Adult High School

During my last bout of cancer I decided to go back to high school to get some grammar training.  (Didn't work)  This is part of a letter to Gramma about that experience.

Making the decision to go back to high school was pretty easy. I have the time, the incentive and the support to do so. The hard part was implementing it. The choices out there are varied and comprehensive but they each holds it's pro's and pitfalls.
I first looked at attending Algonquin College as a mature student. I could write my general equivalency and take a diploma course. Sounds simple until you realise that the cost is equal to your twelve year olds daughters braces, and the orthodontist has a better payment plan. For just writing the general equivalency exam, you are looking above a $300 fee. Once you write it, you discover that the amount budgeted according to the course magazine must be doubled to include course costs. These costs cover the $250/mnth parking fee to the 35 dollar student ID and the books! I swear, when administration at a college sits down to decide the fee for a course, they just total the cost of buying the books and half it.

Now my husband makes a decent living for todays economy but you are still talking about a family that gathers it's change the day before payday for milk. This is my motivation for going back to school, money. I need more for the lifestyle I want my family to have.

If the cost isn't prohibitive then the process will be to anyone over the age of 25.

Once you've taken your Prozac, you are now ready to try to find out more information and register for your course. You are required by college law to stand in a line for three hours to find out you are in the wrong line or you have forgotten one of the documents you have to hand in. In my case, my health card. Why do they need to know that this minute? Other than the chance that I need stitches from butting my head against the hallowed halls proverbial stone wall, there is no reason that you cannot process my college application without my health card. But it seems that no health card means the computer will blow up and detonate without this one miniscule piece of data. Yet in my optimistic way I persevere.

 My family's financial health is on the line.
So after two days of standing in lines I have come to the conclusion that kids do this in groups for a very good reason. Going to the bathroom. Having someone who can hold your place in line while you pee as fast as you can is priceless. Mastercard should make a commercial for this. Finally I have reached the brass ring. I am at the window for registration. I have all the necessary documentation. I have done it.

Only to be told that the course I want has been canceled due to lack of interest. Let's get this straight right now. It's not due to lack of interest---it's the fact that all the prospective students have just lost their patience and went home. Probably figured that they could go to the adult high school and do their year faster. Considering I have more time than money, this was my decision.

One of the first things you do when hoping to attend an adult high school is call for an appointment. Make sure you call Friday morning as that is when they make appointments for the next week. Now after my college experience I have to give them bonus points for this. I can play solitaire while I'm on the phone! Eighteen games of solitaire in and you will have reached someone who will make your appointment for you. She tells you that you need the following; your acedemic record, your health card (as if I haven't stapled it to the inside of my pocket), a piece of picture ID and $5 student fee. I could have kissed her over the phone. How simple this list is. Four documents, a piece of cake! Now for the reality.

Try getting your high school acedemic record in a week. Especially if any of the following apply; A) They closed down your high school and B) You now live 800 kilometers away from there or C) High school was apx. twenty years ago.
After crawling into my spider and dust filled crawlspace looking for a piece of paper in a box I had last seen when hanky headbands were fashionable, I find that the cat has made a lovely litter box for her kittens in it. So I think, "Oh well I will just call and they can fax me a new one."

Oh poor naive me. The person who answers the phone will very likely be the daughter of someone you went to high school with. Your conversation will run accordingly. "Lakeway?, I'm sorry ma'am but we don't have a Lakeway School in Sault Ste Marie. No ma'am I've been working here for two years and I swear that school does not exist. Ma'am are you sure you have the right Sault Ste Marie? What? They closed it down. Ooohhh." (Please note: This same child will persist in calling you ma'am. Making you feel like you not only learned Canada's Constitution but were there when they wrote the damned thing) She will then give you a list of 26 phone numbers, all long-distance, of places you might get a lead to this elusive document. No one knows where the records of Lakeway High School are being stored. When you finally find someone who might have an idea of where this document lies, you must submit a letter in writing of your request, along with a fee and detailed information such as your mothers maiden name. These are for security measures. Really?  Who would want to steal my high school transcript? What burning issues will they have to know that I received an 80% in English but failed art?

In desperation I call almost every Greco in the Sault Ste Marie phone book looking for the only guidance counsellor who's name I remember. Within three minutes she gives me the location and description, down to the colour of the
box, where I would find it. So I have now located the document. It is now two days before my interview. Thank goodness for modern technology and Mastercard. I charge the fee and have them fax it right to the school I am applying at. Touchdown!!!! (Note: I really should list this in my job skills on my resume.)

Just the experience of walking into an adult high school will be the most culture shock I can handle. I was prepared for the fact that times have changed. I even gave myself a lecture on the way there. I think I'm a pretty up-to-date mom. I have a fifteen year old, so the fashions and the language weren't going to be that much of a shock, right? I have been living in Suburbia -w-a-y- too long.

I made it into the parking lot after threatening to run down two boys who are wearing hanky headbands. Apparently they somehow diminish sight and sound because I had to come within inches of them before they would move.
I get out of my car and a fifteen year old tells me to make sure I lock it and put my antenna down in case someone steals them. "Yeah" mutters a man as he walks by "they stole my Dodge insignia the other day." They stole his Dodge insignia? Dodge? Not his Harley Davidson, not his Rolls Royce but his Dodge insignia? How lame is that?

I then realize that there is a crowd of children outside the doors. They must be waiting for parents I thought. No, the term "adult" applies to these children. I could believe the boys were children but the girls? They all look like they just stepped out of a job interview for "Exotic Dancer." I have to fight down the urge to tell one young girl to put a sweater on for goodness sake. Man I'm old.

Next I literally, push, my way through the crowd of smokers to gain the door. Realizing of course that at least two of these children are not smoking cigarettes and I haven't actually smelled that smell in at least ten years. I'm not worried about violence though, there is a police officer parked outside the fence. They probably have increased police visibility in this area, as we are very close to downtown. Though even at it's rowdiest Ottawa has nothing on Toronto. I lived in Kensington Market in my youth, which has now pointedly been put in perspective for me. I am no longer even remotely allowed to call myself young. I was never as young as the children I see here even when I was a child.

I finally get to the registration office. Only to discover that the fifteen year old who told me to lock the car is the secretary. She has me fill out a few forms ("if you please ma'am".) You have to wonder what you're getting into when the form asks the following questions;
a) Are you now or have you any unresolved criminal charges pending from your previous school?
b) How will you support yourself while attending school (please check one)
__Family Benifets __Job __Employment Canada __Social Services __Parole __Parents
(Note there is not one place here for "living off my husband like a pre-feminist leech." There is not even an "other". )
c) Is a daily report for your substance abuse counselor required?
I notice alot of things in the couple of hours wait for my appointment
i) the fashions haven't changed since I went to school. Bell-bottoms, little shirts, patches and all.
ii) there is a boy next to me that a steel bracelet around his ankle. They still have those things for when you
ride your bike. You know, the one that stops your pantleg from catching in the chain.

I turn to talk to another woman my age. "This is the adult high school? They are taking the same classes we are?" I quiz her, hoping for a sense of comradeship or at least a sense that I'm not the only adult that has suddenly discovered her real age in this sea of Calvin Klein cologne and hormones. "Sure" she answers "but I'm the custodian, I only see them when I work overtime."

Much later, I learn from my fifteen year old, that the bracelet around the boy's ankle is a homing device. Breezily my son informs me the guy was probably under house arrest and he has to wear this thing that lets the police track him in case he runs. Much like the beeper the vet puts in your poodle so he doesn't get lost.

And the officer outside the school? Well she's on guard for the offenders that are being held in the local jail. Can't deprive them of an education! So a full time police officer is paid her daily wage to escort to and from school these proven criminals and she sits and drinks coffee all day waiting for one of them to break the law again!? Wonderful what our tax dollars are supporting.
(Forgive me for sounding so right wing but even I cannot see the sense in educating someone the justice system tags like a deer in a public school).
Finally I see the counsellor. Only to discover that they don't have a fax machine at this location, therefore they don't have my transcript. "Don't worry" she reassures me. "We don't really need it. If you've been out of school for more than for years, we do a general equivilency test."