By Nate Fisher

We’ve long used storytelling to pull meaning from the basic truths around us and give others a sense of the challenges we’ve faced along the way. Alyssa Bigham, a 2021 graduate, is still writing her story, but the narrative so far tells a tale of continuing courage and self-awareness.

Though she describes herself as a quiet person who doesn’t always speak up when she has difficulty, she’s succeeded while not always asking for help. If educators are worth their salt, they often have a sixth sense when it comes to students like Alyssa. Not everyone who needs help asks for it, and they might have legitimate reasons not to ask. The weight of anxiety is more visible in the recent generation of high school students, as they have witnessed the curtain pulled back from our institutions, uncovering some mechanisms that hurt more than help.

Suppose you knew only parts of Alyssa’s story, starting with the disruption of relocating after her elementary school was condemned for mold and up to seeing members of her family victimized by gun violence. When discussing her time in high school, she says that she’s had teachers who picked up on this without being told and have gone out of their way to help when she had difficulty concentrating and was failing some classes. If you could see these pieces as part of her portrait, you might understand how someone could have focus issues. You might even understand why a student would feel anxious talking to new people.

Fresh out of school, Alyssa says she honestly doesn’t know what she wants to do. She wants to attend college at some point, but admits that she doesn’t feel ready. She’s not alone, and the argument could be made that our approach to career-building is to blame. We follow some “normal” behaviors that are anything but normal. For instance, we have a cult-like fascination with work and unrealistic expectations for young people to immediately decide what they want to do for the next 50 years. So, for now, Alyssa considers the Army to be a solid choice for giving structure to her future, and one that will leave room for any other possibilities.

This is part of Alyssa’s story and a story educators and advisors hear often. Older adults need to understand something: the stories they listen to students and young community members tell aren’t simply stories. In the end, a story reflects both realities that we have a say in and those we don’t. These experiences move us, as they should. Still, we’d do well to understand what we view as a story may also have a real undercurrent of pain and frustration for that student, both historical and personal. The role of all mentors should be to understand how flat good intentions may fall when we don’t acknowledge that sometimes our place is to listen, not question. The story is still ongoing, and sometimes, it’s not our story to tell; It’s Alyssa’s. And as she writes the next chapter of her story, a community can be proud. We sure are.