What did high school do to you?

I had a great time in high school. I played sports and had a great group of friends. I kinda feel lucky for my experiences. I hate hearing about other people’s awful experiences and when they say they hated that time in their life. Makes me sad.

Well, it sure made me never want to go to high school again.

My relationship to my high school is like an abusive relationship—it did bad things to me, but I loved it anyway. Of course, I lived there. I was unpopular and nerdy at my first high school and my “friends” didn’t really have any staying power. There wasn’t an in crowd at my second high school (though there was a crowd that certainly thought they were the in crowd). But my second high school was extremely high stress academic wise. Add into that 400 juniors and seniors living together during some of the most dramatic times in their lives and, well, it’s not the best scenario.

Edited to add: It was a public boarding school. You could only go your last two years. Self selection says that to some extent the people who are super happy at their home school aren’t going to leave. So we get.. the people who for whatever reason are willing to pull up and go somewhere they don’t know anyone, to live, for a superior education without many of the freedoms of college. It’s a mixed batch, but there are a lot of the less popular kids who show up.

I’m in high school now. It’s not so bad…I quite enjoy it actually (most of the time). I stay away from the stupid high school drama, work my butt off to get good grades, have some amazing friends, and overall have lots of fun :)

I’m still in high school, but I don’t mind it. I’m pretty bookish, but I play some sports and have a group of friends. I’m rather misanthropic towards the cliquish people, but people generally like me.

I take the bitter with the sweet. Embarrassment, homework, cliques… they may be bad, but the good far outweighs them. (And I’m definitely not the “popular” or “cool” person)

We didn’t have a lot of cliques or popularity contests—or maybe I was just oblivious to them. Either way, they never affected me.

I liked some of my classes and some of my teachers, and I had a neat boyfriend who I treated pretty poorly.

My home life was pretty effed up, so high school was overall a pretty rough time. I was really frustrated by my lack of autonomy. So I finished a year early and moved out.

I’m attending the same type of high school that EmpressPixie graduated from…. and I love it. To come here was, no doubt, the best decision I’ve ever made. My freshman and sophomore years at my home school were relatively detestable, but my first semester at MSMS (Mississippi School for Math and Science) has been so amazing that it completely cancels out whatever horrors I experienced prior to attending. I have amazing relationships with all my teachers, my friends are all on the same level academically, and we all share a common goal- to be successful in whatever it is we do. It’s such an incredible environment; there is just no comparison to other high schools.

I loved my highschool because we only had to go four hours a day. There were on 50 kids in the whole school. I didn’t like that we had no grammer or science labs or even computers or art class. I went from Art Honors to no art. It was fun though.

It taught me an important lesson, one that is validated every subsequent year of my life:
Some people never grow up.

I had a great time during high school, but it kind of wore me out. I was a top of the class achiever type, active in clubs, wrestled, NJROTC, and played music for school masses (it was an all boys Catholic school) and had a garage band senior year. Being in HS in New Orleans was really great—lots of social opportunities, lots of pretty girls, access to booze and there was always something to do day or night. By the end though, I was tired of collecting stars and carrots and sitting through awards banquets. I do it again in a heartbeat, albeit a little differently.

I went to high school at one of the few public schools in our community that were academic powerhouses. I felt disadvantaged because the majority of my classmates’ parents were college-educated professionals, and their home lives in many ways were very different than mine. By this, I mean that they were familiar with classic music, museums, literature, cultural events, etc. and this affected the classroom setting in terms of the baseline information that was taught in many classes. I worked my fanny off for a C in art appreciation. I had learning issues that should have been addressed, but instead my parents took the position that I “just wasn’t as smart” as my classmates. All of my friends went to college out-of-state, and I had to put myself through the local university, working three part-time jobs to make tuition. I didn’t enjoy college much because I was too exhausted from working all the time.

High school itself was fun. I was really into student council, and pretty much ran with the AP class kids, who were really geeky. Even though I wasn’t in AP classes with them, I was on all the clubs with them. Our school was big enough that there really weren’t cliques that were mean or hurtful. Part of this was probably due to the fact that the most popular guy in school was also pretty nerdy, and had a really inclusive personality.

My take away from high school was, that despite a 2.5 gpa and mediocre SAT scores, I CLEP tested out of 30 hours of college work, and raised my children in the type of household I wish I had in high school.

The first year was for learning the ropes. It was a girls’ boarding school and much more challenging academically than my grade school. I liked learning how to work harder.
The first year hurt because I was sent away home. My parents split up at the beginning of the second year and then school became a sanctuary instead of a gulag.

School on an island was…different. Academically, it prepared me to do everything I needed to perform well in college, and sometimes I think that the classes in senior year of high school was worse than my a couple of my college years. However, popular culture was so detached that I couldn’t immediately settle afterward. Although, everyone came to college in Vermont for the same reasons (the snow, the majors, and the drugs), so regardless we all got along really well. If anything, I am most grateful for my acting and public speaking classes, because they allow me to be very open and personable with just about anyone, and it’s nice to feel comfortable in any situation.

Certainly didn’t teach me to sing and dance. Disney lying to us again. For shame…

lurve to susanc for “gulag,” and niki for the new icon

For me, high school was a study in social dynamics, a true eye-opener. I went from a huge junior high to a small high school, where the kids were divided into two distinct cliques- the wealthy, and the poor. Both cliques were subdivided into three sub-cliques: the “Brains,” the “Jocks,” and the “Rockers,” with minimal interaction, even within the sub-cliques. The “wealthy brains” stuck to themselves, etc. The “rockers” were mostly poor, so I identified more with them and that who gives a shit philosophy (even though I made “brain” grades).

Sound like a bad teen paperback? It really was just that dumb.

I learned (and I hope i can pass it on to my kids) how hurtful peer-to-peer elitism, shunning, and ridicule can be to kids in their formative years; to cultivate a sense of good will and acceptance, a sense of humor, and the ability to give and forgive. Hopefully.

Besides, the “brains” rule the world.

Considering that other kids viciously hated me from first grade on up, High School wasn’t especially different from elementary or middle. On the other hand, it was slightly better because at least I had a boyfriend – the other outcast in the school and I hooked up. I’m so glad the whole thing is over.

One thing it taught me, though, is that people are generally mean if they can get away with it. (Working in retail did nothing to dispel this notion.) So if I’m antisocial nowadays, we have high school (and earlier) to thank.

To this day, over twenty five years later, I still consider high school four years of hell. I cannot think of one thing about my high school experience that was pleasant. It was all just terrible. Check that, I had one teacher, exactly one, who inspired me.

It was terrible. I lived on the street that bordered the district and went to a school where no one from my Jr. High went. I walked around for about 3 weeks without speaking a word to anyone. I know what “shunning” must feel like. I finally hooked up with the kids who hung out in “the east parking lot.” Our school actually had 2 smoking areas, the east and west parking lot. West was jocks and east was stoners. I ended up dropping out my Sophomore year and going to a H.S. Completion program and graduating a year early. Much better.

I feel like an anomaly of sorts, I loved high school. Sure there was the typical drama and teen power struggles but it just wasn’t that bad. I played sports, I had good grades & great friends. I was at a typical public school, nothing unique or special. We had a fairly diverse socioeconomic population. I got a good education that helped me get into a great college—where I also had a great experience. I went to one high school reunion, the 20yr. It was interesting, but high school is better when you’re in high school, no need to revisit the scene. That said, almost 30 years later I still have some of the same friends. We’ve gone down vastly different paths and have achieved different stations in life but I think we would all agree, it was a simple and uncomplicated good time.

Got me out of junior high and into college. It was better than junior high which was a painful time. I had activities, boyfriends, youth group at church. But I was a little fish in a big sea. Was lonely.

It wasn’t horrible, but since I had parents that pretty much ignored me, I ditched a lot. I chose which classes I wanted to attend, and which I wanted to do work for. And I did my fair share of drugs, so that was fun. I also had great sex.
Damn, I had a good time!

I’m still in high school. It has it’s ups and downs so far. I have so many friends, but no one to talk to. I’m finding that the only people who really matter are the ones who like that I’m different. I’m learning that while wearing a huge floppy hat to school might not be “in style”, It doesn’t matter because I LOVE my big floppy hat! Simply put, I’m learning more about myself then I am in ANY of my classes.

@goldilocks – if you can’t talk to them, what kind of friends are they?

@laureth, Not good ones… I’ve somehow ended up in a “group” of people that are nothing like me… It’s hard to get out when I have no one to go to..

@goldie,
I remember that feeling! Ugh….. My heart aches for ya girl.

haha thanks :) I really appreciate it.. It’s not too bad, I’m sure it’s something I have to go through, I just never thought that I would be in this situation!

Though I had plenty of friends and always had a boyfriend, I hated high school in ways you cannot imagine. I didn’t really understand why, but I could not bear to be there and skipped as much as was humanly possible. I showed up for every major test, and always scored 100% on them. That and the little bit of homework I did was enough to keep my grades high, but I’d ‘fail’ (receive an ‘incomplete’ due to absences) anyway. By the start of senior year, it became apparent that I would not graduate on time. The vice-principal called me at home (during the school day of course!) and strongly suggested that I quit, get my GED and go on to college. Well, I only took the first piece of advice. I had come to hate school so much that college was out of the question. I quit and went out into the world. Only years later did I understand that I have anxiety and was suffering from panic attacks while at school. If it had been diagnosed and treated at the time, who knows how far I could have gone?

School was a safe place when “home” wasn’t.

I’m sorry, April

@cdwccrn: Thanks. It’s better now. I cut my losses from that situation and got the hell out of there ASAP after graduation.

But to elaborate a bit, while I was growing up, school was the place where I had positive interactions with peers and adults, some semblance of structure and appropriate feedback about what I was doing, and learned that the chaos in the house was not the way most people conducted their lives. I wasn’t the most popular girl or anything like that, but I had my group of friends and was involved in activities that alleviated some of the turmoil and gave me hope for the future. It was an excellent school when I attended.

I went to 10 schools between kindergarten and HS graduation, including 4 high schools. This made it very easy for me to fit into new situations-especially when I changed schools mid-year. I always found my way into the group of academic achievers who could connect with everybody else. Since I was known as a “nice” girl, I could be a little subversive. Years ago I looked at my yearbook and there were a lot of “Remember when?” I led a tp party against a teacher, school etc, got the best of a teacher, turned a chore into a party etc. And evidently I helped people in classes (which I don’t remember)

During that time my parents’ marriage was finally imploding so school was a place where I didn’t have to deal with it. I was involved in activities so I usually was tied up at school until 4:30 or 5. I had my own car (usually a $50 heap) so I was in demand for that, too. So no real trauma beyond yearning after football players and settling for “nice” boys. In my senior year I got asked out by the adonis-like capt of the football team. We sat with his friends at a drive in while cheerleaders talked about clothes and boys talked about football and drank. The evening ended up with him throwing up behind the car, another lesson learned.

When I graduated I only stayed in touch with a couple of friends for a couple of years and then met up again at 20 years (fun) and 40 years (ho-hum)

Nothing, because I didn’t let it do anything to me. It was obvious in middle school that high school was going to be even worse, so I just stopped going after the very first day of 9th grade and home schooled myself.

I was popular in school, but I hated everyone who “liked” me. They were like leeches, no matter how much indifference I showed to them. Because of that, whenever I tried to get to know worthwhile people, I couldn’t. They all thought I was exactly like the people who wouldn’t leave me alone so I couldn’t form any real friendships.

I’m different, always have been… And the loneliness I felt was unreal. All these idiots around me, accepting me, and it was the exact opposite of the type of relationships and friendships I wanted to form.

i’m in high school now and the biggest difference is that i used to think degrassi was a more realistic show than it is. also, any interest i may have had in science has been completely diminished. and guidance counselors can in fact be biased jerks.

I absolutely loved high school. i wasn’t popular, but for some reason always tried to be. Even though I wasn’t “in” I was still pretty happy. I was a cheerleader and in band!! Lol! I think high school is as good as you make it out to be. Just be happy with who you are and what you’re doing. And realize that on the other side, those idiots that didn’t accept you don’t matter!! I still have fond memories of high school, but life did go on. One thing I would change about the school is that they would prepare kids for the real world. Life isn’t about popularity and grades and listening for the bell at the end of the day. I think schools do little to prepare kids for the real world. but that’s just me.

It made me realise that the curriculum is very narrow, i realise that school was letting most of us done.

I had a good laugh but when i was beginning to think more seriously i was already leaving school.

@daloon Another thought-provoking question – very personal and intense, the way you like it; for me, it fucked me up rather badly – however, I recuperated around the age of 40. That’s right, not a typo – it took me a “good” 24 years to recuperate from that fucking nightmare called highschool.

ZEN OUT

@Zen_Again Yeah, yeah, yeah. Gets boring after a while. Take it easy, man. I might get a reputation! ;-)

@daloon {{{}}}