This makes me think of the idea that what we do with or lives can be determined by the focuses of “emotional energy” (pro and con particular issues) around us.  And then I think about where the emotional energy of our schools point – or whether there’s even enough to point anyone anywhere.  

Have you contacted your senior English teacher with a press clipping or two?

Your final paragraph reminded me of this poem from Billy Collins that I just read;
                                            “The Night House” 
 Every day the body works in the fields of the worldmending a stone wallor swinging a sickle through the tall grass –the grass of civics, the grass of money –and every night the body curls around itselfand listens for the soft bells of sleep. But the heart is restless and risesfrom the body in the middle of the night,and leaves the trapezoidal bedroomwith its thick, pictureless wallsto sit by herself at the kitchen tableand heat some milk in a pan. And the mind gets up too, puts on a robeand goes downstairs, lights a cigarette,and opens a book on engineering.Even the conscience awakensand roams from room to room in the dark,darting away from every mirror like a strange fish. And the soul is up on the roofin her nightdress, straddling the ridge,singing a song about the wildness of the seauntil the first rip of pink appears in the sky.Then, they all will return to the sleeping bodythe way a flock of birds settles back into a tree, resuming their daily colloquy,talking to each other or themselveseven through the heat of the long afternoons.Which is why the body — that house of voices –sometimes puts down its metal tongs, its needle, or its pento stare into the distance, to listen to all its names being calledbefore bending again to its labor.
 
~ Billy Collins ~
 
(Sailing Around the Room)”