sort of about high school experiences...

[ratcreature]

Via metablog I found this entry about LJ, fandom and high school, and what they have (or haven't) in common, which isn't really all that related to this post. However, it got me thinking about US high schools and how, both on US tv (or comics for that matter) and from what some people tell, it appears the social hierarchy can produce rather harsh experiences, especially for geeks. Yet obviously, at least judging from fictionalizations of the high school experience, everybody (including the teenage audience I presume) seems to empathize and identify with the geeks or social outsiders in this setting. The typical teenage hero on tv, in comics, in books more often than not doesn't fit in (and then, in my favorites at least, the fantasy starts and they get some superpowers like Peter Parker, to make up for it, without it really solving anything of course *g*), whereas the "popular" students aren't depicted all that favorably (usually shallow, if not outright mean) etc.

Now, personally I was quite okay with high school, and had a good time overall. I mean, that's not to say that it wasn't awful sometimes, or that there weren't any bullies, or that there weren't lots of cliques or anything, but it certainly wasn't traumatic. Obviously I felt (and still feel) empathy with the fictional heroes who are kind of prototypical for the feeling of alienation and being an outsider, but seeing how common they are, I always figured that pretty much everybody must feel this way, and that my perception of how the others were much more comfortable had to be somewhat skewed. I mean, probably not in all cases baseless, like for example I'm fairly sure at least some of my classmates must have had more success with getting to have some sex in high school than me. Even in my most self-pitying teenage wallows which I poured into my diary I was aware of what I was doing (i.e. wallowing, which let to more ridiculous self-loathing poured into the diary for wallowing instead of actively doing something, and it's really cringe-worthy to reread these cycles, but I guess that goes for most diaries written by self-absorbed teenagers) and that it was fairly typical teenage melodrama.

I'm not saying it didn't feel real or anything, but really you can't help but notice that the theme of being the misunderstood outsider, of being unable to get a date, or whatever, is really, really common. Not that this makes the feeling suck any less, even if you do know it's "normal." Yet I'm starting to wonder about the (fictional cliche of the) popular student. I mean, do they really exist outside the perception of the (naturally unhappy and ostracized feeling) other teenager? Like during high school I certainly perceived other circles as more popular and thought they had a better time, but how does this match with those people's perceptions? For example, looking back at my year I couldn't pinpoint students who were universally popular or anything like that.

Maybe I have problems with the whole "high school as hell" theme, because I've never seen or experienced prolonged or escalating serious bullying myself (personally I was just shoved and intimidated sometimes, and a few times older kids took stuff, once my bike on the way to school, though they gave that back after taunting me for a while, but it was never so bad that I was really uncomfortable or afraid at school), or a student being really humiliated repeatedly over a longer period, though I'm aware that these things can happen. Or maybe it is really different here than in the US, because of how school is organized (at least in my school, it of course might be much different with smaller towns, or different school types, or economic situations in the neighborhood etc): There weren't any any school hours during the afternoon, and extra curricular activities were the exception rather than the norm, there weren't any competitive sport teams (athletes focusing on sports did that in clubs outside the school, the only club that competed for the school with displayed trophies and the like was for chess) and for everybody their social life happened at least partly in activities outside the school structure, all of which lessened the social impact of school. Also these strange US school rituals of "Homecoming Queens" and the like didn't exist at my school, nor did we have any "proms" (just informal parties), unless you count the final celebration after we finished high school as such, and even for that my year didn't have any special celebration like a prom (though that was only because all in my year were too lazy to actually organize anything or didn't want it at all, so nobody wanted it so badly that they'd formed a committee, hence we settled for an informal party, and even there it was difficult to find people willing to do the work, even if it was just getting booze, a sound system and dividing clean-up duty, but I know other schools went for rather more formal affairs).

Comments

[kassrachel.livejournal.com]

My HS experience was pretty good, too. I understand the feeling of being misunderstood and alone -- I had that feeling as a teenager; I think maybe everybody does -- but I actually liked high school. I attended a pretty-decent private school with good teachers, and had a wee clique of geek friends for a while, and then when that disintegrated (older friends graduated, people drifted apart, etc) I managed to befriend some of the "cool kids" for my last couple of years.

That said, I still remember feeling like a loser because the people I had crushes on didn't want to date me. And my parents made me join a youth group where I never fit in at all, and I have miserable memories of trying to act cool there and failing. *g*

But on the whole? HS wasn't so bad. (Even so, I loved my first year of college/university in part because that was the first time I realized that there was a whole world of other geeks out there. Finding a real community of geeks was like heaven, even compared to my relatively-decent HS experience.)

Anyway, I like your point about the teenage-outsider archetype in books/movies/tv/comics. It really is a common trope, isn't it? I wonder what that says about contemporary (Western) pop culture. Somehow, we want to identify with the people who don't fit in, but whose differences turn out to have meaning and power...

[ratcreature]

I found it actually much harder to get in contact with people when I started college, and felt more as an outsider, well maybe not so much feeling as an "outsider" as the lack of any groups I could be part of in the first place. And when I made friends it often wasn't really through college, but they just happened to be also in college but we met in another context.

I mean, my high school was pretty small, maybe around 700 people or so, and since my year didn't have many people to begin with, and more than a third left high school early or changed schools, so that in the last two years it was only about 35 people in my year, and after all those years together you couldn't help but to know them pretty well.

Also because in German schools you're taught in class units that don't change with the subjects, there's solidarity formed within that class unit as opposed to the other class units in a high school. Contact to students in other years is the exception rather than the rule, and also the class units form distinct groups within the same year, and even later when the class units are put together in one year and taught in courses each student chooses (to some degree), the connection to the people from your class opposed to those from the other classes in your year won't go away completely. In a way, in German schools the social groups students form aren't that open to choice as the US equivalents seem to be. For example, that students across years would form groups just because they're all geeks didn't happen, nor could any other subgroups really, because at least during school hours students from different years wouldn't mingle. I mean, I'm not saying it never happened, and there was some contact with years directly above or below in extra activities, but not a lot, like I can't remember a single name from high school from anybody who's not either a teacher or was in my year at one point. Maybe sometimes when a student was put back a year, which is a fairly common occurrence in German schools as sanction for failing grades, but even then it's more common that the student will have to integrate with the younger kids, at least all people I knew who got into our year from the year above me lost most of their connections to the older students over a year or so and made friends in ours. And in a way forming these "artificial" groups of about 25-30 people helped, at least in my school, to prevent the most extreme forms of exclusion, because no matter what, all were still in the same class unit, and if in doubt would side against people from other class units and years to some extent -- obviously it also has all the negative sides of this kind of group solidarity, like it will be sanctioned by all in a class if it's perceived as if someone has "betrayed" the class unit to teachers or the like, indicated by the German term "Klassenkeile" which refers to that everybody in a class (as a group) will beat up the "traitor" to the class (typically for example for ratting to a teacher and the like) after school by mutual agreement (and it will have negative consequences for you as well if you refuse to participate in such a sanction procedure); however it's more threat than actual occurrence, but it's highly effective as enforcement threat, so that you'll cover even the more idiotic exploits of your classmates (within some reason of course).

(lengthy rambling continued in pt.2)

[ratcreature]

But still, no matter what the internal pecking order of the class might have been you were at least still by default part of a group, and the idea that it was indeed a group was encouraged by teachers especially in the early years of high school, like your class on average would be compared to other classes, while there wasn't formal sports competition between classes, classes still would play against each other, etc. like a school identity but on a smaller scale.

Whereas the university is huge (like about 50,000 students), specialized from early on, so that the only people I met in my classes in first year were other physics majors of whom 130 or so had started with me, most of whom I didn't get to know really well either, and with most I didn't share that many interests, except for physics. And it didn't help that there were less than 10% women in physics. Except for study groups I felt isolated a lot, I had no idea where else to look to get to know people etc. (on campus housing isn't as common as in the US either, and I didn't live on campus, neither did most of the others). All that only really started to get better when there was a full university student strike, where we protested against some structural reforms and cuts in funding and the usual stuff, and I actually learned about university and student groups and also only really got to know some from my year beyond study groups by blocking lecture halls, going to demonstrations, having political meetings and discussions in the lecture halls you occupied etc. I think it works like that for a lot of students, like my brother fondly remembers the university strike/squatting/blockage semester he participated in, some other people used the first Gulf War to do this, and these kinds of things seem to happen actually in pretty regular intervals. ;)

[cathexys.livejournal.com]

Just like you I cannot really speak for American HS--though I can for American college (which was exactly like the movies...60% Greek and all :-)--but I'm wondering whether the value system in German schools wasn't completely inverted. In my school, at least, the people everyone wanted to hang with were what normally would be considered the misfits...the people who would be the center of identification as outsider in the typical American film...

I'm wondering whether the early tracking in German schools might have something to do with it, b/c you're already selecting out a small minority (in my state when I went to school it was about 18%)...in fact, my school now, which selects mostly academically, has a very different power dynamic as well...and most of the kids rather enjoy it after having been the nerds and outsiders and misfits for most of their school careers...

[ratcreature]

Well, in my high school there was a fair number of people who were odd in some way or the other, but especially in anything prior to tenth grade "general popularity" and how well you fit in was quite correlated to looks, to sports, to knowing "cool" music, to wearing the right clothes and sneakers of the right brands, etc. It got really better in tenth grade and afterwards, when more diverse qualities were appreciated, though.