Other People's Stories

I remember sitting around once listening to my parents and some of their friends talk about there almost made it moment in the stock market. The time they sold right before a stock took off or right after it plummeted. No one there was exactly going to be a millionaire or be bankrupt by what happened but I just noticed that all the stories were the same. No one had the story of the time they bought that stock right before it took off, or the time they sold just at the right moment. I wondered where all the people where who were having the other conversation. Today in my small class I had my students talk about school, their high school, their middle school, their college. I noticed that all the students had some version of the same story. They weren't good students in high school or really in college. One girl talked about how she went to what was one of the best high schools in here region, but had to pay extra because her test scores didn't meet their standards. She went on to say that her whole time there she never really caught up to the other students. She said she did about 4 hours of homework a night, about 3.5 more then I did in high school, and still was always behind. Leaving aside that it was pretty remarkable how little they complain about big stuff like this or how freely they talk about it, none of my students were ever really the top people. The only boy in the class actually attend a college devoted to garden design. I don't think there is a single college in the US that focuses on that. So I wondered again where are all the students who had an easy time in high school and got top marks. As to where the people are who made just the right moves in the stock market, I eventually answered that they must be having this discussion in a bigger house somewhere. The students with the top marks they're probably sitting around discussion it in a better school. I like the school here a lot, but what we do is pretty separated form most of the school and I get the sense more and more that despite all it's size and building that this is a pretty lowly regarded school.