Dr. Preston
AP English Literature & Composition
29 May 2014
The Evolution of a High School Classroom
One could question the reasoning behind nontraditional education of the modern day high school system, or one could embrace it. None of us deserves to be treated like adults, because we aren't adults. We are chewed up by the educational system since the day we set foot in the kindergarten classroom, reprimanded day in and day out with robotic phrases such as, "don't talk back" and "respect your elders". How can we ever be expected to become adults straight out of high school if we are constantly being reminded that we aren't yet? Being told to listen and obey to those elders is just another drop in the ocean of growing up. We are then spit out into the world and expected to make rigorous life decisions and be the elders ourselves when, just a few moments ago, we were being reprimanded for not going to the bathroom during passing period. As the intelligent, young adults that we are, treatment as colleagues rather than an underdeveloped minds went a long way. It was well-deserved, and much needed. To be treated as an adult in a sea of teenagers is just another simple reminder that today is the first day of the rest of your life, and I learned a lot to showcase for that.
Creating yourself is a lot more difficult than it appears to be. Some people say that they find themselves in high school, but for me, high school just made it harder. As far as my passion goes, I know that it is the first step in the journey to finding myself. Multiple passions, however, didn't seem to help me either. Constantly being caught up in the multiple crowds of high school drama. Photography, with the artsy people who could make rainbows appear in the colorless of places. Writing and literature, with the "nerds" that I knew I was not as intellectual as. Sports, with the jocks that partied over and over again until they withered up into a dehydrated lump of regret. I won't lie and say that I have disconnected with myself, nor my multitude of passions. Every day I want to learn more from the people who have immense control over their passions, and that is what will continue to drive me.
Along the way of the most overly dramatic high school year of my life, some characters in my English class had me sigh for how understood I was, even when I wasn't. Reading about Anna Karenina, an extremely long novel recommended to me by my genius of a teacher, I was feeling the most understood I'd felt in a while. It's always nice to read about a character in a book that you relate to so directly. Literature being "a lie that tells the truth", each character reflects a different part of us indirectly. In A Brave New World I remember that I connected with the character Bernard because he didn't fit in, he was smaller than his peers, as am I. And in Hamlet I couldn't help but relate to Hamlet in regards to his love affair with Ophelia and how they strived to be together but couldn't. Characters have a way of making me feel like I am going through what I am required to in this life.
To add to the excessive amount of lessons I've learned throughout my final high school English class, I've come away from the course understanding the importance of collaboration, above anything. Since day one, we've been collaborating with different people for different reasons, but really, are they that different? Ask yourself, what do you gain from working with other people? Sometimes, you might not even gain anything but the satisfaction of helping someone out. Every single person had the same thing in common with their presentations in my class. No one else might have noticed it, but I did. Every person that spoke in front of my class, that enveloped themselves in their presentations held themselves proudly. And I respected that. Even the people who I could tell didn't put their 100% into their project still were proud of what they accomplished. When Taylor and Hannah and Meghan were at the front of the class explaining which colleges they were going to and what majors they were under, all I heard was the pride in their voices. When Ian so reluctantly explain how his "music was the background music, but don't listen to it, it's not that good", I still heard how proud he was of it. When Marisol was playing her video for the whole class to experience, I saw streams of pride protruding from her eyes. When Lesther described his moment of understanding of human compassion, I could tell he was proud of what he'd accomplished over the past year of high school. And I know for a fact that whenever I spoke in my presentation, I explained everything I said with as much pride as I could. I can't help that I loved what I was talking about, that's what a passion is, isn't it?
I think now that I have entered my last week of high school, everything that I have experienced is coming in a long flashback. I entered high school with a mind set of "I have no friends, high school is going to suck" and am exiting with repeated encounters of leaving my comfort zone, glad that I amounted up to something. I've lost friends, I've broken morals, I've lived through what I experienced as Hell and I'm still here at the finish line to say that I'm standing on both feet, proud to have conquered it all. I am the tragic hero of my own story. The many people who let me down were my unconventional mentors, I learned something different and important from each of them, but those lessons are for a completely different essay that I don't want to write at 11:29 pm.
Staying true to myself, and my "talented" writing skills, I have once gotten off track of my essay. Keep the traditions alive, I suppose. Which brings me back to my thesis about nontraditional educational techniques: They are more effective. Treating my classmates and I like we were college students before we even were accepted into college was the most beneficial thing I could've experienced. I am so grateful to have experienced this as my final high school English course, I learned more from it than any other class I've taken over the past four years. Every class should be ran like the students are rising adults. I have never been more ready to take on the world.
