Every high school underclassman dreams of driving, and all upperclassmen cherish their right to get behind the wheel. Unfortunately for the aforementioned upperclassmen, before you can cross the finish line into the driver’s seat (legally), you have to endure the long race of Driver’s Ed – a race I both welcomed and dreaded.
In my experience, Driver’s Ed was never discussed too fondly among the upperclassmen, if it was ever discussed at all. This, for some unknown reason, bothered me. I mean, even slightly noteworthy English projects from their Freshman year will spark a lively conversation, but the once-in-your-life process of learning to drive independently would hardly be worth a mention?
This pestered me in the back of my mind until I actually attended my very first day of Driver’s Ed, and only then did it strike me why upperclassmen didn’t bother talking about it; it was just like school.
Just like the first day of school, the first day of Driver’s Ed consisted of the instructor being about ten minutes late, followed by a steady flow of papers with long lists of procedures, rules, requirements and many, many, blank spaces to be filled with our signatures, initials, dates and other relatively irrelevant information to be fed to us by the instructor, before we take it all home and regurgitate the bulk of it to our parents along with the request to fill in equally as many blanks with their signatures, initials, dates, and other relatively irrelevant information fed to them by their kids who were fed from their instructor who was ten minutes late.
We had our first review and our first test shortly thereafter, over road signs and general knowledge. Like any high school test, ten solid minutes of cramming right beforehand will usually do the trick.
After you’ve signed your endless papers and filled in the endless blanks with the best answers you can give, you can finally get to the grit, which, underwhelmingly, would be note-taking. To put it in context, it was pretty much like any teacher flipping through wordy slides, emphasizing what was most important to write and what will be in the next test; the only difference was, you couldn’t slack off and use the “I’m never even gonna use this stuff” excuse like you would in Algebra II.
But this was just the first few days. I’ve yet to get my permit, but at the very least I know what to expect from the class. So far, so good, and I’m grateful to report that it has been bearable, mostly because it was predictable, essentially an extra two hours of school each day, which even in itself hasn’t been so bad, since it will be likely the most useful school you’ll attend until college. Plus, I imagine the feeling of getting your permit, or, even more so, your license, has to match the feeling of acing a final, just like the last day of school. And if all else fails, at the very least I can find motivation in the upperclassmen in the driver’s seat who never talk about their time in Driver’s Ed.
