Assistant U.S. Attorney. Often my opinions and arguments would startle and incense defense attorneys, but it was my job to unbalance them. It was my job to make my case and stake my territory. It was not my job to be liked by defense attorneys or defendants or even judges, although being disliked was initially hard for my 27-year-old self.

High school teachers (and law professors) have to develop the opposite skill. While they need to teach certain universal values -- those of tolerance, mutual respect, giving back to the community-- they are otherwise meant to keep their opinions to themselves. High school teachers frequently find themselves in loco parentis; not legally, but practically speaking as mini-emergencies rise and fall during the course of a school day. Unlike parents, however, high school teachers aren't supposed resolve mini emergencies by pronouncing a "moral" when all is once again calm. Instead, I've noticed my colleagues switch to the gently interrogative form: What did you think about what happened? What would you do differently? What would you do the same? How do you feel? And regardless of the answers received, the teachers nod, perhaps ask a further clarifying question, maybe intone one of the universal values we're allowed to discuss.

I am very bad at this. Last week, during final exams, one of my more voluble students turned 18. She loves adults, wants their conversation and treasures their validation. She approached me in the hall, where I was standing with our remarkable principal. The student announced that after exams that day she was heading out for her first tattoo, which would be a large scrolled message across her upper back: "I Define Me." Our principal did just what she should have done: she asked the student a few neutral, conversational questions about her tattoo plans, and then walked away. I didn't ask a single one of my questions, which were anything but conversational.

Several days later, I saw this same student in the halls and asked her how her tattoo adventure had gone. She answered that she hadn't gotten one, explaining that her mother had been opposed. At which point I said all the things I'm not supposed to say. Like: "Why do you want to get a tattoo?" "Why do you need a tattoo to 'define yourself?'" "Why would you want to mark your beautiful skin?" And here's the worst: "What would happen if you decided you hated it two years from now, and you were stuck with it?" On the upside, she hardly heard me, focused as she was on the upcoming long weekend from school. The downside, of course, was that I hadn't controlled my opinion-sharing.

I believe I understand why I'm not supposed to offer too many opinions to a high school student. I'm an adult, and adult opinions are unfairly persuasive. I'm not my student's parent, which makes my opinions even more unfairly persuasive. I'm not my student's parent, which means it's none of my business whether or not she gets a tattoo. I'm a teacher, and my job is to guide students through their own process of discovery rather than to "end run" the process by forcing a lesson.

The lawyer in me, though, doesn't really buy into these reasons for not saying what I think to my students. I have a lawyer's dread of wasted time and inefficient investigation. I have a lawyer's lack of finesse with finer emotions, and a lawyer's impatience with someone else's bad argument. I just like to cut to the chase, which is the opposite of how one encourages an adolescent to think clearly and logically for herself.

Generally, I compromise. I'll let my students thrash around a concept, conflict or ideal. I'll ask those neutral, conversational, guiding questions that the other teachers seem so fluent in. Then, when I can't bear it any longer, I just say what I think. At the beginning of the year, when I first did this, class discussion pretty much ended. We'd move onto the next topic in my lesson plan. Eventually, however, my kids started throwing my opinions right back at me. Which is a lawyer's dream. And, of course, a teacher's.