Jr. High School was a nightmare
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I think for all but MAYBE a tiny handful of kids, jr high is a nightmare.
Even for those who seem from the outside to be the winners, most of them are
walking around with huge crushing insecurities, afraid if they let up their guard
it's all going to come crashing down and there they'll be, one of the losers.
What's horrible about jr high isn't even so much the usual school stuff, it's
the cramming all those pubescent people into the same place where they can't
breath in fresh air but are overwhelmed with each other's burgeoning
pheromones, awash in a sea of hormones and insecurity. It's being confused and unsure
and not knowing every day when you wake up who you're going to see in the
mirror, and then spending most of the day every day surrounded by others just as
confused and unsure as yourself, with a few overwhelmed adults trying to
maintain order and perhaps one or two adults around as actual models for what a good
adult life might look like.
It's not natural or normal for people to have to grow up this way. Age
segregated schools are a very recent phenomenon even in historical times, let alone
evolutionarily. And the jr high idea, segregating the pubescence off into
their own building, away from the moderating influences of children younger than
them, teens older than them, and much of any real interaction with adults, is
very very new. I think it's proven to be a spectacularly bad idea.
I think our society would be infinitely better off if we shut down the jr
highs and found a way to give every pubescent kid a real job with real
responsibilities (not necessarily a paid job) where he can be really needed, a job where
he interacts with older and younger people much more than with other
pubescent people. And then a few years later, all those who need to be in high school
because that's what our society does will be able to handle it better because
they'll be walking in much less scarred.
Not that I'm opinionated or anything. :)
Deborah in IL
Even for those who seem from the outside to be the winners, most of them are
walking around with huge crushing insecurities, afraid if they let up their guard
it's all going to come crashing down and there they'll be, one of the losers.
What's horrible about jr high isn't even so much the usual school stuff, it's
the cramming all those pubescent people into the same place where they can't
breath in fresh air but are overwhelmed with each other's burgeoning
pheromones, awash in a sea of hormones and insecurity. It's being confused and unsure
and not knowing every day when you wake up who you're going to see in the
mirror, and then spending most of the day every day surrounded by others just as
confused and unsure as yourself, with a few overwhelmed adults trying to
maintain order and perhaps one or two adults around as actual models for what a good
adult life might look like.
It's not natural or normal for people to have to grow up this way. Age
segregated schools are a very recent phenomenon even in historical times, let alone
evolutionarily. And the jr high idea, segregating the pubescence off into
their own building, away from the moderating influences of children younger than
them, teens older than them, and much of any real interaction with adults, is
very very new. I think it's proven to be a spectacularly bad idea.
I think our society would be infinitely better off if we shut down the jr
highs and found a way to give every pubescent kid a real job with real
responsibilities (not necessarily a paid job) where he can be really needed, a job where
he interacts with older and younger people much more than with other
pubescent people. And then a few years later, all those who need to be in high school
because that's what our society does will be able to handle it better because
they'll be walking in much less scarred.
Not that I'm opinionated or anything. :)
Deborah in IL
nellebelle
Let's see, in JHS I learned that I was not good at art, that my thighs were fat, that my ninth grade brother would ignore me if he saw me at school, that science is gross, that the algebra teacher didn't care if I broke my right arm two days before the exam, that getting good grades wasn't cool, and that wearing certain clothes/hairstyles was important.
Besides that, I guess it was all right.
Mary Ellen
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Besides that, I guess it was all right.
Mary Ellen
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
Betsy
**Let's see, in JHS I learned that I was not good at art, that my thighs
were fat, that my ninth grade brother would ignore me if he saw me at
school, that science is gross, that the algebra teacher didn't care if I
broke my right arm two days before the exam, that getting good grades
wasn't cool, and that wearing certain clothes/hairstyles was important.
**
And this is the stuff that you don't forget promptly.
What a screwed-up system.
Betsy
were fat, that my ninth grade brother would ignore me if he saw me at
school, that science is gross, that the algebra teacher didn't care if I
broke my right arm two days before the exam, that getting good grades
wasn't cool, and that wearing certain clothes/hairstyles was important.
**
And this is the stuff that you don't forget promptly.
What a screwed-up system.
Betsy
glad2bmadly
Have any of you read Annie Lamott's book _Operating Instructions_? It is about her experiences raising her son as a single mom. It is so funny and heart breaking and I have given it to many new moms. But I love when she says, early in the book, that she can't believe she brought a child into the world who will someday have to endure seventh grade! I don't have the book right now so can't quote it. Our kids never have to go through seventh grade. At least they are spared that!
Madeline
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Madeline
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Do you Yahoo!?
The New Yahoo! Search - Faster. Easier. Bingo.
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