Oh noes high school!
K, onward with my post about high school! Prepare for angst!
My Human Development class is about to cover adolescence, so like I am supposed to anyway, I read ahead. I bumped into two terms that were particularly interesting. Let's see how livejournal and your browsers render definition lists.
cliqueA small group that ranges from 2 to 12 individuals, averaging at 5 or 6 individuals, and can form because individuals engage in similar activities or because of friendship networks. Individuals aren't necessarily friends, but friendships are likely to form inside cliques.
groupA larger group structure than a clique, a crowd is usuall formed based on reputation, and members may or may not spend much time together
Much of the research cited about cliques and groups actually happened (or was published) after I graduated from high school. Does this mean I'm old, or that psychologists have attention deficit disorder? Anyways, cliques and groups were terms thrown about while I was still in school, so I guess I can fit my own anecdotal experiences to them.
First off... cliques. I was in about three cliques in high school. First was a group of guys I had been hanging out since 6th grade. We were a bunch of Jackass style dumbasses, engaging in stupid stunts for cheap thrills. One of our stunts in high school ended up fucking up my wrists so that once in a while when the weather is about to shift my hand gets cramped up. My lunchtime never coincided theirs in high school, and our only class together was PE freshman year, so after freshman year I lost contact with them.
Actually, in elementary school, I used to hang out with dumbasses too... I lost contact with them when they were placed in "special" classes. Odd ...
Sophmore year and part of junior year, I hung out with this guy and girl, upperclassmen. We hung around being socially awkward together. I yelled at him once for no reason while he was trying to make conversation with us. That fried his short term memory for the rest of the day. Then they graduated, and that clique was disbanded. In conversation with the girl a bit after my own graduation she said she had been frustrated in those years that no matter how many hints that she dropped that she wanted to go out with me, I never showed any interest.
Then, senior year, I spent my lunches in one of the classrooms with a bunch of kids and a friendly teacher. It was sorta cliquish.
As for crowds... I was sort of in the 'In' crowd, since I took a lot of the same college prep classes the popular kids took as well as being National Honor Society with them. The popular kids at my school weren't dumbasses looking for ways to vent their frustrations from failing classes, thankfully. The stories I hear from people that came from other schools horrify me sometimes. The jocks also tended to excel academically as well, so I had no problems with them. One football player was a math genius apparently; I think I saw him wandering the Tech campus and saw his name in the honor roll a couple of times. In fact, the popular kids and the jocks were nice to me throughout high school. Somehow my school district produced a sizable crop of perfect, well adjusted children in those years. I secretly despised the popular kids though.
Well, maybe the popular kids weren't that nice with people who weren't 'in'. My friend, who was in the Pickle(ROTC) clique, seems to have formed a negative impression of them but can't recall anything specific and particularly mean to the Pickles. The Pickles were sorta in the Nobody crowd.
I don't really know if I was considered by anyone else to be part of the nerd crowd. I tended to avoid them as talking about academics or typical nerd hobbies did not interest me. But then, membership in crowds is determined by reputation, not what an individual thinks about the crowd.
I was definitely not in the crowd of nobodies though I probably would have liked to be at times. I was the smart kid, not one of the smart kids. Too many somebodies knew me for me to be a nobody, despite my efforts to be antisocial. If I had stayed with my first clique I might have became part of the druggie and tough crowd. Probably not, since I was a first bornsurviving child - overprotected and instilled with a great sense of responsibility and all that good stuff that firstborns get. Who knows.
My Human Development class is about to cover adolescence, so like I am supposed to anyway, I read ahead. I bumped into two terms that were particularly interesting. Let's see how livejournal and your browsers render definition lists.
cliqueA small group that ranges from 2 to 12 individuals, averaging at 5 or 6 individuals, and can form because individuals engage in similar activities or because of friendship networks. Individuals aren't necessarily friends, but friendships are likely to form inside cliques.
groupA larger group structure than a clique, a crowd is usuall formed based on reputation, and members may or may not spend much time together
Much of the research cited about cliques and groups actually happened (or was published) after I graduated from high school. Does this mean I'm old, or that psychologists have attention deficit disorder? Anyways, cliques and groups were terms thrown about while I was still in school, so I guess I can fit my own anecdotal experiences to them.
First off... cliques. I was in about three cliques in high school. First was a group of guys I had been hanging out since 6th grade. We were a bunch of Jackass style dumbasses, engaging in stupid stunts for cheap thrills. One of our stunts in high school ended up fucking up my wrists so that once in a while when the weather is about to shift my hand gets cramped up. My lunchtime never coincided theirs in high school, and our only class together was PE freshman year, so after freshman year I lost contact with them.
Actually, in elementary school, I used to hang out with dumbasses too... I lost contact with them when they were placed in "special" classes. Odd ...
Sophmore year and part of junior year, I hung out with this guy and girl, upperclassmen. We hung around being socially awkward together. I yelled at him once for no reason while he was trying to make conversation with us. That fried his short term memory for the rest of the day. Then they graduated, and that clique was disbanded. In conversation with the girl a bit after my own graduation she said she had been frustrated in those years that no matter how many hints that she dropped that she wanted to go out with me, I never showed any interest.
Then, senior year, I spent my lunches in one of the classrooms with a bunch of kids and a friendly teacher. It was sorta cliquish.
As for crowds... I was sort of in the 'In' crowd, since I took a lot of the same college prep classes the popular kids took as well as being National Honor Society with them. The popular kids at my school weren't dumbasses looking for ways to vent their frustrations from failing classes, thankfully. The stories I hear from people that came from other schools horrify me sometimes. The jocks also tended to excel academically as well, so I had no problems with them. One football player was a math genius apparently; I think I saw him wandering the Tech campus and saw his name in the honor roll a couple of times. In fact, the popular kids and the jocks were nice to me throughout high school. Somehow my school district produced a sizable crop of perfect, well adjusted children in those years. I secretly despised the popular kids though.
Well, maybe the popular kids weren't that nice with people who weren't 'in'. My friend, who was in the Pickle(ROTC) clique, seems to have formed a negative impression of them but can't recall anything specific and particularly mean to the Pickles. The Pickles were sorta in the Nobody crowd.
I don't really know if I was considered by anyone else to be part of the nerd crowd. I tended to avoid them as talking about academics or typical nerd hobbies did not interest me. But then, membership in crowds is determined by reputation, not what an individual thinks about the crowd.
I was definitely not in the crowd of nobodies though I probably would have liked to be at times. I was the smart kid, not one of the smart kids. Too many somebodies knew me for me to be a nobody, despite my efforts to be antisocial. If I had stayed with my first clique I might have became part of the druggie and tough crowd. Probably not, since I was a first bornsurviving child - overprotected and instilled with a great sense of responsibility and all that good stuff that firstborns get. Who knows.