A Little Appreciation

I headed down to the Philly-area on Thursday for a College and Career Conference at a hotel. I like to get back to my hometown area on occasion.  I still have a lot of Philly in me. Yo, Adrian. 

By Thursday, the snows had been plowed sufficiently to clear the roads. Although, I did have to make essentially a blind right turn out of a gas station because a pile of snow about the size of one of those Stonehenge standing stones blocked my vision.  

I feel a lot of weightiness because my school counselor position is the role in the school that is appointed to help kids figure out their future. I think it is one of the reasons that we send so many students to college in the U.S, even  though half  of them won't get a degree.It kicks the career can down the road and makes the college deal with it. Or not. It is much easier to chose a college than a career. 

The conference was enlightening. I gleaned some good ideas. These conferences are usually just window shopping for me. The program being sold came out to be $ 50 a student, which would be $15K to implement for the high school freshmen. Not going to happen. Yet, I am confident that we can bootstrap a curriculum by looking at best practice. 

I made sure at the conclusion of the event to thank the presenter. Even though he was in a bit of a hard sell role at the end, he did a good job. I can tell when someone is just dialing in a presentation. He wasn't. He was engaged. My wife and I once went on a tour of James Monroe's house down in Virginia while on our Honeymoon. The dude talking was such a automaton, I was convinced that a punch to the jaw might not even stun him into the here and now and out of his trance.

He had a stare that looked at nothing, but a far away nothing.    

As we all packed up to drive back to our respective parts of Pennsylvania, one of the hotel's staff who had been taking care of the food was cleaning up in the room. I felt a strong conviction to thank him for his service. I don't know why I was convicted about it. I guess it is easy to treat the help as invisible and that is probably as demeaning to humanity as it comes outside of abusing someone.

I don't know if it gave him any sense of appreciation for his work. I hope so. It cost me nothing to express gratitude. I have endeavored to make an effort to be less perfunctory in my communication with others. I have recently reconsidered that it doesn't take a lot of extra effort to express appreciation. I am not talking about flattery or some manipulative attempt to appear to thankful when I am not. 

But to be genuinely appreciative. If I was  to wish one thing for my students above all else, or awfully close to the top, is that they would express genuine thanks to those who help them. It was funny, on Friday, toward the end of the day, one of my students came down for me to help her register for the SAT.

As she left my office, even though she is still very much undecided about her careers plans (which I pleaded to let me help her with), she said "Thank-You" as she exited. It was not feigned. It was just a simple expression of appreciation. I think she  is going to find her way.