I've been wanting to respond to this issue, but I cannot get a handle
on what to say. But before the moment passes, I'm going to say
something anyway.
If William Beaty (and others) say that high school was hell for them, I
don't doubt it for one second. I realize this type of thing can and
does happen in schools, both public and private. But I also know
there are places where it doesn't happen. My first response to Bill is
to say, "I'm really sorry that happened to you. I wish you could have
had a high school experience like I did." And I mean that sincerely.
No one should have to go through what he went through.
Congratulations on surviving.
Yes, I was a nerd in high school. But rather than being left out, I
was included. My classmates respected me. My sister was two years
younger and all her friends used to call me "the professor." I got
into arguments with teachers and students, but they always seemed
friendly and we seemed to earnestly seek the truth. I was in the band,
the choir, science club, Latin club, drama events, and did plenty of
nerdy things... but the football quarter-back and the star running back
were also in many of these activities, and they were my friends, and
one of them went on to be an engineer.
I looked forward to school starting each fall. I was sad when I
graduated and it was all behind me. Now I don't want to give any
impression that I did not suffer many of the growing pains that most
people suffer. At this point in my life I would not choose to go back
and do high school over again. For example, I was very shy with girls.
There were several girls I would have liked to have dated, but I could
never get up the nerve to ask them. Part of the reason I am married is
because my wife asked me out. Hurray for women's lib.
I also get the impression that my kids (son = high school senior;
daughter = 8th grade) are having a similar experience to mine. In
August, my son said several times that he was anxious for school to
start. He lives for computers and wants to be a computer scientist.
He is clearly as nerdy as I was. He is a student assistant at the
school. He actually teaches teachers to use Word, Excel, WWW, etc.
So here's my problem. What was the difference that caused my
experience, and my kids' experiences to be good, yet similar kids in
other schools were/are having terrible experiences? I have lots of
ideas, but I don't know which hold water, and I don't know how to rank
their importance.
One immediate thing to ask is whether there were kids in my school who
were not having the good experience I was having. Was I, or were my
friends, or others making life hell for any of my classmates? I have
to say that I don't think so, although I don't know this for sure. I
think that for some reason the students in my school seemed to have the
camaraderie that we were all in this together. Don't ask me how that
happened because I don't know. My graduating class was about 150, thus
we had about 600 students in grades 9-12. It was not a huge school,
but not real small either. It was a township school so we were spread
over 36 square miles of mostly farm land. I did not see many of my
friends outside of school because we lived miles apart.
We did not have homogeneous backgrounds. I was not wealthy enough to
have a car. My mom, dad, sister, (later a brother) all shared one car.
If I needed the car (for after school band practice, etc.) I had to
drive my dad to work before school, then pick him up after school.
Some friends had their own cars. Other friends were lucky just to
have clothes.
I had some experiences similar to the experience the lead character in
October Sky had when he went to the home of the nerdy smart kid. I had
driven to school so I could stay after for science club. When I left,
one of my friends was walking along the road. I asked him if he needed
a ride home. He accepted. Even though we were fairly good friends in
school, I did not know where he lived. As we got close to his home, he
asked to be let out on a particular corner, and he said he would walk
the rest of the way. I insisted that I take him to his house. It
turned out to be a shack with a dirt floor and an outhouse for a
bathroom. We actually became better friends after that, and I found
out that other friends lived in similar conditions. These kids not
only viewed me as a smart nerd, they also viewed me as extremely rich.
Yet I had viewed myself as poor compared to some other kids in my
school.
However, because I was friends with both rich kids and unbelievably
poor kids, I cannot say that the poor kids were picked on. There must
have been some type of hell for them because of their poverty, but they
did not receive the extra burden of being picked on (as far as I could
tell); and I went out of my way to treat them respectfully, and I think
others did as well.
So I keep wondering... what's the difference in schools? What can
administrators do? What can teachers do? What can parents do?
Is it sufficient to have lots of activities for students to participate
in, so that everyone can find a niche? Was my involvement in church
the key? Perhaps it was the time frame (1960', i.e. Sputnik era)
except my kids are having a good experience now.
Sometimes I worry about athletics a lot. I think it is good if the
teams win some, but not too much. We don't want to make heroes of the
athletes. But we don't want to make heroes of the band or quiz-bowl
team either.
My wife teaches fifth grade. One thing she tries to do is down play
competitiveness and strive more for cooperation. She says that a
school system can stress one or more of three types of learning styles:
competitive education, cooperative education, and individual education.
She strongly downplays competitive education; strongly encourages
cooperative education, and uses individual education to deal with
special needs. She says perhaps what happens in high school depends
more on how the elementary teachers teach rather than anything the high
school administration can do (or not do).
The best I can do right now is say that I know some kids have a really
bad time. But I also know that it doesn't have to be that way.
Michael D. Edmiston, Ph.D. Phone/voice-mail: 419-358-3270
Professor of Chemistry & Physics FAX: 419-358-3323
Chairman, Science Department E-Mail edmiston@bluffton.edu
Bluffton College
280 West College Avenue
Bluffton, OH 45817