Why Highschools Suck (and how they ended up being popularity contests)
A 2003 essay on the societal conditions which lead to schools being what they are, why your life as an early teenager probably sucked big time as a result, and some clues on how to fix it.
Your thoughts?
My own highschool days were pretty much a vaguely unpleasant blur. Fragments swim up - the layout of the buildings (long since demolished), the one esoteric sport I was ever any good at, the only time a popular girl ever asked me out. I wore nothing but the uniform, spent my lunches and free periods in the library, and was so bored that I once spent a month memorising pi to a hundred places, if only to drag it out as long as possible.
I'm not sure I even _had_ a place in the social hierarchy. I was somewhat insulated because I was in an entire class of advanced students, so we were generally left alone by the mainstream kids, but even there I didn't have friends, exactly. No-one I specifically looked for at recess. No-one I hung out with after school or on the weekends. Socialising just wasn't a driving force in my life.
Looking at the article, I wonder if school clubs - with topics and scopes picked by the students - would have helped. I suspect not much, at the school I attended. There were only a couple of hundred kids all up, and how many would have been interested in a computing club, an engineering club, a SF club?
Even so, some part of my brain whispers, it would have been something. Being able to walk into a new school and see a recruiting table or booth for people like you is a huge rush of confidence. It's part of what I liked so much when I finally hit uni. The SF club might have been a poky, ratty room up three flights of stairs, but it was crammed floor-to-ceiling with my kind of books and people who, if not actively cheery and welcoming, were there for the same reason I was.
It's one reason I don't think I'll ever be truly satisfied with life in Perth. It's a nice city, yes, very pleasant, good summer weather, great beaches. But it's not my world any more.
Your thoughts?
My own highschool days were pretty much a vaguely unpleasant blur. Fragments swim up - the layout of the buildings (long since demolished), the one esoteric sport I was ever any good at, the only time a popular girl ever asked me out. I wore nothing but the uniform, spent my lunches and free periods in the library, and was so bored that I once spent a month memorising pi to a hundred places, if only to drag it out as long as possible.
I'm not sure I even _had_ a place in the social hierarchy. I was somewhat insulated because I was in an entire class of advanced students, so we were generally left alone by the mainstream kids, but even there I didn't have friends, exactly. No-one I specifically looked for at recess. No-one I hung out with after school or on the weekends. Socialising just wasn't a driving force in my life.
Looking at the article, I wonder if school clubs - with topics and scopes picked by the students - would have helped. I suspect not much, at the school I attended. There were only a couple of hundred kids all up, and how many would have been interested in a computing club, an engineering club, a SF club?
Even so, some part of my brain whispers, it would have been something. Being able to walk into a new school and see a recruiting table or booth for people like you is a huge rush of confidence. It's part of what I liked so much when I finally hit uni. The SF club might have been a poky, ratty room up three flights of stairs, but it was crammed floor-to-ceiling with my kind of books and people who, if not actively cheery and welcoming, were there for the same reason I was.
It's one reason I don't think I'll ever be truly satisfied with life in Perth. It's a nice city, yes, very pleasant, good summer weather, great beaches. But it's not my world any more.