As a substitute teacher looking for a full forty hours a week, I'll sub for every grade. This is really quite an interesting experience. I had a somewhat unusual educational background, as I was homeschooled through fifth grade, did private Christian school for middle school, and went to public high school. I always appreciated that, as I got to see all the different facets of education.
But because of that, I had no experience in public elementary or middle school. I have no feelings of familiarity when I sub in an elementary or middle school.
Elementary school was fun; me and my two sisters sitting in our office doing schoolwork in A Beka books and complaining about the horrors of Bob Jones. If you were homeschooled, you'll get that.
Middle school was a class of 20 with no room for people to leave me out or to think I was weird. My two best friends are from my days at private school.
High school was different. Whenever I sub for high school, I start remembering everything. It doesn't take too much to guess that I wasn't cut out for public high school. Take one look at pictures of me during this time, and you'll understand why. Increasingly overweight. Short hair straightened into spikes with a swoop of emo bangs across one eye, getting progressively darker until it was pitch-black my junior and senior year. I started high school with a Fall Out Boy tee, some awkward plaid capris, and a pair of Vans.
I was miserable. I wanted to go back to private school with my friends and teachers who knew me and loved my quirky clothes. I had never been in a school with so many people-- my freshman homeroom class had more students than my entire eighth grade class. So I did what I thought I had to do for survival. Kept my head down, barely spoke to anyone, read and reread The Catcher in the Rye (not a particularly helpful move as far as trying to appear more socially well-adjusted), and basically stayed at the back of classrooms, silent and afraid, most of my freshman year.
Though I still had a pretty happening social life from my youth group and my friends from private school, I made no friends my freshman year. Once, near the beginning of the year, a girl came over to watch a movie. But as high school progressed, it became more and more apparent that we were not in the same pool of friends. And that never happened again.
This is not to say people were openly hostile to me very often. I do remember one particularly horrible day, where my health teacher thought it would be a good idea for everyone to write down their height and weight and gender on a piece of paper. Then, he would read our information aloud and tell us our BMI. No names, of course... wouldn't want to embarrass anyone. However, as the only girl over 5'8'' in the class, it was fairly obvious whose height and weight were being read aloud when he said, "For a girl, five foot eleven, weighing 175 pounds..." and the class immediately fell to laughing. He continued on obliviously, reading out my BMI. Then, to my horror, people accused each other of being that person. Using my height and weight as an insult, to which other girls vehemently replied with squeals of, "Yeah, right!" (not to mention that I had written down my weight ten pounds less than it actually was).
I remember staring at my backpack, not sure if blinking would help me not to cry or start me sobbing. I sat still, not breathing, knowing that any move would betray me and I would break into a million pieces. I remember thinking that I would never come back to school again. Of course, I came the next day. On time, silent, sitting at the back of the room, begging God not to let anyone mention that again. Thankfully, they did not.
As high school progressed, it got better. I am simply not cut out to be super unfriendly and standoffish, so I did eventually get to be on good terms with most people at school. Though I never really hung out with anyone outside school, I gradually stopped feeling absolute panic fill my stomach as I trudged toward the school doors. By senior year, I loved my AP Lit class, and didn't mind school at all.
However, there was still a very large part of me that knew I was all wrong for high school. Tall, weird hair, overweight, and strangely dressed. I cared a lot about music and fashion, but not in the right way. I looked at thin, popular girls with long hair and football players for boyfriends and tried my hardest to feel better than them, or at least not care about them. But I didn't. I wanted to be them. And by my senior year, as much as I didn't mind school anymore, I needed to get out. I hadn't totally figured out who I was (still haven't), but I did know that I wasn't the way you're supposed to be in high school. And I was over it.
Looking back, I realize now that high school is stupid. Honestly, I really believe that. Most of the assignments you're given are tedious and unnecessary. Most of the people who make your life miserable are miserable themselves. I had a good family life, but I know that many of my peers had a lot more trouble at home than they ever did at school. Most people's time is spent trying as hard as they can to fit a certain mold. Then feeling fat or ugly or dumb or slow or whatever they are that stops them from being whatever it is they want to be.
Almost everything I thought was a life-changing moment in my life didn't matter at all. Prime example? Dances. Prom was a waste of time. If I'd wanted to stand around listening to lame top 40 hits, I could have done that without buying a dress and sitting with my friend-coerced-into-date for a few hours. Even prom, this night that I knew would finally be perfect... wasn't. I'd ordered a custom-made dress on Ebay, exactly how I'd pictured (emerald green ball gown), and I knew that everyone would finally see that I was pretty.
The dress never came. Not until I'd given up all hope of it arriving and had bought another dress in a last-ditch-thank-goodness-it-was-in-a-size-this-big-effort to still have fun. It arrived the day before prom, more olive than emerald, shoved into a tiny box with no hope of unwrinkling in time for prom the next day.
All of this, all the slow trudges to the bathroom and back (anything to get out of class), the slight coughs used as an excuse to stay home, the hours spent doing and avoiding homework, and the days spent wishing with every piece of my seventeen-year-old self that I was just a little thinner, had "normal" hair, didn't feel the need to be so different--weird--... it wasn't real life. It was just this demented holding tank before college, which still isn't really real life (especially if you live in a dorm-- hello? You don't make your own food, you have half a room to keep clean, and you spend most of the time surrounded by hundreds of people your exact same age).
However, the real life-ness of high school does nothing to detract from its effect on people. Some people had an awesome time in high school. Many of my friends, in fact. (A few of my other private school friends went to public high school, and most of my friends from college were public school kids from elementary through college). Some people were miserable, like me. But even when you can stand outside high school and say, "Wow. That was messed up. People were really mean, petty, and ridiculous. Who people told me I was in high school was never who I was," you cannot take back the effect it had on you.
The effect it had on me was to show me that there are much bigger deals in life than a prom dress that never comes or not having a boyfriend whose jersey you get to wear on game days. But loneliness, fear, jealousy, embarrassment... these things never go away. Despite the fact that I had an amazing experience in college, I still felt all of these things sometimes. Despite the fact that I eventually did grow out my hair and shed a few pounds and actually stop caring if people thought my clothes were weird, I still feel as insecure as I did in high school sometimes.
I always shrug off my crappy time in high school and say that it didn't matter anyway. But I don't think that's exactly true. Most of the things that were a Really Big Deal in high school were stupid, not designed for kids like me, who slipped through the cracks of society's expectations and felt incessantly Not Cool. But they happened. And they shaped me in small ways that I never realized until much later. And, as cheesy as this sounds, I'm actually pretty thankful for how high school went for me. I think I learned a lot about myself, what I wanted out of life, and who I wanted to be during that time. Even though I'm not there... in fact, I'm a long way from there, I don't think I'd be who I am now without those lonely years.
I definitely wouldn't have read as many books. And I'd never take those back. Maybe that sounds antisocial and weird... but if you haven't gotten that vibe from me yet... well. You never will.
Obviously this has gotten long and rambly. So many thoughts on high school, so little cohesion.
All to say that though I view high school as tremendously unimportant, it was also extremely important. Life-changing, even if I didn't realize it until I was safely away from the lunchroom and a few years removed from its walls.
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