I'm sure most would agree that life at New Trier is not exactly typical high school experience. I mean, sure we have extracurriculars and classes and a social life to balance out. However, even though we have a student body of nearly 4,500 kids we have NO school spirit and have more divided "cliques" than most schools do (Mean Girls the movie is based on our school for all of you who didn't know). Of course, this is not what I would consider the bulk of the difference; it's the competition among classes that I consider our most distinguishing factor, and it's not always a good thing. Friday was the end of the first quarter for us, and so we have recently been receiving grades from our teachers, and you will come to understand how competitive people are when you learn that people are disappointed when they get B's. But why? That's above average, right? For most people, yes, but in a school bursting with genius', a B can look pale in comparison to another student's straight A report card. This may sound ridiculous to some, but comparing ourselves to others has come to part of who we are, and how are brain processes information.I'll be perfectly honest; I try so hard to do well, and I get really frustrated when I do poorly (remember what poor means in this context). But when I try to look at it from an outsider's point of view, I really don't understand why we are all as competitive as we are. Is it because of the environment we were raised in or do we force this upon ourselves? I know we have pressure to do well from our parents, and an expectation to get into a good college, but is it subtler than that? Would we be as competitive without the pressure from our parents?
I completely agree with this, and I think the majority of the school does too based on our recent Lagniappe/Potpourri. This competition has been engraved in us since our freshmen year, I still remember being told by a classmate that I was going to community college because I was not in all four levels. Which I might add is a ridiculous thought. I believe that it is the precedent set by the grades above us and also by our teachers. the teachers expect just as much out of each class coming through, and often forget that we face more than one class with the same demands.
ReplyDeleteYeah I think that's interesting. A girl I met was talking to me about the ACT a while back and she was talking about how she was really disappointed in herself for scoring a 29 on the ACT when she compared herself to her friends, but then she looked at the national average (which is 19, I think?) and she noted how strange it was that she was beating herself up over doing very, very well on the test. Kind of bizarre.
ReplyDeleteI think most of the pressure comes from our environment in general, specifically our neighborhood's wealth and the opportunity that creates. We have a lot of money to put in to education, and as a result our school sticks out on a national level for the services and classes it provides, and competes at that national level with other top schools. As the standards are higher, and we have more opportunities than way too many people, I think a lot more pressure (from parents, ourselves, and others) is put on us to use those opportunities. While I think those expectations are very understandable, at the same time I think they can get out of hand.