High school? It started out bad-ish, but got better. And even at its worst, it was better than senior public school, which was hell. Only grade nine had the bullying and shame that characterized senior public school, but once I no longer had to take gym class after grade nine, that decreased.
I always had plenty of interests, and was mostly in my own world. Art, math, science, languages. Pretty much what I’m interested in now, actually.
My family never had the money to send me on the field trips (every year people went somewhere; one year it was Cuba, another England, another the Canary Islands).
Being unattractive with no social skills, I never had a date, of course; sex was so far beyond possibility that it was simply a frustrating fantasy.
University was better. That was where I made most of my first long-lasting friends.
High school was OK, I guess. I was one of the nerdy smart kids, but I had friends amongst the other nerdy smart kids, so I can’t complain too much. They were a bit surprised when we took our SATs, as everyone had thought I was pretty much the dumbest of the nerdy smart kids. I wasn’t. I didn’t get bullied much because I fought back, no matter what: you could beat me up but I’d still hurt you, and sometimes I’d win. Bad news to get beat in a fight with a nerd. I had more scars and broken teeth than anyone else in the Latin club. Plus, some of the biker dudes thought I was cool*, and they stood with me when some football players were trying to give me some crap.
I dated some, but I’ve always been clueless with women. I was in stuff like the chess club and a/v and the school paper and I wrestled a couple of years.
I was in trouble with my teachers and the administration a lot. When I got called to the principal’s office over the PA one day my senior year, my lit teacher asked me what I’d done this time. I told her I had no idea. She remarked it was difficult to come up with a good excuse without knowing which of my crimes it was; I allowed as how I’d just ad lib. Turned out I had the best test score in the school (a good friend’s little brother beat me the next year, so my glory was short-lived). My lit teacher found it hilarious; the vice-principal in charge of discipline was beside himself.
I’d say it was an average experience, but I can’t imagine willingly repeating it.
*Out of about 3000 kids, I was the only one who rode a bicycle to school. The athletes thought that was something good to pick on, but the bikers decided anyone on two wheels was one of them.
Well, it was 40 years ago. I remember it as mostly good, definitely a great improvement over junior high. At the time I had {what I thought of as) as much fun as was humanly possible, but of course I was wrong. It’s nothing I’d care to repeat, though.
My high school experience was a mess. After I skipped 6th grade, the powers that be decided that instead of just putting me in 7th grade and letting me build a new life there, I was going to take classes with a whole range of grades, from 7th through 10th (I should mention that we had no real junior or senior high, just one big high school from 7th through 12th). And even when I was taking the classes in the same grade, I was put in classes with different “academic groups” within the grade. The upshot was that starting in 7th grade it was rare for me to have more than one class with the same kids, even though those kids had all their classes with the same other kids all day long. This madness continued for the next three years, peaking in 9th grade, where at one point I had a gym class with a group of 8th graders, an “industrial arts class” with the 9th grade near-dropouts, a physics class with the top 12th grade (senior) academic group, and a biology class with the top 11th grade (junior) academic group!
Needless to say, making close friends in that mess was not easy, and I was lucky that our school wasn’t too clique-oriented. I even got a date once, which was more than a lot of kids I knew got. And fortunately by the time I got to my senior class, I was taking almost all of the classes I had left–I’d already met state requirements for math and sciences so I wasn’t taking any of those courses my senior year–with the same group, so I made good friends there.
Then I graduated at age 15 and foolishly enrolled at the biggest university in the state. Unwise move.
Hey, he was f’ing huge compared to me. He was at least 6’ and I was probably 5’2" at the time. If it came to punches I was done. I put the idea in his head that I was willing and able to wait patiently for a chance to fight dirty and from an advantage.
I was the kind of guy that blended into the masses of average (except for having long hair). Played football (started 2 years) without any recognition, helped start a student radio station till I was banned for playing unacceptable music (I liked Led Zeppelin, the principal wanted the Carpenters) and never dated anyone from my school due to a girl friend that lived in another school district. I earned enough credits to gradutate in 2½ years so I took the last half of my senior year off. I had perfect attendance during those 2½ years too. I only had 2 real friends while in high school, one became a religous freak in college and the other became an alcoholic that can’t hold a job, I have seen neither in years. Most of the classes I took have served me well in life. It wasn’t bad, it wasn’t great, the experience was typical for the early 70’s but I wouldn’t want to do it again.
The school I went to for ninth grade, it was terrible. The general position of the administrators there was “Well, every year, there’s one kid who gets picked on by everyone, but by sophomore year, everything always seems to have worked out”. Well, I was that one kid, the “everyone” who picked on me included several members of the faculty (though not all: I will admit that there were a few awesome teachers there), and “everything worked out by sophomore year” by me getting expelled. I couldn’t even get into the good classes, because the administration refused to believe that someone coming out of the public schools could be qualified for them.
For 10th-12th, though, I can’t say enough good about my high school. The administration looked at my entire record and circumstances, and put me in the good classes. I wasn’t picked on any more than anyone else, and fighting was completely unheard-of (there was literally not one single fight between students in my three years there). The clique boundaries were all so blurred that it was hard to find two students in the school who weren’t commom members of some circle or other-- Yeah, you had your jocks and your nerds and your preppies and so on, but the valedictorian was also a starter on the football team, and the chief yearbook illustrator was the star wrestler, and so on.
Both schools were all-male, so romantic prospects were rather slim, but I didn’t really mind that so much at the time. I guess it’s not so bad to not have a girlfriend, when most of your buddies don’t, either.
I was no longer tormented as regularly and in as horrible a fashion as in junior high. I almost sort of fit in, almost felt like I belonged. And liked it, and wanted to. Then when it was driven home just how much I really was not so close to being a part of it all after all, it really hurt.
When I read Carrie, I identified with the title character 500%. If I have to go back and do high school all over again, I insist on the psychokinetics.
High school was fine. It was fun and I enjoyed it but I have to say life is so much better now that there is no way I would ever go back. I had to ask permission to do things and I worked a shitty job at low wages to pay for my shitty car, not to mention having major crushes on all of my male friends.
Now I live in the most awesome place ever and if I want to eat ice cream at 3 a.m. I can do that. If I don’t want to do the dishes tonight they will wait until tomorrow. I can have sex on the kitchen table or go to the beach on the weekend without asking permission or eat Cap’n Crunch for dinner if I feel the desire. Life is significantly better as an adult.
It was okay. There were very few bad parts, and very few terribly exciting parts. If I had to live through 1996-2000 again, it wouldn’t be much of a hardship.
I wonder if the cliqueishness of schools has diminished over time. I graduated HS in 1977. My daughter graduated in 2003. Her experience was nothing like mine. Granted, her school was 10x bigger than mine also.
I was still closeted, had virtually no social life and was socially retarded as a result, had a bunch of dorky hobbies that weren’t particularly fulfilling, was constantly conflicted regarding my sexuality and had torturous crushes on the guys in my school. I also lived in a cesspool of a town in the midwest.
I’m going to say “mostly bad.” My life now is so much better in every single way than it was back then that you can’t even really compare the two.
I, too, have a mother who doesn’t understand this at all, because “High school is the best time of your life!”
I would jump off a cliff rather than be forced to repeat it.
I hated high school and would never go back - but if you asked me to point to anything specific externally, I couldn’t single out any one big tragedy. Things were basically fine, but I always *felt *like an outsider, and, more importantly, simply like I was not, I dunno, not *myself *yet.
Now, here I am, in my 40’s, and I feel much more like “ah, *this *is who I am” and if I contemplate the thought of going back to high school it freaks me out.
High School was good. I was a band geek, but comfortable with it, and no one gave me a hard time. I had a steady girl for awhile, and when that went south, there were others; I didn’t count them in the dozens, but I wasn’t lacking. Best of all I had some good friends, two of which I still keep in touch with.
No drugs or ETOH, that wasn’t our scene. We were geeks that took calculus and AP Biology, but we still had fun.
Now junior high? worst 3 years of my life…
Mostly bad, but not utterly hellish in the way that junior high was, and it got better over time. I might be willing to live senior year over again if I could do it with the benefit of hindsight and the handful of additional social skills I’ve acquired in adult life. Freshman year, not so much.
My experience was unremarkable. I did well, more due to a good memory and good test instincts than anything else. Though I did not have “cool” hobbies and interests, I had an enormous mouth so I never really got picked on. I was far too immature to date and did not enjoy drinking. I had friends and was no outcast, but these friendships were not really deep. I just tried to hold my tongue when I could and marked time until college.
The only thing I truly miss about high school was music. I used to play in several competitive orchestras. Music is still a big part of my life, but there is absolutely no substitute for the moment the conductor raises his baton and everyone in the ensemble takes a deep breath and readies their instruments to begin. Everything else I could do without, but this I truly loved and would give almost anything to do it again.