Latin School of Chicago

first person Kirk Greer Upper School History and Social Studies Teacher The College ProCess Earlier this summer, I managed to find yet another reason to avoid uncluttering my desk and struck out for lunch with a recent Latin alum. While sharing an ��clair, we reminisced about our first impressions of each other and managed to unveil an insight into the human condition. It was quite an inspiring ��clair. I shared first. While most nearly-as-brilliant students pounced at the chance to show every teacher how much they knew, she always answered following a thoughtful, bemused pause. The pause allowed her to see around corners no one else did, playing the turtle to their hare. In return, she described how I showed patience with her as we nervously navigated our first debate tournaments together. Together we realized a simple, but startling, truth. We have little awareness of, let alone control over, how others form impressions of us. She was unaware of the look on her face when she paused before answering a question. I was unaware of my measured tone in the midst of a crowded, chaotic high school cafeteria. We weren���t producers of a TV show submitting the best episode of our season to the Emmy committee. We were, and are, always vulnerable to the randomness of what others��� glances may find. The college application process makes plain our vulnerability to what others may arbitrarily fixate upon. Our students know that you can count on fewer than two hands the minutes harried and hurried college admissions staff use for their initial review of an application. A natural reaction is to impose a coherent order on the details of one���s life and high school career, so that regardless of the scrap of data a college admissions official may seize, the arc, the entirety, of oneself is expressed. The choice of the sophomore history elective becomes the synecdoche of my essence. But perhaps we can cope with the unpredictability of others��� gazes in a different way, by viewing it as liberating. If we release our students from the expectation that, with enough planning, they can will an interpretation of their lives into the mind of an application official, we can free them to ask better questions during the process. Perhaps we can even re-orient their understanding of their education. I try to take this approach when I compose a letter of recommendation. Although I can never rid myself entirely of the desire to ���take the right angle��� in support of a student���s admission, I think of the letter as an expression of my gratitude for the respect, curiosity, diligence and humor Latin students display in my classrooms. The letters commemorate their willingness to take risks, their inspiring questions, their personal investment and the moments when they have taught me. It is unknowable if my letters have an effect on the likelihood of my students��� admission. But I do know that forever on my hard drive I have a growing store of reasons why teaching at Latin is so worthwhile. Though with great empathy, I still encourage my advisees to rid themselves of the instinct to manage and control the gaze of the admissions official. If the response of the anonymous application reader is unknowable then shape your education as if no one were looking. Take your personal interests seriously. Expand and explore them as much as possible. Create opportunities to serve and lead. Maintain your health and balance. Never learn in the effort to impress others. Don���t get trapped in the paradox of struggling to appear authentic. Just strive to be authentic. Such are the tenets of a Latin education done well. Fortunately, they align more often than not with the desires of admissions officers scattered throughout the country. But they are worth following even if they did not. ��� ���I think of the [recommendation] letter as an expression of my gratitude for the respect, curiosity, diligence and humor Latin students display in my classrooms.��� Latin School of Chicago 23

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