Luciana
Skeptical Carioca
Everytime I hear Americans describing their high school, almost invariably I hear things like "competitiveness", "cliques", "popularity contests". And I keep wondering what they mean, or at least to what extent those things happen?
Of course my school had their share of bullies, but it rarely got physical. It was verbal abuse, mostly. The worst that happened (and it was bad!), was kids hiding each other's books and other material. So the poor kid would leave for break and somebody else would get his pencil case and hide it right before drawing lesson. So the poor kid looked stumped at not finding it, the teacher would notice, the kid would start to look around with everybody laughing. Worse was when the boys would pass around the kid's book, and leave him in the middle making a full of himself and having to beg.
Competitiveness regarding grades? Exams would be handed to the kid and no one else saw it. Some kids would compare grades themselves, but most did not care. At worst it could be mocking material, like the boy who was the teacher's pet and yet got a very low grade. Verbal abuse would ensue.
Sports... we had the option of doing physical exercise and not team games. So the scrawny boys and distracted ladies could do those and not get teased for being incompetent. I was one of those. Balls, for me, are entirely meaningless, why should I hit them in any way? I know team sports are mandatory in some schools, inwhich case they have an "advanced" team and others for everybody else. I don't remember being a matter of life and death to anyone to participate in those.
"Being cool" involved being good-looking or sharp-witted, having cool stuff and getting invited to all parties. But even then there was not this "caste" system I understand there is in the US. People had their closest friends, two, three, four, they were not identified as part of a "clique" as in goths, jocks, etc.
Bear in mind that we all wear uniforms, so if you were "goth" or "grunge" you could at most play with accessories. I believe it downplayed the importance of appearance a little, because even the poorest kid could look fine, and the richest kid could never look very rich. So at least the cliques lost a lot of its "visual" side.
So am I having the right impression? Is that level of competitiveness in US schools desirable, do you think it could be positive for the formation of an individual? And why is that so?
Of course my school had their share of bullies, but it rarely got physical. It was verbal abuse, mostly. The worst that happened (and it was bad!), was kids hiding each other's books and other material. So the poor kid would leave for break and somebody else would get his pencil case and hide it right before drawing lesson. So the poor kid looked stumped at not finding it, the teacher would notice, the kid would start to look around with everybody laughing. Worse was when the boys would pass around the kid's book, and leave him in the middle making a full of himself and having to beg.
Competitiveness regarding grades? Exams would be handed to the kid and no one else saw it. Some kids would compare grades themselves, but most did not care. At worst it could be mocking material, like the boy who was the teacher's pet and yet got a very low grade. Verbal abuse would ensue.
Sports... we had the option of doing physical exercise and not team games. So the scrawny boys and distracted ladies could do those and not get teased for being incompetent. I was one of those. Balls, for me, are entirely meaningless, why should I hit them in any way? I know team sports are mandatory in some schools, inwhich case they have an "advanced" team and others for everybody else. I don't remember being a matter of life and death to anyone to participate in those.
"Being cool" involved being good-looking or sharp-witted, having cool stuff and getting invited to all parties. But even then there was not this "caste" system I understand there is in the US. People had their closest friends, two, three, four, they were not identified as part of a "clique" as in goths, jocks, etc.
Bear in mind that we all wear uniforms, so if you were "goth" or "grunge" you could at most play with accessories. I believe it downplayed the importance of appearance a little, because even the poorest kid could look fine, and the richest kid could never look very rich. So at least the cliques lost a lot of its "visual" side.
So am I having the right impression? Is that level of competitiveness in US schools desirable, do you think it could be positive for the formation of an individual? And why is that so?
