Why You Truly Never Leave High School
Directions: Based on our discussion of what it
means to have an idea and the “notice and focus” reading strategy, your next writing
assignment is to write about an original idea you have after reading an article
from New York Magazine, entitled “Why You Truly Never Leave
High School.”
For homework, as you read the article, apply the
“notice and focus” strategy that we learned in class today. You can
take notes in the margins—this will help you arrive at an idea that you will
write about on our class blog.
You can write about anything that interests or strikes you based on what you read. Keep your post centered around one main idea, insight, or observation you came to while doing the notice & focus strategy. As you write, make sure you refer back to specific details from the article to help you develop ideas and connections with more depth.
Note: This assignment asks you to write about an original idea you have. Please do not repeat other classmates’ ideas. This means that you need to read previous blog entries before submitting yours for everyone to see.
You can write about anything that interests or strikes you based on what you read. Keep your post centered around one main idea, insight, or observation you came to while doing the notice & focus strategy. As you write, make sure you refer back to specific details from the article to help you develop ideas and connections with more depth.
Note: This assignment asks you to write about an original idea you have. Please do not repeat other classmates’ ideas. This means that you need to read previous blog entries before submitting yours for everyone to see.
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ReplyDeleteOur Desire to Change is Flawed
ReplyDeleteMany people, myself included, view high school as a huge roadblock in our lives in terms of discovering and defining our identity. We long for the day we’ll be able to leave high school and enter the real world where we can change and be who we really are. We yearn to discover ourselves and see the post high school world as a time where we will change and magically become socially successful and therefore happier, unlike in high school, where we were boxed into a specific social role from the minute we started school.
In turns out that our forward thinking and plans to change are completely wrong. We see our evolution into this magical new person as a result of changes that we make. We will channel these characteristics that will allow us to be more suitable for the real world, we will be the main driving force behind our future success.
In actuality, it is more of a combination of the environments we find ourselves in and the people we are surrounded by that allow us to tap into our identity and be more comfortable and confident in who we are.
Take The Breakfast Club-themed study, for example. At age 24, those who had labeled themselves as “princesses” had lower-self esteem than the girls who had labeled themselves as “brainy”, which was the opposite of the results that had been recorded when the subjects were 16.
As the brainy girls entered the real world, they found themselves in environments that catered to their braininess; they saw that they achieved success because of their braininess and thus become more confident and comfortable about it.
On the other hand, the princesses found themselves in situations where they were still relying on their popular-ness (their lucks, looks, and public opinions) to carry them through. They were depending on the external world to define themselves.
In the end, the brainy girls didn’t change one thing about themselves to gain more self-esteem. They merely found the real world to be more catered to their strengths.
So what does that say about us and our obsession with changing? Well, we don’t exactly have a direct hand in the development of our identity. It has more to do with what the real world wants and whether you fit that criteria. But that doesn’t mean you’re destined to go downhill if you don’t fit one characteristic that’s a strength in the real world. Since the real world has lots of different niches for different types of people, it is no wonder that most people enjoy their real world selves better than their high school selves.
Emily DeCesare
ReplyDeleteThe whole time I was reading this article, I kept thinking back to the title. Why do we never leave high school? I do think that people can change, and not everyone is the same person they were as a teenager. I think it’s definitely possible for a mean girl to have a change of heart and understand that what she did during those four years was wrong. Someone who was awkward in high school can break out of that shell and become extremely outgoing and successful in later years. So I think that we “never leave high school” because we honestly can’t forget about it, no matter how hard we try.
According to the article, a study done by BJ Casey, a neuroscientist at Cornell, shows that “everything an adolescent does--everything an adolescent feels--is just a little bit more intense.” I learned in psychology class last year that memories are linked to emotions; the stronger the emotion, the more vivid the memory. So if during your high school years you’re experiencing every emotion more intensely, your mind is going to retain those memories. And how can you completely let go of something if you simply just can’t get rid of the memories?
Often times, the base of who we are can be traced back to high school as well. Like I said, people can change, I do believe that. But you can’t become an entirely new person. You can learn from your mistakes and act differently, but who you are will remain. A press release by Patwell Lee states that “an estimated 75 percent of people with fear-related disorders ‘can trace the roots of their anxiety to earlier ages.’” These 75% of people are similar to who they were in their adolescent years and can trace it back specifically to that time. This is not to say that a person with an anxiety disorder is their anxiety disorder, but considering it’s something they will live with forever, it seems very relevant. It would be impossible to forget high school if you have to deal with anxiety that started during those years on a daily basis.
ReplyDeleteThe Study of Adolescents
Reading this article made me think a lot about my experiences in high school, and I found myself reflecting on previous years to see if I connected to some of the studies that were conducted. The article talked about one study, concluding that adolescents do things and feel things much more intensely than adults.
I think this is a very accurate statement when thinking about my own life or about my friends. I feel like adolescents tend to overthink during certain situations which cause them to react in a similar way. I’ve realized that some of my friends, or even people I see arguing in the halls, overreact when faced with a conflict or when put into an argument. These overreactions usually end up with one person saying something they shouldn’t have, or taking the argument too far. Sometimes it even results in unnecessary and immature violence.
On the contrary, when I observe adults arguing, it is much less intense and much more civil. That’s not to say I’ve never seen two adults arguing in a fierce manor, I just don’t come across it as frequently as I do with other adolescents.
Something else that really stood out to me was the fact that not many friendships are mutual. According to the article, “when respondents were asked to name their closest friends, the results were mutual only 37% of the time.” This was very surprising to me because it seemed extremely low. If my friends and I were asked the same question I’m extremely confident that our friendships would be reciprocal/mutual.
I can understand, however, why the number is so low. Most people have a large amount of friends in high school, so trying to pinpoint exactly who are your closest friends seems rather difficult. People also might interpret the word “close” differently. Some may think “close” means the friends that you hang out with the most. Some may think “close” means the friends who you are most comfortable around and with whom you can talk to about anything. These different interpretations of “close” is why I think that number is as low as it is.
All of the studies from the article were very intriguing and made me think a lot about my time in high school. I found myself relating my experiences with the studies done in the article, which helped me to understand a lot about adolescents and their minds, and about the friendships they make.
You can take the kid out of high school but you can't take high school out of the kid
ReplyDeleteWhen talking with college students or recent graduates from college, high school is easily found to be the topic of conversation. For those who have graduated high school and entered adulthood, high school memories, whether good or bad, never leave the mind and most of the time lead to easy conversation. Most people share similar memories from high school ranging from dreading tests, study habits, sports and crushes. No matter positive or negative, people still reminisce about the high school days.
This past weekend I was on the phone with one of my friends in college. She brought up a memory that I had completely forgotten about. Once we started talking all the memories from freshman year came flooding back. After that, the whole conversation was based around the memories we had created that year.
Recently I was at a party with adults currently in the workforce. I overheard a conversation between old friend reminiscing about their high school memories. Specifically their senior year halloween costumes. Its funny that it doesn't matter how old you are, those memories will still be with you and get brought up years later. Even after years apart, old friends pick up right where they left off.
High school plays a major role in the development of teens, which is no wonder why people can easily talk about these memories. Laurence Steinberg, a renowned psychologist at Temple University stated that, “... if you’re interested in how people become who they are, so much is going on in the adolescent years” (Senior, 3). It comes as no surprise that people remember so much about the high school years.
Sculpting Your Future Self
ReplyDeleteHigh school is not necessarily the time that you decide what you want to do when you are older, but it is almost always the times that you decide what your personality is. This is because in high school, teens are exposed to the real, uncensored world. This does not mean only the bad things that teens are exposed to, but also the things that they learn to truly value. It is the time when they finally attain what is important in life to them.
The studies in the article explain how memories and values made during high school are often ones that are kept vividly for the rest of their lives. This is very logical when you think about it. For example, if you love a specific sport when you are a teenager, you will most likely love that sport your whole life. This is why sports are so loved for all ages. This is also true for movies, music, books, and art. When in high school, teenagers experience so many things for their first time that they eventually find the things that are really meaningful to them, things that they will love for a lifetime. These are the things that may have helped them through the tough times in their lives, or thing that they have always turned to to comfort them.
High School is pretty hard for everyone. Whether you are one of the kids who is comfortable and enjoying high school, or one of the kids that drags themselves in every morning, you will come to realize that life goes on. High school will end eventually, but life is just beginning. For some this will be a rude awakening,and for others it will be a delightful surprise. In any case, it is the time that you will realize the things that make you happy in your everyday life, and the things that will sculpt who your future self.
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ReplyDeleteThe time we change the most is the most difficult time to change
ReplyDeleteThere are some people who believe that high school is just for years and then it's over. It's juts a stepping stone to college. People say things like "in 20 years you're going to look back at this moment and laugh". But high school can define the rest of your life.
Even for things as simple as music, this article says that "the music you listen to for the rest of your life is probably what you listened to when you were an adolescent". The type of person you are in high school can, in many ways, foreshadow how you will behave as an adult. High school is based around finding your identity with its many sports teams, clubs, organizations and the freedom of choosing your own classes, but high school is also the hardest time to find ourselves.
During adolescence the brain is undergoing so many changes and still growing, and because of this it causes high schoolers to feel things more dramatically. It makes it hard to find yourself, the person you may be for the rest of your life when you feel so strongly about things, you may never feel this strongly about issues again. If we can find ourselves and our identity when we feel the most passionate on issues then that makes it the best time to define the kind of person we are.
In spite of all this I think that because it is the most difficult time for us to figure out who we are, it shows us what kind of a person we are in times of confusion. How you react to all the confusion of growing up and finding yourself in the midst of the chaos, shows the kind of person you are. I think that because the time when we find ourselves is the most difficult period in our lives to do so, it is the most accurate reflection of ourselves.
A powerful Base:
ReplyDeleteWhile reading this article all I could think about was how in high school, everyone is building the base that they will use as a stepping off point into becoming an adult in society. In high school you start to figure out who the adult you is. You begin to explore and figure out what things you do and don’t like, and while some of these might change after high school, predominantly you will carry them with you’re your entire life.
One of the more interesting things that struck me in this article was the significance of building your core beliefs when you are a teenager. Being passionate at a young age about certain topics can be a good thing, but as well it could lead to something negative in the future. A lot of times kids are not as informed on the issues that they are very passionate about, so if they develop premature feelings for a certain issue, later in life they will continue to hold on strong to that not fully informed belief. You can see this in person with the experiment that they did with the mice. When the scientists subjected the mice to the loud, startling, noise, the mice that were of adolescent age were the ones that were most affected by it. They were constantly afraid of what was yet to come after the sound. To further the point when tested the mice 30 days later, once they had become adults, they experienced the same level of fear. The fear had now been build into who they are, and will continue to be there for their entire life, lest they make a very large life change.
So now the question is so what? Why does this information matter? It matters because while if might not have a huge effect initially, this could have a detrimental effect in the future. What we teach the youth of America and the rest of the world, will influence heavily on the type of person they are in the future. So if we turn a blind eye to those who are bullies or are homophobic or anything else, and not teach them what is right and what is wrong, we are facilitating the increase in those type of people in society. By showing what is right and what is wrong when teenagers are figuring out who they are, we are building them into the core values they will carry on with them their entire lives.
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ReplyDeleteMatthew Wilson
ReplyDeleteHow High School Changes Your Future
For many people high school was hit or miss. You either loved school or you hated it, you were either popular or kept to yourself and you were either involved in extracurricular activities or you didn't want to be involved in them. Even if you hated school, weren’t very popular or didn’t pay sports it doesn't mean that all the people who did all of these things were going to be more successful than you are.
Infact your self confidence and your physical attributes has more of an impact on how you will do in life than anything else. You gain this confidence in high school, if you were shorter in high school or if you were overweight then it may make it harder for you in the work field to be as successful or confident as others who were tall and of average weight.
Studies in recent years show that two men who are 5 foot 11 inches who work in the same profession one who was taller than the other when he was 16 years old will make more money because he has more confidence. The same goes for weight, if you were obese before the age of 21 then you will likely have lower confidence levels.
Everything you do in life is because you had the confidence to do it. If you don’t do something because you were scared then someone else is going to do what you were supposed to do and get all the glory. Just like in high school, if you are afraid to do something someone else is going to come and do it because they had more confidence in school than you did.
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ReplyDeleteDo people really show interest to people of different stature?
ReplyDeleteThis reading passage made me realize that during your “stay” at high school, you are deciding what you are going to be in the future. something in school are given to you like math english, social studies, and science. Even if you don't like them, you still have to take them. But if you do like them, you'll probably, do well in them and you will want to take more classes that are related to that subject. Then in the future when job opportunities come up you are likely to pick one that you enjoy and are good at.
This happened to my brother when he found out that he enjoyed math and science. He looked into careers that included those subjects. He is now in college studying for mechanical engineering. Of course he is only a sophomore in college and does not have a job in that field yet. I have discovered that in my case, english is not one of my strongest subjects so I do not plan on working in a job that required me to do a lot of writing. In the article is says that Adults “are far more likely to have higher self esteem if they were normal weight rather than obese or overweight, in late adolescence.” This is saying that when people portray themselves as “non-normal” then they would not have a much self esteem as as much as being a “normal” weight.
I disagree somewhat because some people don't have a problem being big. Those people use their size to their advantage and they are comfortable with it. Others don't have a choice how they deal with being big. Their weight makes them portray themselves as what others don't want them to be. The larger people feel less important because of their weight, so in that aspect, I agree with the statement.
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ReplyDeleteHigh School Never Ends
ReplyDeletePublic high school is the common foundation for the youth of today; It gives our adolescent youth the first taste of the real world, but in a small sample space to work with. It introduces societies basic social classes that really base the rest of their lives off of. For instance, most jocks tend to live in their own shadow for all of eternity, where the smart and nerdy ones in high school live in similarity, but only more successful. The most interesting part of this article is that the pretty and untouchable "princesses" tend to live their life in doubt with a much lower self-esteem. When you think about it this really makes a lot of sense, because women like this tend to believe their life will just be handed to them and that they can effortlessly cruise through with easy living. Wrong. Nothing in life is easy and they must have had to learn this the hard way. By scraping and clawing to make a living and later possibly support a family. It's not as easy as one would think. Besides this matter, individuals are said to never to actually leave high school and that high school is just a prequel to their future life and self. I believe this is true, due to the fact that adults still gossip, act childish, and are still worried about everyone's opinion on them. This is because so much of your self-worth and identity is developed at your adolescent age. At the time of high school, the average person's brain is still vastly growing, and this is the reason that your identity is developed at a young age, and with you forever. It carries with you, whether positive or negative, which is why it's so vital to get involved in high school and create a good visual of yourself. So get involved, get active, and find yourself now so that you will grow into the best version of yourself you can be.
In the article “Why you Truly Never Leave Highschool” by Jennifer Senior, the author explains to her readers how much individual’s high school years affects their future. For some, high school is just a four year period that you go through and after you graduate, it's left in the past. However for many adults, high school is considered to be a very significant period in their lives which they remember extremely vividly.
ReplyDeleteI personally believe that high school has a major impact on a person’s future. Although your grades are extremely important during these years, I don't believe that it should be a person’s only priority. High school is a time for teens to learn many other skills that you can't necessarily learn in the classroom and only through different experiences. High school is a time to make mistakes and learn from them and to discover who you are as a person.
Chaos makes better memories
ReplyDeleteAs we grow from children to adolesents, our brains grow too. Our prefrontal cortex which is the part of the brain which governs our ability to reason, grasp abstractions, control impulses, and self-reflect experiences a huge amount of groth as we age. As we enter highschool the development continues and the newer emotional parts of the brain have a more influence. During these chaotic periods it has been hypothosized that “you store memories better than you do in times of stability”
This is why we never feel as if we left highschool many years later in our lives. The structure of highschool, the social class shifts and the actual burden of responsibility yeilds chaos. Sure, highschool is different for everyone and no two persons experiences are alike, but the struggles that we face are mainly the same. People experience the late night cramming for a big test no matter if they are a cheerleader, a jock, or a bookworm. Everyone can relate to the stress of regents week, or the joy of a school break.
One thing that is different for everyone is what happens after we leave. Some go to college for more chaos, other choose to enter the workforce, others the military. They all move on, but in a way none of them can. The jocks leave with higher self esteem, the Nerds leave still associating with nerds and so on. The experiences that we face in Highschool shape who we are and who we see ourselves being as adults. This chaotic time makes us unique, yet similar as we try and move on into the real world and away from the isolated microcosom that is High School.
Teenagers mostly have to deal with popularity throughout high school and your popularity status really determines how you interact and behave with certain groups of people. Some teenagers just go through high school and don’t take any interest on how their fellow peers interact with one another and some teens really enjoy spending their four years of high school. It has been stated in the article, “Why You Truly Never Leave High School” by Jennifer Senior, that high school is an introduction to adulthood .This shows how you interact with your fellow peers determines how successful you are going to be with your social skills. Those who were popular in high school don’t find it to be difficult to create friends compared to those who generally didn’t like communicate outside of their social group. Making high school a great opportunity for teens to be introduced on different ways to increase their social skills.
ReplyDeleteHigh school allows students to create friends and enter an area where a bunch random students have to work and communicate with each other. For some teens this can be difficult due to the process of the growth of the of brains. Due to this certain time teenagers may lack certain social skills and not be able to create as many friends to those who are popular. As mentioned before popularity may affect certain teens to act a certain because the amount of people the adolescent is surrounded by may affect the way the teen acts. If a teen is not popular they might be lonely and forcing them to neglect their surroundings and stay alone. If a teen is popular the group of people they hang out with may affect them to act a certain way. For example if a group of teens are all wearing red the new teen entering the group is going to wear red because they don’t want to come out as unusual and possibly lose that certain friend. Teens are constantly trying to “go with the flow” because if they don’t they will come out as unusual and they might be neglected by the certain group that teen wants to hang out with.
Teenagers in this time of age, will likely never forget what they went in high school. Sometimes teenagers would actually do stuff in high school to never forget, and especially if you keep with your high school friends, you and your friends will keep up bringing events you did that were funny, sad, and even too scary. In the article it said that kenji, a half japanese, said that when he went too school, he never got invited to any parties. When he got older, he went to one for the first time with his high school friend, and felt like the party was fine, because he had his friends.
ReplyDeleteThe adolescent mind is very different from what people sometimes think they are. The mind of the adolescent is full of intense moments that could change the person and make them feel like they want to be better. LIke kenji, again, he never got invited to a party. But then after going to a reunion of that class, a football player josh invited him, because he saw in kenji a serious person that if you get to know him better, he will show some humor about how life has been.
But many high school students, the popular ones in those times, have been affected by not studying because they thought it was not cool.