Advanced Essay #3: High School vs. The World

Introduction:

High School vs. The World is basically an essay about how children are heavily influenced by the world, and because of this teenagers have no chance to discovers themselves, for it is only what society sees them as. My goal is for the reader to understand my points, and really connect to what I am saying. I am proud of my topic, I really liked it in a way that was close to me personally, but I don’t think I did that good of a job describing everything I was saying.

My high school experience is just like any average high schooler, surrounded by the bullies, temptations, and popularity that they encounter, but throughout my observations with my friends and others around me, we all seem to have a different way of interpreting high school. Our understandings of high school seem to be so exotic to each other, but it all comes back to the part of our lives where we are in the middle of childhood and adulthood, and it's not easy on anyone. We are all teenagers, and it is obvious that none of us truly know about the real world, and although people try to explain it to us, we are still ignorant as to what is going on. For this reason, we should stick together and try to help each other succeed and strive towards greatness, but what we actually do is separate ourselves.The physical and mental feeling of separation and isolation is detrimental to everyone, especially high school students.

Separation has become a normal thing in American society, proven by the numerous examples in any history book ever made. Historical events like: slavery, deportation, etc are all topics that demonstrate America’s track record with isolation. These history books have been seen by millions of high schoolers around the world, and it has managed to turn into an acceptable topic. Teenagers don’t have a good example set for them, we only have the example set by society, which affects us everyday, in the worst way. Teenagers are still children, we still are in the process of developing into society. Because of society, children can’t see themselves the way they want to be seen, but only as the world sees them. It is too early for a child to learn the rules of society before they are able to even understand what it all means. In this day and age, being categorized by race, religion, social class, and anything else is ordinary. It has led to children to form social groups in schools, and these groups contain people that are similar to each other, according to their class. This split of kids can almost always have a negative effect, just like in the history books we observe everyday. For instance, social groups often have ranks, and that means that there are kids at the bottom of the ranks. If anything else, groups can personally offend people, making them feel bad about their lives, and the situation they are in. No one is able to determine whether or not they fit into a “group” in high school, let alone the real world. It’s not anyone’s fault, and no one can change it. It leads kids to believe that they don’t belong in a place they should feel comforted in if they don’t have a place in society itself.

I was raised by my mother, who always sent me to Catholic and Christian schools. I grew up thinking that most children are the same as me, and therefore I could only be friends with people who were African American and middle-class. My first year at a public high school, I instantly made friends with other African American children, but I had no other friends. People whose hair wasn’t a natural color freaked me out, and people who weren’t middle-class made me uncomfortable. My second year at high school was a game changer, as I didn’t have a lot of black kids with me in my classes, and my upbringing made made me skeptical of merging social classes and races to make more friends. These ideas were considered radical to me, different theories of life were planted in my head for years by my community, one small group inside an even bigger one: the world. It was just then that I popped my enclosed bubble, and was introduced to society. I wasn’t separated anymore, and it was the first time in my life that I had felt alone, unwanted. I had to teach myself how to let go of the ideals I had held onto for ten years of my life, the ideals that I picked up from my original American society.

High schoolers know identity is a struggle, for most of us haven’t found it yet, and maybe never will. Figuring out who you are is hectic, and no one can do that themselves anymore, for they assume that the world has to do it for them. Life is hard to understand, and not everyone even realizes how much they are truly separated because of this society. It depicts one’s entire life, from young until old. In fact, Morgana Bailey, a speaker for a TED Talk convention and a human resources professional, admits that she and many others like her were "hiding her true identity for so long, that she became paralyzed by her fear of not being accepted". The initial reaction is to become themselves to fit into the "preferred” group by changing who they hang around or learning from past experiences, but it usually ends terribly. There is no use in trying to change who we are, as long as society is involved and in action. It’s interesting that we try to take the past and actually use it to their advantage in not making the same mistakes, but history with social systems continue to repeat history. This makes me question how future kids are supposed to attempt to break a system that hasn’t been broken for centuries. Kids and adults shouldn’t have to give up their true identities to society anymore, without even knowing them, but what can we do to regain them back?

Works Cited

Bailey, Morgana. “TED at State Street London.” TED. TED at State Street London, 9 Mar. 2018, London, England, www.ted.com/talks/morgana_bailey_the_danger_of_hiding_who_you_are/transcript.