While reading Catcher in the Rye, we're going to be thinking
about coming-of-age (the bildungsroman genre) and what that means for us
in two interrelated ways: how we move from innocence to experience, and
how we begin to construct a public self out of our private self. One
may argue that Holden has difficulty expressing his the shape of his
private self in social situations: his inner logic becomes distorted
when expressed publicly.
As a first step down this road,
try writing (in the comment section below) about something you became
aware of as you became mature, which you felt very differently about
when you were younger. This could be a reality in the world that you
are now aware of and having feelings about, or a part of your experience
in life for which your feelings have changed considerably over the
years. Try your best to be as clear as you can about how your private
self handled this new awareness.
When I was younger, I could not stand watching golf on television. However, in the past three years, my mind has changed and I now thoroughly enjoy watching golf. As a younger child, I could not stand watching golf, and like many people I viewed golf as a boring sport to watch. Three years ago, I began to play golf and also began to enjoy watching the professionals play in tournaments. By gaining an understanding of how the game is played, I realized how outstanding the professionals were playing the sport. With an interest in the game, watching the game being played seemed to be the natural thing to do. Currently, I truly enjoy watching the major golf tournaments each year, and I watch them religiously just as I and many other sports fans do for the more popular sports. This change in my attitude towards watching golf occurred after I had personal experience playing the sport. I believe one can only fully enjoy an activity once he or she has firsthand experience and knowledge of the activity. As the years pass by, one has had more time to experience the many different aspects of life. With all these experiences amounting together, one can have a knowledge of many more of life's parts than when they were younger. Being an older person usually relates to having more experience in life. As one grows older, he or she gains a more through understanding of life and can appreciate all they know of it.
ReplyDeleteWhen i was younger, i used to love country and other really mellow types of music. I learned to play violin, but at first didn't have interests in learning anything but basic classical. Then one day i watched a man change a group of young kids into a band of rock gods, showing how there is so much more than staying mellow. That man showed how being a little rebellious, breaking the stereotypes and being my own man could change my life. He introduced to me a whole new life- a life molded by cultural pioneers like Led Zeppelin and Jimmy Hendrix. I wanted that life. I Eventually stopped playing violin and picked up a guitar, learning the classics and dreaming of being part of a group of elite rockers who changed the world. That man was Jack Black, in School of Rock, the movie that not only changed my life, but gave me something to live for.
ReplyDeleteWhen I was younger I believed that all my problems could be solved by talking to my mother. She was like some sort of all knowing woman and I trusted her with my whole life. So whenever I had a problem I would just talk to my mom and she would always have a solution, no matter what the problem was. Whether I was stressing out about a test or fighting with a friend, my mom always knew all the right answers. As I got older I realized that unfortunately my mother could not solve all my problems. There was no longer just one problem to any of my issues so there was also no longer one solution. When I confronted her with issues I was able to talk them out, but never really got a solution. Eventually I just had to stop going to her for my problems because she was no longer any help. She didn't understand my problems any more and saying sorry no longer magically fixed everything. My problems were far more complex than that. Also, some of my problems were personal and I felt that I no longer was able to share everything with her like I used to. I’m still very close to my mother, but it’s hard not to feel like she just doesn’t understand anymore. It was a difficult truth to learn, but I adapted to it and now I am better at working out my problems than I was as a child.
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ReplyDeleteAs I have grown, i have become aware of many thing that have changed from my childhood. I had entered my young adult years and realized i have to fend for myself a majority of the time. When I was younger issues and problems were easier to handle. My parents always had a solution to what was wrong but now i realize, my issues now are more difficult for them to resolve. However, I have to figure things out for myself when i mess up something or make a mistake. It is all a part of getting older. Also, being a kid, i learned from different people than i do now. Back then, I learned my greatest lessons from my parents, family, and my teachers. They made present to me the basic things I needed to know in life and would answer my questions such as "why the sky was blue". Now, I learn more from my friends, than my teachers and parents. From them, I can grow as an individual and discuss things with them that I would not with others. As i get older, i also realize making and keeping friends is no one elses responsibility than my own. When being a kid, your parents would sceduale "play dates" and sort of make your friends for you. Going into your more mature years you must do this yourself and keep the friends that are worth keeping. The responsibility is put on you to judge your decisions.
ReplyDeleteOver the years my thoughts and feelings towards certain things have greatly changed. As a child I had not experienced many things so my thoughts on things were different and in some circumstances I didn't have an opinion about something at all. One of the biggest changes I have experienced growing up is my outlook on other people. As a child I didn't know any better then to like everyone, this wasn't very hard then because there's not a lot any other little kid could do to make you not like them or to make your think they're not a good person. As I began growing up I have began to see how people truly are and how they behave and interact with others. Over the years I've noticed that people aren't the same as I thought they were when I was 7. I have noticed great changes not only in their personality but also in their actions. Some of my closest childhood friends have turned out to be very mean people that make terrible decisions and as a kid I never really thought about any of that. At first personally I felt very uneasy about this because it made no sense to me why people would change to become a worse person (in some cases better of course) and I told myself to still be kind to these people but I eventually realized it was not worth it. In my head as a kid I thought everything was happy and there were no bad people and that I would always be friends with everyone because they were good people but growing up I can see how much that changed.
ReplyDeleteWhen I was younger, I just wanted to become older. I thought when I would grow up, everything would be easier, I would have a lot more freedom, and I just plainly believed that life will become more fun. I used to look at the kids older than me, and used to think how lucky they were. I could not have been more wrong. I realized, as a person matures and gets older, more responsibilities, pressure, and work is put on them. You have to have peer pressure in school. You have to work immensely to get a good job. You get tons of homework each night and lose sleep. From that point, you have to keep on working and keep on going. At first, when you were younger, you had some work, but then again, you had some fun. Now, however, everything has changed. You have to set your mind only to work. Having fun becomes getting more sleep. Simply, life is equal to work and more work as you get older. However, now that I am used to this kind of lifestyle, it has become easier. I figure that if I work hard now, it will be better for the future. With this thought, it has brought me a long way. As a person matures, they are revealed to things unexpected and that they did not know about when they were younger, or more innocent. However, at time passes, and a person does reach a point where they do have a lot more experience, they get adapted, and know how to handle the situation better.
ReplyDeleteWhen I was younger I used to think that the most important thing in life was fitting in. Everybody wore all the same type of cloths and we all followed whatever trend was going on at that time. Nobody tried or wanted to be different because if you were then you would have been considered weird and an outcast just for trying something that no one else would. This includes anything, such as TV shows, clothes, toys, music etc. All most wanted kids was to have a large amount of friends and be popular. That was always my goal, I didn’t care about school or extracurricular activities as must as my social life . Now as a grow up I realize that everybody wants to be different. Now being different means being an interesting person. Everyone wants to be the first at everything whether it be clothes, music, or whatever is interesting. We all want to start the trend and be as different as possible from everyone else. But I don’t believe that either of these are the right way to live your life. You should not try to do what will make people think better of you, do what you want and what makes you happy. Don’t try to be something you're not because someone else thinks that it is cool or don’t try to be so different because that is what's “in” right now. I now realize that this is the way to live and if everybody thought this way then the world would be a much better place.
ReplyDeleteParents, teachers, and other adult figures constantly encourage younger children that they can achieve anything if they try hard enough. This creates the child to have a mindset of never-ending imagination regarding their future. As a child this is a common but critical thing to have. At such a young age, president, living on Jupiter, talking to cats, such things were everything but unachievable. And in a matter of time, reality comes with maturity, and maturity comes with age. When I was little, I knew that I would cure cancer. I knew that I would become president and I knew that I was going to bring peace and that I was going to solve every problem. If a small child said this to an older man, he would smile and think it was cute. If a man well over his years tells this to another, the friend will think that he couldn’t possibly do one or all of those things. And he is right, no matter how much the truth hurts. Being realistic is the only option for adults, something too big for a child to grasp. Children believe everything they come up with, everything they are told, as they should. But as I, and every other child will eventually do, have grown and found that to get what I want, I have to work for it. And to be completely honest, I wish I could be the one that could still dream big even if it is, in society’s terms, impossible.
ReplyDeleteAs a child I often trusted the world. I believed that the world and those in it could be trusted, however as I grew older this was not the case. After this realization dawned on me my perception of the world changed. As a child I would often believe what others told me. In my blissful ignorance I trusted those around me and believed what was said. At the age of six I was able to realize that this was not the case. As an imbecilic six year old my only option was to throw a tantrum in hopes of changing the situation to conform to what was said. I soon found out that this was not an option. As I grew older I realized that people often say things but they don’t follow through. This led me to doubt people and read between what someone said. This realization also led me to depend on myself and not those around me. As I matured I soon noticed that people did this because it was almost second nature to them. People say things that they feel someone else will want to hear even if they have no intention of following through. This is a natural fault among humans that they may not even realize.
ReplyDeleteWhen I was younger I always wanted to grow up and be one of the older kids in high school. I never realized all the responsibilities teenagers have and all the things they're expected to do. For example getting a job, hours of homework, car insurance, gas money, etc. Now that I am at this age I want to be young again. When I was younger I viewed a teenager as someone who was always having fun, hanging out with friends, and having freedom. Although I can still do those things and enjoy myself, it’s not nearly as easy and fun as I thought it would be. I feel that all kids view growing up differently but most want to be older at such a young age. Young kids don’t think about the responsibilities you take on as you grow up. The older you get the more people expect out of you. When I think about it now I know that being a younger kids was so much nicer and if I could make a decision to be a young kid or a teenager I would definitely choose to be a young kid forever. As a young child I predicted growing up as the best thing that could happen to me until now that I realize what it really means.
ReplyDeleteWhen I was younger I truly believed that all people were genuinely good and no one would ever do something to hurt me. Since I believed this I always thought I could trust everyone and I did. I don’t know what age exactly you stop trusting people, but it probably happens sometime in elementary school. When your best friend tells your crush you like him or you find out you weren’t invited to that party that everyone went to. At some point in your life you realize that people are not always concerned about how things make you feel, and not everyone is trustworthy. Realizing that some people deliberately break your trust knowing it will hurt you, is a hard lesson to learn. I think most of us react to learning this lesson in the same way: we start to shut people out. Trusting people becomes not an automatic thing, but something that is acquired over time and even then sometimes it’s hard to trust people. We start to be cautious about trusting people and become more inverted because of it. I think the older you get the more and more you realize that even when you think someone has only good intentions and that you can really trust someone, you never really know. It’s much different than when I was younger and was naive enough to believe that people would always do the right thing. An even scarier thing that is related to this lesson is when you break someone’s trust or hurt a friend for the first time. It’s scary to realize that you are not perfect and you sometimes hurt the people you care about or tell other people’s secrets. As I got older I tried harder and harder to be someone that other people could rely on. My feelings about trusting people and having other people trust me, have changed considerably since I was younger.
ReplyDeleteWhen I was very young I was never okay with the idea of telling lies or disobeying my parents authority. I was afraid while growing up that my parents would become so angry if I didn't do exactly what they wanted me to and they would punish me forever. As I've aged and became more mature i've become comfortable with telling my parents small lies about what i'm doing or telling them exactly every single small detail to do with my life. Maturing on this idea was very important because telling my parents every single detail of my life now would make them worry. But, when I was younger there was nothing to hide from my parents because they were apart of every aspect of my life. Even though the idea of lying to my parents has never been completely fine with me and I always get a guilty conscience when doing so, but now being 16 years old the idea of hiding things from my parents is a lot more comfortable with me now than it used to be. I feel as if this happens to people on most occasions while growing up. The thought of doing something so awful like hiding something from your parents or telling a small white lie is terribly scary to most. But, as you mature the idea becomes more comfortable with you and the innocence of the idea starts to fade.
ReplyDeleteWhen I was younger, I had always believed the world was such a calm place filled with love and happiness. Back then it seemed my only worries were who was going to go on the swings first and to stay on Santa’s nice list. Everyday was filled with fun and new adventures. My parents made sure that I was out having fun and not watching gruesome and horrid shows on t.v. As I started to grow older I realized that the world was not such a carefree world as I thought it was. I started to worry about fitting in at school and buying the right clothes and looking a certain way. I also learned that everyone is not as nice as them may seem. As soon as you show some confidence in yourself there will always be someone their waiting to knock you down. I began to hear people saying hurtful things to one another and getting in fights over what now seem like the stupidest things. Now at this age I have learned to not so much worry about what people think and to just be you. Act how you want to act, look how you want to look, and of course there are still going to be those same people there waiting to knock you down but you just have to shake it off and move on. It’s not so much about fitting in that I worry about now, it’s about my future. When I was little I only thought about what I wanted to be when I grew up which was usually a veterinarian or a teacher. I never thought about finding out the right college and job or all the stress that comes with loans and other money issues. It seems that is all I worry about now is being successful. My dream is to live in a nice house and have a job I enjoy along with a family someday, but everyday I’m worried about not working hard enough in school and making the wrong decisions. On top of that all the chaos and wars that are going on in the world and the bad economy and debt that I see my parents stressing about. When I was younger I had never realized all the bad in the world and it’s a good thing I didn’t. It seems as all I want now is to go back to those carefree days of having fun and enjoying life.
ReplyDeleteMany of the feelings I've had in the past, I have come to view differently as I mature. One view that has changed much over the many years of my life relates to the false pretense of “best friends forever.” We all have that one friend, or that group of friends what you tell everything to, share everything with and do everything with- your BFF, best friends forever. When you’re young you really do believe forever means forever. When you find that friend who you do everything with, it seems you can't imagine life without them. As young kids there is not much that can interfere with a friendship. There are no complications, no drama, no backstabbing, no he-said-she-said. Everything comes easy and everyone is happy. as you get older, people change, people grow and sometimes even the closest of friends simply just grow apart. There is no reason other than the different paths people take. Other times that BFF changes into someone you would never expect them to become. Someone who you have no desire to keep in your life. As I have grown older I have lost friends I had vowed to be close to forever for whatever the reason may have been. Although throughout the years I have gained many friends who I could only hope to have in my life “forever”.
ReplyDeleteWhen I was younger I always thought that growing up and becoming an adult would be so much fun. While I do enjoy my teenage years it is a lot harder than I ever could have imagined when I was younger. When I was young I thought that being a grown up was the best thing that could happen because they could do so much more than a child could. I always thought adults has so much freedom and they were always having fun. For example, in preschool I would always hate nap time because I never wanted to sleep and the older kids didn’t have nap time and I wanted to be older and just like them. But today I would love to go back and have a nap time. Now that I am older I have realized there is so much more responsibility than just having fun and more freedom. Getting older comes with tasks like having to write long essays, having a job, saving money, applying to college, figuring out who you are and what you want to be along with everyone expecting more of you because you are older. Life as a child was so easy, you had your parents to do everything for you, and you had no worry in the world. As a child I was always happy and nothing could bring me down, life was full of fun and playing and seeing the world from a different perspective. Most children always talk about how they want to grow up and be older, but they have yet to realize that getting older comes with more responsibilities and higher expectations.
ReplyDeleteWhen I was younger my perspective on life was much different. I used to think getting older was a great thing and couldn't wait to have freedom. I thought that I would be able to do whatever I want and live my own life. Although I now have more freedom, I have much more responsibility. I used to believe that sixteen was some magical age where I would be able to drive and do whatever I want whenever I wanted to. I couldn't have been more wrong. Although I can now drive, which is an amazing freedom, there are a lot of added responsibilities I didn't expect. My parents constantly pressure me to drive carefully, follow the rules, and do every one of their errands for them. When I was younger I also thought that getting a job would be the coolest thing in the world. Now that I'm older I realize that is not the case. Working can very time consuming and stressful. It's certainly not glamorous like I expected. Getting older is something that I imagined to be very fun. As a child I was always so envious of older kids, but the only thing that kept me sane was knowing that I would one day be like them. Now that I am the age that I so desperately wanted to be, I realize that its not all that it's cracked up to be. Balancing homework, school, friends and extracurricular activities is something that I think everyone could use a little more help with. As a child I thought everyone had their life together by this point. I now know that this is not the case. It's sad to think that I'm not the person I wanted to be at this point in my life, but its comforting to know that many other people feel this way too. As a child you tend to idealize the world and be a bit delusional. Now that I'm getting older I feel I have a bit more perspective. As a child I thought that becoming a teenager would be the best thing in the world. Now I know that its stressful balancing life and taking on new responsibilities all while trying to discover who you are as a person.
ReplyDeleteWith many things we grow up and realize we have different views about them because now we have a better understanding about them. One example is we all really liked school, we liked going and we thought it was easy and fun. Then we grow up and we don't want to wake up at 6 in the morning to go there, it's not as fun as we once thought it was. The work got harder and we struggle under all the pressures that school comes with now, we realize that it means a lot more then it did to us when we were younger. Getting good grades and doing well now means we go to college and get a good job, back when we were younger we didn't know what school was really for, we thought it was just a place where we could make friends and play games. Growing up we realize we have to take more responsibilities for the things we do, its not just fun and games anymore everything we do reflects back on to us. We took being a kid for granted, no worries, no cares, just fun times. Another example is we always had a bedtime that was pretty earlier, no kids wanted to go to sleep early or sleep at all, now sleeping is what most people crave for now. But again most of us now are up late working on homework assignments because its better for our future then sleeping is, no matter how much we would rather sleep. Growing up really gives us the big picture, we realize that we have to work hard to get the things we want and that some things can't just magically get fixed.
ReplyDeleteWhen I was younger, my family always told me not to judge a book by its cover. Everyone deserves a chance and you can’t just assume things about anyone by simply looking at them and prematurely judging them. I thought they were crazy at the time and then time and time again I would assume things about people that wound up being the truth. It seemed as though what they had attempted to instill upon me was completely wrong. As I got older, I met a wider variety of people. Middle school came and I met a lot of new people my age. Everywhere I looked there were mostly new faces. I was nervous. How do I interact with these individuals? I assumed what people’s identities were and looked for similarities and fairly quickly found a good group of people who I spent my time with. As I came into high school I thought nothing changed. But by now I had noticed the people around me had all changed, as had I. The people who I used to think were weird were now in my classes and I got to know them. I came to the conclusion that everyone has their own interesting hobbies. The people you may think are unproductive to society or very different in almost every way, can still help society out in one way or another. As my friend phrases it; the world needs ditch diggers too. I've come to learn that everyone’s weird, so in reality no one is. Imagine a boring place where everyone was similar and did the same stuff. It’d be terrible. As a society, adversity is what drives us to excel. Without it, we’d be weak. So as my parents said and thousands of other people, don’t judge a book by its cover.
ReplyDeleteWhen I was younger I hated books, but over the past years that has pleasantly changed. My whole family is filled with book-worms and everyone would always give me a new book they just read and i would just think oh great another book that I get for my birthday. Books were always seen for me as a chore or a drag and I couldn't stand them. Probably one of the main reasons I hated them so much was I actually, believe it or not, had a really hard time reading as a kid. I found reading out loud especially hard and even got embarrassed. Now that I am older though I found that reading is so inviting. I would pick a good book over a movie any day and become completely invested and consumed by a book. I become so into a book that I won't even talk to people for days and i would just read for hours and hours from morning to night and then I would be done and I wouldn't know what to do with myself after that. Reading books has become a great thing that I have learned to love that I really didn't enjoy when I was younger.
ReplyDeleteMy views on certain things in life in the past have changed as time went on and I matured. For example, back when I was younger, I was uneducated about the concepts of life. I didn't really understand anything like most other children. I was just mainly focused on having fun and eating lots of yummy, junk foods and doing dangerous things and such. Now, I am more responsible of my life, my health and my safety. I now realize the importance of it all and am much more careful with the awareness that I have gained over the years. Now, I do my best to stay out of trouble, eat healthy, and still have fun while taking into consideration all the potential consequences. Now I know of all the worries that adults have that children don't have. There's so much more to life than what I thought there was as an adolescent. Having knowledge of the world and all that inhabits it is what I have learned through the past years.
ReplyDeleteFor as long as I can remember, I have been afraid of death. As a child I had consistent dreams of either myself or my family members dying. I also had extreme separation issues. After a while my fear started fading a bit. I no longer worried about death as much as I had in the past. However, this only lasted for a little while. It felt like as soon as it started, it ended. July 23, 2009 changed my life forever. On this day my neighbor and close friend JJ Nicastro died. My past suddenly came back to me. While I didn’t have the dreams as much, I became afraid of the world around me. The separation issues returned and I felt confused and betrayed. Also, I became terrified to turn twelve. The reason for this terror was because JJ died when he was twelve. I was nine and with every year that got me closer to the age of twelve came more fear. I felt like when I turned twelve something like this would happen to me. Another fear that surfaced was that of hospitals. For a while I lost trust of hospitals. I felt like if you went to the hospital no matter how small something was you would most likely end up dying or become severely damaged. This way of thinking lasted a few years. During the summer before I turned thirteen years old, I broke my ankle. When I learned that I was going to have to go to the hospital and that I was going to have to have surgery to fix my ankle, I panicked. I started to freak out. I remember right before I was about to have surgery and while they were preparing to give me anestesia I kept acting like I wouldn’t see my family again. My family kept assuring me that everything would be fine but I just felt like based on past events things could get complicated. I woke up though and everything was fine. While it was terrible that I broke my ankle, it was something that I needed to go through in a way. Before this, I barely had any trust for hospitals and would do anything possible to avoid them if need be. After this I learned that they really are there to help you and that in most cases they do. Also, with JJ’s death and others in my family I have grown to be a better person. JJ’s death helped me realize that life isn’t forever. Ever since his death and some others in my family I can’t leave a situation without leaving things on good terms at the least. I know that even though it most likely wouldn’t be, whatever I say or do could be the last thing I say to someone. I take all this into consideration when making decisions or dealing with situations. I also learned that instead of being afraid of getting older, I should appreciate life and the new year of opportunities and time that a lot of people don’t get. In addition my values changed and became deeper. JJ’s death had a lasting impact on me and always will.
ReplyDeleteWhen I was younger, I used to believe that everyone was nice and out to help me in the world. I believed that there was no evil in the world, and that everyone was working towards the betterment of society. As I aged, I learned that this was in no way true, I realized that there is far more evil in the world than there is good. I now know that there are only a handful of these people in comparison to the ones that are working in life towards improving only their lives. I now know that most people are trying to strike it rich, and they do not care how many people they bring down in the process, they are willing to scratch and claw their way to the top, and they do not care about the people they bring down. I learned in a short period of time, that the world is not all sunshine and rainbows, and that it is a place filled with corruption, cheating, and liars.
ReplyDeleteWhen I was younger I used to think my dreams were going to be easy to reach. I had a very open mind and I thought that I could do whatever I wanted. As I get older, my dreams of being on Broadway or becoming a professional dancer have slowly slipped away. Life gets more competitive and you learn that someone is always going to be better than you. I have started to doubt myself more as I get older. I was way more confident when I was younger because I didn’t know about anything in the real world. I only knew what was told to me. Now I have multiple resources and I have had more experience in the world. I am not saying it is impossible to reach your goals, but in reality you start to understand that it is harder than it looks to do what you want in life. For me, I had pretty unrealistic dreams as a kid and I was almost positive that I would pursue each and every one of them. Things obviously change as you grow up and you have to make adjustments to your everyday life. I still have big dreams, but they are put into perspective and I can make them more realistic now that I am older.
ReplyDeleteMost people are afraid of the dark as children, but I was in reverse. Instead of growing up to see that the dark was empty, my fears and experiences growing up have made me as afraid of the dark as my eight year old, baby brother. I have a lamp at the end of my bed on a nightstand and a lamp next to my bed dresser, they have flower print shades. I have a light at the end of my bed separated into three bulbs, two are as bright as my flower shade lamps but one is a dim nightlight. A little candle nightlight lays within reach of me and there is a flashlight under my bed from the gas station. I keep my closet door closed, because sometimes I see the silhouette of a man in my closet in the wee hours of the morning. I guess you can say I'm afraid my nightmares are going to follow me to consciousness.
ReplyDeleteAs you start life as an infant your not really sure of what anything is. As you get older you learn how to walk and talk and manners and all sorts of stuff. But for me the one thing that I learned as I matured that I felt differently about as I got older is soccer. When I was young I used to love to play baseball. And the only sport I ever used to watch on tv was football. But when I reached 10 years old my mom got me into playing soccer. And from that moment on soccer became a part of me. Even though I still only watched football on tv I would play soccer for hours on end. It wasn’t until I reached highschool that I really started to watch soccer, study soccer, and be soccer. Ever since my freshmen year my life has revolved completely around soccer. Also I have grown as a player very much. I now play year round on 3 different teams and have a very good possibility of taking my game to the next levels. (college, pro)
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ReplyDeleteWhen you are a child, adults always tell you that if you do something wrong, then you are going to be punished for it. So, you go through your childhood always being afraid of getting in trouble, which sometimes doesn’t always stop you from doing whatever it is you were planning on doing, but you are still worried about the repercussions. Then, once you get into the later years of elementary school, maybe abut second grade, you start to realize that sometimes you are going to be punished for things other people are doing. For example, the classic situation of, a small group of kids in the back of the classroom are talking, and the teacher has to stop everything to tell the whole class to put their heads on their desks, and not talk. Even if you were sitting quietly, listening to the teacher, your class time still gets disrupted and you feel like you did something wrong. Then, in middle school, it gets worse. You get those kids that repeatedly trash the bathrooms or start fights outside, which cause a grade wide, or sometimes even school wide, assembly on proper behavior and bullying. These assemblies are, of course, completely useless because, the majority of the kids in auditorium during the assembly, have never broken any school rules, have never gotten a detention or were not even involved in the situation being discussed. There is also the issue of, for example, the seventh grade bathrooms were trashed, so the whole seventh grade class gets a talking to, when really it was actually a bunch of jerk, 6th graders. Then, high school comes along, and I have found this situation is still an issue, but is handled in a very different way. You could get in trouble for something someone else did, or be harassed by some obnoxious kid who has nothing else to do, and the only thing you can do is ignore it, because either a) you have better things to do and don’t really care enough about what they are saying to get anything done about it, or b) every time you try to get something done about it, the most that happens is that person gets a one day suspension (depending on how bad the situation is) and then is back the next day to do it all over again. The one part of this that really has affected me is when it happens between teachers and students. There are plenty of times where a student feels like they are not being treated with the right kind of respect, or that their teacher isn’t doing all they could be to increase their educational experience, but they have to let it go, because they are the student and if they say the things they would want to say, they will get a detention. Now, obviously this is not the case all the time, with every teacher, and not just high school teachers but, I have found as you get older, you sometimes just have to let things go, even if you feel it’s wrong, just because of a hierarchy.
ReplyDeleteWhen I was younger, I thought that school was the best part of the day because I get to learn new things. For example: counting numbers, new words, etc… But my views about school started changing as I get into high school. It’s not like kindergarten anymore, high school is more difficult and I didn’t like it at all. Everyday is very stressful to me because we had homework every single day and it’s hard to balance school work when I have extracurricular activities after school. Also, I have to practice piano every single day, so it’s very hard to balance those activities when I have so much homework to do. When I came home I was always tired and wanted to sleep right after and not do any homework. If I wanted to achieve my dreams I have to work hard every single day. I usually stay up til 3 A.M to finish homework and get at least an hour of sleep. Sometimes i just want to go back to those kindergarten time so I don’t have to do any homework. My views about school changed a lot since I was a little girl, who used to love school so much.
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