What I Learned in Three Seconds
Teenage pressure is real
It was the last day of the year for a religion class I teach at my church. My ten students were ninth-grade boys, a remarkable group of young men. Also with us was my peer leader, a high school junior who assisted me with the class.
We were all sitting in a circle eating pizza and just chilling out with random conversation. I was chatting with the peer leader about his busy junior year of high school, with his challenging course load, college visits, ACT exams, combined with sports and other activities. He had a lot going on.
I suddenly realized the other boys got very quiet and were closely listening to us. They were probably trying to get a heads-up on how their lives will be in a few years.
I turned to them and casually commented, “As ninth graders, you guys probably don’t feel that kind of pressure yet.”
The silence was deafening. Normally an energetic group that was quick to respond, they just stared back at me, their eyes revealing how wrong I was. I scanned their faces, realizing the topic had made a serious turn to something that was really affecting them.
I asked them, “So, are all of you feeling a lot of pressure to succeed in school, even as freshmen?” All of them slowly nodded their heads, not saying a word. I glanced around at them again, trying to put myself in their world.
In those three seconds, I saw kids who were straight-A students and those who probably struggled to maintain a C. I saw kids who excelled in sports, some who participated in other extra-curriculars, and some who did neither. I saw some kids who probably had a large social network and those who likely stuck to a small cluster of friends. I saw kids of well-to-do parents and those who were middle-class or below on the economic scale.
In those three seconds, I sensed the same story in all of them — a group of kids who really wanted to do well, who wanted to do the right thing, who wanted badly to meet the expectations set for them, and who wanted to make their parents and teachers proud of them.
In those three seconds, their body language exposed their doubts and insecurities of whether they could live up to what others wanted or demanded of them.
In those three seconds, I could sense their anxiety — of wondering if what they did was never quite good enough. And if they did accomplish something wonderful, they couldn’t take the time to enjoy it because of the next major hurdle staring them in the face.
It was a very telling three seconds.
It reminded me that, as much as I can remember being a 15–year-old, I have no clue what it is like being a 15-year-old in the present day. All of us adults should keep that in mind the next time we attempt to start a sentence with “When I was your age . . .”
At times, it felt like my little Sunday night classes didn’t have much of an impact — that they took it just to fulfill a religious obligation and then move on. But I also noticed that there were very few absences over the year. They showed up regularly, even those who had doubts about their faith, and they seemed eager to learn whatever I had planned for them.
Those three seconds helped me finally connect the dots. Maybe my class provided them a brief respite from their over-complicated worlds. We got together, played a few games, and just talked about stuff, both spiritual and otherwise.
Maybe that is exactly what they needed — to be able to learn something without the pressure of grades, tests, presentations, or competition for awards. If spending some time in my class gave them a sense of comfort and a little relief from their stress-filled lives, then maybe it could have some long-term impact on them after all.
Those three seconds were my wake-up call that the little things we do for the people around us really can matter, even if it may not appear so on the surface.
And that is good enough for me.
If you are reading this sentence, thank you for being with me until the end!
