I actually socialize in groups now more than I did in school, but I didn't like most of the people at schools; To the extent that immediately after school I was pretty withdrawn, and am still surprised how friendly strangers interact with me as an adult.
I was home educated. I had far more time for out of schooltime activities than my friends in schools did. I was part of the town band, the church band, the local drama school (learning, and then helping to teach the younger kids, and touring with the team and performing in schools), Karate, etc. Some of my friends had no social life outside of school at all, really. They had school, homework, TV, and sleep.
I had far more time hanging out with adults who were interested in the same kinds of things as me. Wonderful, lovely people who were interested in mechanics, drama, etc. and spent time mentoring, teaching and helping me.
I feel like I had a really good social experience, as I didn't feel any kind of peer pressure, or pressure to conform or like things (like football) that I found pointless, or to do drugs, or whatever. When I was older, I felt secure enough in who I was, and the acceptance I found in likeminded (and differently minded, but good) people, to not feel like I had to conform, or that I had to judge or conform others. We're all different, and all totally valuable.
For me, middle school was a bit more stratified, but particularly later in high school, I never felt much vitriol or division across such simple categories. I was mostly cool with everyone, without ever belonging to a particular group. I learned to adapt and “code switch” among different people pretty very well, which has also carried over to adulthood. Though I do admit it’s been pretty isolating.
My high school years also were not like this, but I always assumed that was because my high school made a special effort to stamp out the sort of ostracism and cliquishness that the article described. It seemed like the natural tendency was toward these, but when the school first started up, teachers made a point of making clear that these sorts of behaviors were not okay, and then as the students grew up, they propagated the culture to the younger students. Our first essential question was "What is community?", and much of the first year of the school's existence centered around that.
It probably also helped that when you're in a graduating class of 32, there are no labels. Everybody's an individual, because there aren't enough people to form useful abstractions around social groups.
My middle school years were like this, which makes me think that the natural order in a public school tends toward the social system the article describes.
My high school was super chill. There were standard groups such as jocks/nerds/etc. but lots of people would also move from one group to the other. There were even semi regular out-of-school events that involved people from all groups.
I'm sure there was some bullying going on, but based upon my observations it didn't seem widespread. Of course I was a teenager and probably not the most observant person and may have had a skewed view of the average person's experience there.
I didn’t find middle school behavior to be particularly material for further social interactions in life. High school, college, yes. Pubescent bullies and cliques? Not so much. Puberty is hard enough without swimming in a sea of it. My experience was middle school was nothing like high school, college, or life afterwards. It was like some weird collective psychotic break for a few years then everyone went back to being normal.
Sounds like a great time to explore the world and gain social skills that way.
I have a very similar view. One thing that seems to be specific for US high schools is that there are relatively clearly defined and isolated groups. In the school I attended (in the Czech Rep), there were vague / fuzzy groups but basically everyone was friends with everyone.
So I only moved twice during the school years. This is a lot less than some but I really think it did me no favors at all.
The first was at the end of the third grade. Company town shutting down. There wasn’t much choice here.
I moved to a bigger but still small town and even though I moved between school years I still found pre-existing and entrenched friendships. Like many commenting here in never has the greatest social skills to begin with and I don’t think I ever really fit in.
Moved again after grade 7 (At the time years 8 was the first year of high school). It was a horrible place and I deeply regret efforts by my parents to send me to boarding school.
But I fell in with people who themselves were outcasts and I learned the lesson that even outcasts can climb a rung or two by throwing other outcasts under the bus.
After a year of that I actually visited my old town and friends but there just wasn’t much attachment there and I realized just hope much had changed in a year of separation such that I never visited them again. I don’t hear them Ill will, to be clear. We had just diverged.
I don’t miss anything snotty high school. I don’t miss anyone from high school. There were some nice people but none I was close friends with. My own limitations played a part in that but it is what it is.
There was one more move in high school but it didn’t result in a change in high school. It did however lead to a loss of independence and power. Previously I rode my bike to school. After the move I had no choice but to take the school bus (more opportunities to be bullied) and the way this worked was I arrived at school 40 minutes before it started and had to stay 40 minutes after it finished.
Compounding to that the friends I did have just didn’t live near the new house and I lost the ability to visit them without being driven.
I think I hated that more than any of the moves.
A lot of people who go to college (as I did) get their lifelong circles of friends from college instead. I don’t think I ever learned how to do this so kind of missed out on this too.
I don’t know how much of this I can blame on moves. Luck on who else is in your peer group must play a huge factor. All I know is it didn’t help, I didn’t enjoy it and there are literally zero people I have any contact with from the school years.
You've just given the most concise and accurate description of my fourth grade year I've ever heard. Unsurprisingly, leaving the public schools after sixth grade was the best thing to happen in the development of my social skills.
In some (vague, old) theories, students in a traditional school are learning F2F social skills, developing friendships & relationships with a large-ish group of their ~peers, and other soft stuff.
If this is true, seems like you and your friends were pretty confident and secure in who you were as high schoolers. That's awesome. I had a similar group of nerdery/outcast friends, and we enjoyed hanging out together but I personally still desired the approval of the "cool kids".
Not my school experience at all, growing up in Iowa City schools. No authorizations; chatting was done between classes everywhere (but not during class because that would be rude). Wandered the halls as needed; was in and out of High School to suit my schedule (open campus); chose my own classes every year.
I was only tolerable as a 9th grader because of the ladder of chaos that was middle school. While I may not have learned much in the way of academics, I grew immeasurably socially.
My high school was really toned-down and chill. Everyone sort of got along (or at least it seemed like it to me, I could've been blind to some of it), we weren't all friends but there wasn't any fighting / violence. There was drama, sports, relationships, there were the jocks / nerds / weird kids, but nothing like the movies. This was in the early 2010s, and my town was suburban not rich and not poor.
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