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High school is where kids start to really value the iconoclasts. And you don’t get much more iconoclastic than the class clown, who subverts authority by cracking jokes and being silly. If you can channel that into things like Drama Club and writing smart-aleck columns in the school newspaper or yearbook, that’s even better, because it means you won’t get detentions for acting up in class.
Sometimes, you’re lucky enough to get a teacher who’s similarly iconoclastic. I had several of them, and we’d crack jokes together. I had an Art teacher who was Canadian, but spoke Russian, and when you speak one Slavic language, you can understand the rest of them. So when someone in class did something stupid, the teacher would make a smart-aleck comment in Russian, and I’d respond with one in Ukrainian, and my best friend would respond with one in Slovakian. And the three of us would giggle like idiots, while the rest of the class wondered what the hell was so funny.
Another teacher cultivated an “ogre” persona. When I was in Grade 10, the yearbook committee asked each teacher what they’d wanted to be when they were 5. There were the usual answers of “fireman”, “ballerina”, “6”… This particular teacher’s answer was “Communist dictator”.
Yep, High School was where I really became known as the Comedy Girl, and having teachers like that sure encouraged me! Even so, I had (and have) many acquaintances, but a very small circle of friends. And that’s just great with me!
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