INTRODUCTION FROM KAREN RUSSELL

Lexington High School English Teacher, Cofounder of the Student Publishing Program

At Lexington High School this year a few students and teachers swapped places for awhile; that is a student either shadowed a teacher or a teacher shadowed a student for an entire school day in an attempt to walk in each other’s shoes. When we assembled in the auditorium to hear of lessons learned in this exercise, a major refrain emerged. Unless the teacher was with the student in the hours before and after school, rising before 6 a.m. to catch the bus from Boston to Lexington, for example, or going to a pre-school figure skating workout or an after school job, he or she could only grasp a truncated version of that student’s experience.

                  So much of the quality of a student’s day in school is predicated upon what happens in the context beyond the ringing of the dismissal bell at 2:25 p.m. Providing students with the venue to apply what they have learned about effective writing in school to communicate the experiences, struggles, and dreams that life outside of the classroom holds, makes a vital contribution to creating a passion for, of all things, written composition. When we listen to rather than dismiss their voices about their world outside of the classroom, then the classroom itself becomes a more dynamic place of learning.

                  If students know that what they write truly matters, then the writing process transcends the traditional closed circle of turning in a paper to be judged by one teacher. Instead, student writers become invested performers; their rehearsals become thoughtful revisions to their works, with an awareness of creating what is meaningful enough to contribute to a much larger audience of readers.

                  The submissions in 2:25 P.M. represent 100 percent participation of sophomore students from the two classes involved in this first publication. Although the writers encompass the full spectrum of achievement in the standardized test version of academic success, the quality of each piece attests to the standard of excellence every author is able to achieve when encouraged to express a genuine point of view. Maintaining this authenticity was often even more important to us as editors than imposing grammatical corrections. Each composition is uniquely personal and original. From irreverent parody to cathartic realizations of loss, student writers demonstrate the power of creating works of poetry and prose that are written from the heart. They are a gift to the readers, a glimpse into the multifaceted prism of being a teenager in the spring of 2002.