This is a recent picture of me. Who was I in high school? Who am I now? How have I changed or stayed the same? |
I want to go back to high school.
The fact that I wrote that sentence terrifies me. I never
thought I would ever type those words, particularly because my high school
experience is typically not something I look back on with fond memories.
You may be wondering why this thought
came up in the first place. Let me explain.
For my Mission Year service site placement, I give a presentation
on sex and healthy relationships to junior high and high school students in the
Philadelphia Area (Delaware, Chester, Montgomery, and Philadelphia Counties). I
give this presentation to nearly eight groups of students at 1-2 schools each
week. Thus, I have the opportunity to enter into many different health classes
at various institutions. Going into different schools each week
has been a fascinating experience, affording me the ability to observe each
school's differing culture. My team presents at a wide variety of schools
including a large (nearly 4,000 students) and racially diverse high
school, both all girls and all boys private Catholic schools, as well as many
stereotypical mid-sized monoethnic suburban schools.
The differing cultures represented at each school intrigue
me. At some schools, classes are quite "well behaved," yet no one
participates in our presentation or discussion. Others, however, have much
participation, but the teachers tend to feel there are more "disciplinary
issues." I see students of all types, but I only have one to three days in
which I can establish some type of connection or relationship with them. This
means that I typically judge students at face value, without the ability to get
to know them on any type of deeper level. Seeing all of the different types of
schools has essentially forced me to begin to reflect on my own high school
experience, wondering what my experience would have been giving a sex and relationship presentation to students at my own high school.
Honestly, when I had just finished high school, I would
usually describe my high school experience to people as something I hated.
Returning to the high school environment in a different capacity, however, has
given me a different perspective than when I was there previously. For example, in high school, I remember being afraid of particular
groups of people because I could never predict whether they were going to say
or do something I perceived as rambunctious or offensive (which was a lot of
things, admittedly). I have no doubt that I speak to plenty of students I would
have been afraid of in my high school experience. However, I am entering these
classrooms with a certain amount of power, partially due to my guest speaker
status, and also because of my use of humor to disarm classes and make them
feel more comfortable. Recognizing this change in perspective, I am beginning
to ask many questions of my own high school experience. I wonder if my
experience was actually as negative as I tend to describe it to people.
Attending my first high school dance. Next to me is one of my dearest friends, Kate, who inspired this blog with her continual support of my life in general as well as my Mission Year. |
For those of you who know little about my high school
experience, let me give you a crash course. I went to a small (about 500 students), rural, primarily monoethnic, public high school in Indiana. My freshman year
began with a transition from a very small (120 students) Christian private
school to Northeastern High School. I had been relatively "sheltered"
until then, and I did not understand how to conduct myself in what I observed to be a "vulgar" and "negative" environment. My first reaction to the perceived vulgarity was to judge others for their words
and actions. To anyone I judged in this way, I truly apologize. I think I was
trying to cope with my transition from a Christian to a public school, and
judging others made me feel better about myself. My perception of my high
school self is that I was someone who was extremely judgmental and who no one
felt they could relate or talk with. Although I am not sure if that is entirely
true, I wonder how much more I could connect with those in my classes now that
I have had more varied experiences and views on the world. I would actually like to ask each of you who knew me in high school
to give me some perspective on what your perceptions of high school Joe were. What
did you think of me? What did you think I would end up doing with my life? How
did I treat you? Feel free to message me some of these answers (even if
they may be harsh or difficult to hear). I think my perception of high school
Joe is too biased for me to answer some of these questions for myself.
This is how high school Joe looked while doing superfluous seatwork. |
Another question that comes up about high school is whether
I regret anything about my experience. Honestly, I regret not getting to know
more people more deeply. I feel as if I was around people a lot, yet I only got
to know a select few people in any sort of deep way. I also regret not being
more involved with important social justice issues, and not becoming more
educated on important happenings in the world. Although I did a paper on the
treatment of women in Islam, I feel as if I could have further utilized my
studies to focus on the topics that truly matter, rather than superfluous seatwork.
Now that I am five years out of high school, I feel in many
ways like I am an entirely different person. Although my personality is likely
quite similar to how it was in high school, the things I value and care about
have changed far more than I would have previously anticipated. Since high
school, I have lived in the city (not the suburbs) of Chicago and Philadelphia.
This year, a turning point was when I participated in my first protest. I
wonder if anyone in my high school class would have expected me, of all people,
to end up marching and protesting for racial justice, that I would be
passionate about dissolving gender stereotypes and norms, that I would live
in the inner city, or that I would attend a predominately African American
church. Would anyone have expected these things from me in high school? I
wonder what has become of some of the other people in my high school class.
Perhaps their journeys have been just as intriguing as mine. Perhaps their
values, interests, and passions have also changed. For those who went to high school with me, here are some more
questions: What are some unexpected ways you have changed since I went to
high school with you? How is your current life similar to or different from
what your high school self had expected? I would love to actually hear
your answers and dialogue a bit about our high school experiences, no matter
how similar or different they were. That is the beauty of the internet. We can
keep up, even if we did not know one another very well in the first place. We
can engage in meaningful dialogue about our experiences and come to a better
understanding of ourselves and others in the process.
I began this blog by stating that I want to go back to high
school. In reality, I want to be able to experience high school with my current
values, interests, and passions so that I could flourish at an earlier time. I
wonder, however, if these things would be as valuable to me if they were
lessons learned any earlier in my life. Perhaps I needed to have my high school
experiences to lead me toward the person I am today. Maybe I can be thankful
for who I am today, while still gaining a better understanding of the ways in
which I have grown and change through the years. I trust the process has been a
great one, and it's only just begun.