Tuesday, February 22, 2011

Adolscents Pt 2

In this article Raby talks about adolscents "discovering themselves" which in my opinion is the exact opposite of what happens in this stage in life. For me I was trying find someone else. It was a popularity contest. Until the summer before the 12th grade I was in a program called Upward Bound I never thought it was a contest. My peers and I stayed on campus for 7 weeks taking classes. One night the counselors had a discussion group about "Popularity". Everyone in the group was talking about the dynamic of their own school and if the were insync with the norm or oppsed to it. I attended Hope High School. At my school I knew everyone and I talked to everyone. We all did. It was a community school we all did everything to together. Or so I thought. As I and my good friend KC was painting a pretty picture of our school a underslassmen steps up and tainted the picture. I will never forget his first sentence "you only think there is no popularity in Hope because you two and a vast majority of the school makes up the popular kids." I initially thought well if the majority of the school is popular then yea there is no popular kids its just a few kids who do not fit in because of their own issues. The underslassmen went on to saying that my group of friends and I was such a large group that consisted of atletes, the entire student government, and the entire academic top ten 10% of the class. Another point that my friend and I was trying to make was that we was different than traditional popularity groups. We all dressed different and we didn't bully. He said we had the teachers on our side because of our acheivements and good deeds. He went on to saying the only reason why we knew his name was because he was different and we felt that it was a public services to say hi to him and people like him.
Being 16 I was like okay and the big deal is? Then when the school year begun I took a step back and really look at what he said. And sad to say he was right. My friends and I basically own a hall wall and we named it the T. I stood at the top and looked down and the hallway was filled of only my friends. If someone did walk in the hallway to go to class they walked so fast. The bell rings and we still outside and the principal right to our side saying nothing. We were all just dressed different so I was right about that but we were all the best dressed. We didn't bully but we gave off a dominant energy.
Now when I was younger learning about how high school is where you learn the most yourself I was like yeah alright w.e. but know I see its so true. This discovering yourself theory is an interesting one. In high school everyone thrieved to be "different" and in those attempts we all became even more similar. You never discover yourself as who you want to be. You discover yourself in terms of how others view you to be.
We was glorified by the administration but secretly hated by our peers. Which kind of hurt my feelings because even though sexs, drugs and alchol was not an issue for us we still had our problems. Problems with suicide, rape, depression, and emotion distraught. The teachers paid more attention to people outside of group because we were the "good kids" that sat in at board meetings and every honor roll breakfast. We was never considered to have problems so instead of expressing them we bottled them. People assumed we was all ok because we fit the characteristics of teens they wanted. As a teen it feels like a battlefield where no side every wins.

6 comments:

  1. I love how honest this is, and your first and last sentences are extremely, extremely powerful.

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  2. I agree with Alexis that your last statement is really powerful. I think it is interesting to take a step back and look at how things were in high school from a more mature adult perspective

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  3. I liked your analysis of the differences between find yourself and changing to fit in with the dominant view (what's popular). I would have to agree with your analysis. I spent the majority of my high school career trying to fit in with everyone else. It wasn't until the end of high school through the beginning of college that I really started to find my true self.

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  4. You should check out My blog. I wrote a little response to the song "Dancing Through Life" form Wicked that this entry reminded me of.

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  5. Very well written and expressed.

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  6. I like the way you explained the differences between being able to find yourself and teens changeing who they are because what is popualr at the momment. i must admit that your blog was well written and powerful liked it alot.

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