Life Lessons on Honesty, Societal Obligations & Chasing the Dream in the Face of Opposition

The older I get the more I realize school has taught me things that were quite unintended but had major impact on how I see society's game rules.

Take truthtelling for example. Every kid learns early on that telling the truth is a virtue that should always be pursued, even in light of potential negative ramifications. We are taught that honesty will bring the best outcome for all involved in the end and that lying is never a worthwhile pursuit.

And I thought that was quite self-evident... at least until actual situations taught me that this noble aim is mostly a rule on paper and not a deeply rooted foundation of everyone's preferred conduct. As I found out, the truth can tend to make things a lot more complicated for everyone involved, especially authority figures who would then have to take responsibility for their student's truthfully confessed "misconduct", instead of pretending nothing had happened.

Allow me to explain.

How my love for Rock'n'Roll got me into "the situation"

During my teenage years I was a rocker through and through. My high school year in the US had strong bearing on that but even from the time I was a toddler I was surrounded by Rock'n'Roll, guitars and all that gruesomely strange noise from the basement of our house where my dad's band would practice several times a week.

I loved it. I went to rock shows with my friends, we had our first band together and around the time we turned 17 we felt utterly compelled to finally visit Rock am Ring for ourselves, one of the largest rock festivals in Europe we had been drawn to for years while our parents had always told us that we were "too young still".

But that year we would not be stopped! It was our time now! No more watching of MTV livestreams from our homes with sad faces. We wanted to go ourselves! Four good friends on an adventure. To meet like minded people and to see our heroes LIVE.

However, we would certainly face some moral issues with our so-called "obligations" at home.

First of all we understood that we would have to skip school for at least two days, Friday and Monday, in order to stay for the full festival duration which none of us were willing to back down from. We had to find some way to make this work.

So, we determined the most inconspicuous way would be for two of us to pretend to be sick while the other two would "ask" their tutors for an allowed leave of absence preemptively.

We based this decision on gauging our tutors at the time: the ones we thought most likely to say 'yes' were asked. They could not possibly allow the four of us to flake school all at once, what message would that send to the rest of the students we thought.

Fast forward a few weeks later and we did it: We were sitting in a car, driving down the road with way too loud music and we felt an atmosphere of freedom we never quite experienced before.

The festival was great to say the least! We forgot all about the arrangements made prior, and we partied our ass off like there was no tomorrow. Beer country and rockers no matter where you looked. It was a blast! And possibly the height of my affection for the scene.

Making a choice

When we came back after that long weekend we had matured. All of us agreed that this trip had been really really important for us, and we thanked ourselves for going endlessly - still carrying the festival freedom vibe with us wherever we went after our return. We entered supermarkets and the bakery laughing, cheering and openly talking to anyone there, by default. Festivals will do that to you, you become used to a certain degree of openness that is often painfully missing from society. A kind of trust in talking to "strangers".

But now, we would probably have to go through some tough times in answering incriminating questions... It seemed to be the real price of our festival ticket - dealing with the ramifications in school.

First of all, the teachers had of course talked to one another during our absence, and many of our friends knew we were going all along. Secrets like that just tend to get out in high school, which we did not really anticipate beforehand (being young and naive kids).

I was one of the two who did not tell his tutor in advance.

So I was faced with a choice. I had to choose how to deal with this going forward, and what I would cite as reason for my absence.

I could of course say that I had just "been sick" but I didn't want to lie to my tutor because I liked her and thought it would not be good for me in the long run as her grades would have strong impact on my final exams. She was a clever woman and seemed to notice things most other teachers were oblivious to. So while I did my best beforehand to not even bring up the festival at all, I felt compelled to come clean now, before having to start any bullshit fairy tale that would make matters much worse in the long run with her.

"Facing the music"

You see, in Germany a student is required to write up the reason for his absence when he returns, which all his teachers have to sign off on whose classes were missed.

Most kids in school would ALWAYS write down something like "due to my recent illness..." or "since I had been sick last week please excuse my absence from class". And it was never a problem for teachers, for none of them, even with the students who were notorious school skippers, with one of my class mates having missed almost half a year at one point.

Nope, "just sick".

And every single teacher would sign it even when they knew he was lying, often times going as far as making a joke like "I wish I was sick as often as you, I could really use that vacation". Everybody knew, but somehow it seemed a fool-proof way to get excused regardless.

But somehow that didn't feel right at all.

For one I almost never missed a day of school, so I figured it would be only fair if I was missing 2 days out of the year, as opposed to what, 90 or however many absent days our "absence champion" in class had accumulated in a single year of his skipping career.

So I sat at home and thought about this for a while. I felt compelled to just spell it out like it is, they would have to understand! We are always told how truth is a virtue and it couldn't be that big of a deal now, I mean we are talking about two measly days here. Plus, my mind had not quite left the festival grounds yet and was still trying to catch up to all this "regular" authority madness that had not been part of my reality for the last four days. It felt quite surreal and made me drift off to festival memories constantly - recognizing the stark contrast between the two environments.

Then I simply decided to go for it - the truth. Black on white. What could possibly go wrong... ;)

Going down the list

So on Tuesday I had the formalities on paper and I would walk up to every one of my teachers after class to talk in private, simply putting the paper on their table and letting it speak for itself.
My note of absence read like this:

"Dear ladies and gentlemen,
please excuse my absence this past Friday and Monday,
as I fulfilled a life-dream of mine and went to Rock am Ring.

Best regards"

I thought that was hilarious! And best of all, it was TRUE!

It felt super right and I had never heard of anyone having the balls to write such an honest excuse for his absence in all my ten years of school or however many I had accumulated at the time. But as great as I felt about it I knew it would be hell of a day!

Rules are for everyone, except when they're not

It was one of the most memorable days of my school times. My teachers' reactions were utterly amazing and deeply enlightening. Not only because their reactions differed so strongly in a supposedly regulated discipline environment, but also in reference to what my teachers would do with that information after I had confronted them with the actual reason for my absence.

My math teacher was super straight-forward.

She read the letter, smiled at me hugely and said "Glad to see at least one of us had a party weekend. But you can't really expect me to sign this..."

And she didn't. But she didn't make a big deal out of it either. Oh well - I tried. That seemed good enough for me at the time.

I wasn't sure what "unexcused" hours of absence would mean for me but since I didn't have any yet, I figured I would probably survive it somehow ;)

Next up was chemistry.

My chemistry teacher had always been odd and uncommonly distant to his students. Whether we could keep up with his speed in teaching and dictating formulas to us - he didn't care. He would just continue talking and then start the experiment anyway, no matter if we were ready or not. He would also start class directly with the sound of the bell no matter if the students were seated or still out in the hallway.

So when I showed him the letter after class he simply looked at me and said: "Well? How was it?" I said "it was a dream come true." He said: "Well in that case I can hardly refuse to excuse your absence then, can I?"

He signed it quickly, grabbed his bag and left the room for another class.

And that was that.

Then came history. Despite her hardliner stance on some issues with certain students, I greatly respected her for her objectivity and her way of remarking to everyone when she had a bad day preemptively so that her students would not get "hit by it" accidentally. She was fair in that way.

After class she looked at my letter in silence. Nodded, looked at me and said: "I really really wish more students could grow the spine to tell the truth. In my 20 years of teaching I have never seen a student come up to me with such an honest letter of absence. You shall have my signature. And a great deal of my respect for your honesty. Thank you for this!"

I was stunned! It elevated her as a teacher in my eyes, because she didn't only understand what I had done here, but she was willing to go with the honest choice and support it.

Then came German class. When I walked up to my teacher Ms. B at the end of the hour and gave her the letter I felt a difference.

She stared at it with a grim look, and to my disadvantage another student popped in the door inquiring about something when she had just read the damn thing. It's like a drunken tourist stumbling up to you and your girl on a beach asking for a cigarette when you are already kneeled down, about to propose to her.

It didn't help at all.

She almost yelled at the poor kid, who suddenly seemed less concerned with his own inquiry and more concerned for my well-being, throwing a quick compassionate glance towards me before he closed the door quietly.

And then it started:

"You must be insane thinking I would sign this, what are you thinking!? You are a student of this school and this type of behavior is absolutely unacceptable. I will need some time to think about this but I can promise you I will not let this go quietly. Are you trying to attack me as a teacher here? I will talk to my colleagues and to your tutor about this. As well as to the principal. You've made me really upset. Leave!"

She had taken it personally, like none of the other teachers. She had made it about her.

I just nodded, took my letter and left the room. Somehow I knew I had already won this, so I was getting ready for a few days of "whatever"... like

And somehow... it felt good. Not because I had made her mad, but because I had stuck with the cold hard truth which - I had to constantly remind myself - was not cold and hard at all, but honest, genuine and really... not a big deal in the grand scheme of things.

AND... it was over, I was done with the signature rounds for the day. Only to go to my English teacher / tutor tomorrow, and my economics teacher who was always easy going anyway and loved rock music. He would probably understand ;)

Running the gauntlet

What ensued was somewhat painful. My German teacher Ms. B had made a huge fuss about my letter, and my English tutor in turn told me quite frankly how pissed she was at me because I had NOT come to her in advance to ask her for the leave of absence, but had instead pissed off Ms. B so majorly with my letter that my tutor had to sit through a small conference with her and a few of my other teachers, as well as deal with the repercussions from the principal, asking whether she had known, and whether I should be disciplined and sanctioned in some way in her opinion, etc.

My tutor felt disapppointed because I hadn't trusted that she would let me go. And I did my best to explain that four of us wouldn't get permission all at once... well. In the end it was all good and she didn't hold a grudge against me because "at least you didn't write down you were sick. That I would have taken great offense with knowing you four went to a rock festival. I can simply advise you to make it through the next week somehow. Ms. B made a point to me how disappointed she felt about your decision and that she would go and talk to your other teachers and their view on 'the situation'."

I thought 'damn' but thanked her for her openness. I also apologized for not having asked her in advance - guess I had really underestimated her.

So for about a week or two, my German teacher made me sit through hours of crosstalking with her and the principal after school. Then with other teachers. She would bring it up in class as a negative example for the others. She called my parents (my mom thought it was funny more than anything as she was super proud that I went to chase my dreams in such an honest manner in light of such strong backlash). Then another meeting with Ms. B and my English tutor who said almost nothing except for the occasional nodding to at least appear to be on Ms. B's side - so that this could be over as soon as possible - my tutor and I had already reached our mutual understanding in conversation and for some odd reason I think we pulled through that endless stream of lecturing and nagging... as a team.

It was quite funny at times, because it didn't seem to end... and I found out that that Friday and Monday were days were nothing majorly was introduced, no new units, formulas, tenses. They had been mundane and unimportant days more than anything, just like most other days in school.

And that was probably the best lesson I learned there. In the end, nobody would be able to take my new priceless experiences away from me again, and after I had "survived" the first conversation I felt that eventually this would die down and the focus would eventually turn on another kid in school who had done this, that or the other.

And it did die down while nothing really had changed except for Ms. B having apparently grown tired of lecturing me about something that was already done and couldn't be changed anyway. After making me agree that I would never do this again, and blablablabla it started to feel pointless to even argue with her... No repercussions except for those two weeks of nagging teachers and proclaiming my guarantee that this would "not ever happen again".

I rolled my eyes internally after the second meetup, and the third, because it was all just hot air really. It felt like a nagging girlfriend who was lecturing me for her own self worth, not for my education or success in life. I zoned out at times, but kept nodding. And you know what?

Eventually it was over.

To this day I still maintain it was the right decision. But the soft lessons I learned from all that fallout, the diversity of reaction as well as the unexpected ease with which the whole matter was eventually dropped when Ms B. felt it had somehow been "enough"... taught me more about life than a BS lie written down for everyone's convenience.

Telling the truth is not outrightly rewarded in our system and students learn that early on. But in the end it can work if you do it with integrity and it can teach you a lot about the structure we live in, where a lie seems more easily handable for everyone despite everybody constantly professing the importance of honesty.

I also learned many lessons back then which taught me that sharing everything you know will not always be beneficial. "Anything you say can and will be used against you..."

It really depends on your skill level of determining what the situation requires, and where a certain tendency towards saying less will be helpful to solve a tense situation. This time though, the blatant truth caught everyone by surprise, and made me navigate this situation in the most enlightening way.

All the small pains, the justifications and the endless meetups of imposed repentance... will eventually pass. But my memories of that weekend and how I made it through the fallout... will never leave me again.

If you find yourself in a similar situation, torn between your heart and societal obligations, I can tell you:

It was worth it.
Totally.

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