I was going to change it the only way how. They only way I knew how which was speaking. I saw speaking in front of people during high school to be a pleasurable experience. I was the one thing I was really good at. I was skilled at writing, but when given the choice to speak I would choose speaking over writing. As a teen I saw all these successful people inspiring through spoken word and it inspired me. If you want to change the world you've got to inspire the youth, and what better position to do that then a school counselor. What's the best school to be a counselor you may ask? Homestead High School where more than a thousand students every year from one of the country's most privileged counties go to waste their potential.
Getting a job at a high school is not easy, especially when that school is ranked number two in the state of Wisconsin in terms of education. With two spots for a counselor already filled and only one open I had my work cut out for me. Not having a Masters Degree from the school of counseling did not help either. This adversity did not faze me, and I set out on my quest. My cover letter was supposed to be less than one page, but it turned into an eleven page essay on how children should be taught. Surprisingly I got a call and was requested to the high school for an interview. It might have had something to do with me putting that I received my masters at Cornell. It was quite a change from seeing Wisconsin's over rated UW college system on applications. Excited that my bluff had not been discovered, I put on the only suit I had left and biked to the high school. I had lost weight and my pants were quite baggy. Unsurprisingly I found myself on Karma's bad side, and my pants leg caught in between the chain and gears sending me into a decent cart wheel. Walking in as a sweaty mess was not what I anticipated and neither had my interviewer as he beholded me with suspicious eyes. I quickly introduced myself and sat down. As I did, my freshly ripped pants leg unveiled my SpongeBob themed socks and with a small smirk my interviewer opened his folder. Looking around his office I couldn't help but notice his John Hill for president propaganda. However, today was not the day to convert him to the conservative ways. I will save that for another day. A series of irrelevant questions ensued that did not test my counseling capabilities, and I was let free. The bike ride back home was a nice one. I even stopped by the gas station to reward myself with a drink from the bubbler.
Later that week I got a phone call stating that I had not been invited back for another interview because of false information provided during the application process. Let's be honest the Detroit Red Wings would have won another Stanley Cup before I got that job. I'm guessing they contacted the alumni association and to add insult to injury I sprained my ankle when performing my mid-air acrobatics, but when failure stares me in the face I punch it in the mouth. It was time to put those welfare checks to good use. So I went to the local Walmart and bought myself a batman costume. This may be seen as an outlandish act by main streamers, but in Walmart, if a middle aged man doesn't buy a superhero costume on a weekly basis something's wrong.

Oh how powerful the visitor pass is. With a signature and a reason I get full access to the school. Armed with a paper I wrote in the eighth grade and the new persona of a crippled crime fighting millionaire I was ready to bring Homestead to its knees. I marched or rather hobbled myself to their lecture hall which was full of over sixty students and faced my new demon the stairs. A very short flight of steps led down to the academic area which would probably become the hardest thing I would do all day. I reached the edge and mentally prepared myself, took one step, slipped and smacked into the tile floor below sending my battery operated belt screaming "I'm Batman!" in a deep growling voice amidst the silence followed by what seemed like eternity then a burst of laughter. I got up and was greeted by a sea of iPhones and students who presumably have not seen a crippled man in his mid thirties fall from the heavens dressed as Batman. Not phased by this unfortunate turn of events, I adjusted my belt and mask. I then introduced myself to an older gentleman who had the most peculiar facial expression I have seen in a while and told him that I was here to give a speech. He nodded with his mouth wide open and wheeled his chair over to a phone. It was obvious the man needed some entertaining. After all, his day I assume consist of telling kids to be quiet. Is there a Master's Degree for this? Associates, maybe? I did not waste any time after this thought and pulled my speech out of my spandex.
It was only a matter of time before the man alerted others that a rouge vigilante was loose. Most of the attention had already shifted to me; I needed not to introduce myself because well... I'm Batman. As I started to speak, the chattering among the crowd of pleased students ceased and for the next ten minutes I delivered my speech without fault. I finished with a few closing words and with a swift swivel of the hips, turned and walked straight into six administrative officials who accepted me graciously with open arms. To my satisfaction, I made it up Jack Frost's stairs. I'm not going to lie the next few minutes pleased me. The platter of questions ranged from "Did you know you're interrupting class time?" to the surprising yet very disturbing statement of "Your spandex is tight" coming from the female crowd. Realizing her cover had been blown she quickly avoided eye contact from the others. The mating attempt proved to be futile. No Batman babies for her. I've always been a lady killer. This is not surprising because after all I am a millionaire, and we all know money makes a man more attractive. As they assaulted me with questions they were simultaneously trying to herd me like cattle to their office, but I channeled my inner caffeine crazed middle schooler and managed to wiggle my way to a wall. It's time like these I wish I chose the Spider-Man costume. After an unsuccessful attempt to scale the wall, I realized that I am an adult in a school, and that I actually have rights here. With this new epiphany, I turned around and walked to the nearest door. The blend of human bodies parted like the Dead Sea, with a pelvic thrust I freed the door, and I was about to exit when one of the teachers yelled out in a blend of anger and confusion, "Who are you?" Perfect. With one swift motion I pressed the button on my belt and struck a power pose. "I'm Batman" the voice box growled. I paused for a healthy amount to let it sink in then started running. Yet in mid stride I realized I can't run with a sprained ankle and plastered myself face first onto the pavement. Funny how things work out. My new friends at the high school did not pursue me. Instead they peered through the glass windows like perplexed northerners trying to figure out the point of NASCAR. Plus I figured chasing Batman in the Homestead parking lot would be detrimental to their career. I hopped over to the nearest bush and called my mother. Do you think she will buy me Mcdonalds when she hears the good news? She did not hear the good news. She was probably buying groceries at one of Mequon's over priced grocery stores. Without a ride from the Non-TV Activity Coordinator, I was reduced to my crippled ways two miles from home.I arrived several hours later to an empty locked house. However, this has happened to me before. The boy next door who dog sits for my family has a key to the house. In response to the standard three hit knocking rhythm a young fresh faced boy answered the door and told me he did not wish to become one with Christ today and closed the door.

Weeks later my little stunt at the high school had created a big social media buzz. I took the liberty of making a Homestead's Batman Facebook page which had already gotten over six hundred likes. It was time to plan one big final stunt before retiring. Three students made it happen through Facebook and I found myself back stage of Homestead's AFS Variety Show. The trio was suppose to be performing a dance routine, but surrendered their spot to me in hopes of immortality in the annals of Homestead. The auditorium was full of over three hundred students, parents, and teachers eager to see what Homestead's students had to offer. I'm not a fan of preparing in advance. Spontaneous actions are preferred in my world, so a planned speech would go against my moral code. When the trio's act was announced, I waltzed into the light, greeted by a roar that could have been measured on the Richter scale. I gestured with my hands to quiet the crowd down and it eventually became still after the last wave of hoots and hollers. My speech began with the paragraph I started this paper with. The short journal entry had perfectly described my life up into that point.
"That was me two years ago. Part of a machine, not an individual who expressed himself in unique ways. I was caught in these traps they call companies and corporations. Stuck in mental anguish. Stuck in a cubicle. I was forced into a situation where my time was spent on unworthy things. Instead of it being invested in creative, productive means like drawing and writing; something that I had a passion for or some sort of connection to. Instead, I sold my life to sit in a box and work for some corrupt appliance. An uncaring machine that demands productivity. It didn't understand me and it didn't want to understand me. I was constricted by rules in order to keep creativity at a minimum. It wasn't natural behavior, I was wearing clothes I didn't want to wear. I was showing up and doing something that I had no desire to do. Then what is the reward for all this pointless work? Go out and get a new car, go home and get that shiny watch, go and buy more things from IKEA. Go buy that new pair of shoes you couldn't afford last week, or get that dream home. Every week I was chasing down this new shiny object like I was some unevolved primate. I challenge you not to waste your time and money on empty things. My monkey brain equated these shiny things that were very expensive and hard to get to something of a worthy goal. I was in constant competition. No one really cared if my apartment looked like the IKEA magazine or if my water is from Poland. Sure that old wine in my pantry cost a lot, but guess what - Kool-Aid tastes better. I was trying to fill this hole in my life, but I got out of the trap. Most people don't even know it's a trap. They think oh, I've got a parking spot with my name on it, but deep down you're just a piece of a heartless machine that only cares about money."
"Consumed by false information provided by advertising power houses like Nike and Coca Cola that you all are exposed to every day, I found myself constantly questioning my behavior and environment to see if it was up to the societal code set by the media. Powered by this false set of unwritten rules through my youth I chose a path of fear disguised as practicality. What I really wanted seemed far fetch so I never even bothered to just try."
"School kills creativity and dreams. In every school system around the world, the arts are always at the bottom, and the kids who are in high level arts classes are looked at like anomalies in society. Looked upon like outcasts and socially introverted people. Creativity and failure are kept at a minimum and productivity is kept a premium. It's no different here at your school. Making a mistake is the worst thing you can do. It's what the whole school system is based on. Make a mistake on a test, and you get a bad grade. Answer a question wrong and you get looked at. In order to get good grades you have to keep mistakes and failures at a minimum. They say you learn from your mistakes, but if I'm programmed to not make mistakes then how am I ever going to learn? Schools are designed around the ideology of industrialism. Around the basis that we are going to work at a car factory some day. The bell rings and you move to a different spot. It's the same in a car factory. The bell rings and you move to the next station to assemble a different part."
"However most of us at the time didn't want to work at a car factory and I hope that you don't want to either. Instead, we wanted to be doctors, lawyers, and business men, but when you think about it they're the same. The same soul crushing job full of the routine and the boring. Millions of kids grow up saying they want to be poets, dancers, and artist; but our educational system programs their minds to think they can never get a job doing such things. I'm sure you have friends who have the same aspirations. People around me growing up told me a lot of cant's and wont's. I can't do this because of this or you won't be able to do this because of that, and when you grow up around it you start to think that it's true. When and if you guys graduate from the four year car factory training course, then you get to go to college and receive eighty thousand dollars of debt while sitting at a desk to prepare yourself to sit at another desk for the rest of your life. That's exactly what I did, and that is what the other students did, but I hope that's not a path you are looking for. They chose of a life of mediocrity. You can fail at anything. If you can fail at a practical life, then why not fail at a life full of excitement. That's exactly what happened to me. I failed at a normal nine to five."
"School was and still is unbearable for students. I'm sure you all know the feeling. You guys are getting all this input that isn't worth while in your minds, and you know you can get out of class and talk to girls or hang out with your friends. Teachers wonder why some kids skip school or don't apply themselves, and it's because they have been bored into this coma of low frequency learning that is memorization. That's what school is to them. Everyday, just pounding it in to them. The only way to really get through it is to hate it. I have not met one young person who is completely and fully involved in school. Meanwhile everything else they get good at except for academics. They excel at sports or playing the piano. They get good at it because they love it not because it’s boring. They get good at video games because they're fun. It's fun to be good at something. We have to find a way to make school fun. If you want to talk about a symptom of a sick society, look at the way we put so little emphasis on schools and teaching. It should be an honor to be a teacher. It should be one of the highest paid fields out there.To be able to teach, guard over people's children, and help them manage their young minds, you should be a very motivated and honorable person. Teachers should be super intelligent and a highly talented individuals who have the right frame of mind. We should be paying teachers loads of money. It should be a prestigious position in society. It should be something you really aspire to. For many people it's a passion, but they're being ruined by the system and they barely have enough money to put food on the table. When you look at how much a teacher makes in a public school system it makes you sick to your stomach. When you look at the core problem in the U.S, it's the younger generation. You've been developed to be horrible human beings against your own intentions. It's not your fault that you are being taught by unmotivated people. You all are little balls of potential, but in these times you're really just victims of the system. The government has no resources going towards you guys. We have so much money to go to war, but so little to go towards developing the next generation of Americans."

I continued my speech and closed with great sentiment and hopes for the younger generation. At the end everything was silent and I bent the mic down near my plastic belt. The cheers grew louder and louder, but then got quiet all of a sudden as I moved my hands towards the plastic belt. I pressed the button with great pride and let the electronic voice work its way through the room as I exited. A standing ovation followed and continued as I worked my way through the labyrinth of rooms towards the exit, and I swiftly made my escape into the night.
Months later, I returned home and logged on to my Facebook page to find hundreds of messages and notifications. After the year of the Batman, Homestead experienced a four percent drop in graduation which had been its lowest in decades. Many students after the show had decided that a high school diploma was not needed to achieve their dreams. The enrollment to art schools doubled, but the effects of my speeches have long worn out. Homestead's graduation rates returned to its usual high, and art school enrollment returned to rock bottom as well after that year. Although the effects were quite small and short term, the changes I made in people's lives was unforgettable as my identity was leaked shortly after the speeches. This turned out to be a great thing. I have received dozens of letters explaining my role in impacting their life direction.
It has been a long time since I  last wore the suit. To be honest, I had forgotten it and for good reason. That chapter in my life is over now. During the speech at the show I became aware of the hypocrisy in my speech. I was telling others to shoot for their dreams while I stayed motionless in the ditch I call my life. Upon realizing this I did some soul searching of my own and fulfilled a life long dream of hiking the Appalachian Trail in its entirety, and I am happy to report to you that I've pooped in the woods. I actually said it as I pulled my pants up, no joke. At the peak of my rambunctious activities many people asked me "Why the Batman suit?" If you even start to take your life seriously for a second, just look up at the stars and try and wrap your head around it. - Steve