Looking back at my high school almost a year after graduating, I can’t help but encounter different feelings towards my institution, from nostalgia, to pride and even a bit of neglect. It’s awfully strange going from an environment of strict uniforms, intense courses, short haircuts and no girls to the atmosphere of a college campus.
Obviously, attending a private, all-boys, college-prep, military academy for high school has done wonders to assist me at the next level, but there were also great levels of stress and difficulty that went along with my attendance.
From an outsider’s perspective, there are certainly countless questions and stigmas that surround attending an all-boys, military high school. Considering the fact that not every question can be answered wholly, and the power of every story can’t be truly understood unless you were actually there to experience it, I hope to denounce some of the lowly perceptions and instill a new vantage point for others to better understand what it was really like attending such an institution.
It was the students versus the faculty
Even in the most troubling disputes between particular students, we always came to realize that we were still together in the same place, far beneath the forces of the faculty. Any little thing could have put us in trouble -- and did. We felt the weight of our staff upon us, disturbing our senses of freedom and individuality.
That’s not to say that the faculty was full of bad people (it wasn’t), but I can’t recall a day I attended my high school when we didn’t complain some utterance of resentment towards most of our academic leaders. Because of the amount of stress we were under, we came to rebel even if it was in the most dull, minuscule way possible such as wearing colorful socks instead of the mandatory plain, black, dress socks.
This doesn’t seem like it would be a huge deal (which it honestly isn’t), but these little mutinies were enough to get us into some trouble, and repeated offenses would get us into even larger trouble. No matter what “rebellious” things we did, the faculty always put us in our place, making us yearn for our nine hour class days to be over the moment we entered the building.
Uniforms were more of a perk than anything
Despite having to wear a military uniform twice a week as well as khakis and a tie the other three days with high stakes of getting in trouble for forgetting some piece of our outfits, having uniforms was actually not that bad. Aside from not having to impress anyone and taking only 45 seconds to get dressed every morning, there were some serious perks to wearing our military greens.
Any time after school when I was wearing my uniform, I’d get countless compliments as well as random individuals thanking me for “my service.” Another positive about our military uniforms was that it always seemed to impress the ladies because who doesn’t love a man in uniform?
Every aspect attempted to make us better
Even though the faculty was our enemy, they did everything they could to push us towards success. The reason our classes were so strenuous and the rules so strict weren’t to torture us (at least all the time), but they were there to train us for the difficulties of life and adulthood. Through my four years in high school, I was truly a terrible student with a GPA probably lower than the current gas prices, yet I still benefited immensely. I have no fear of socialization, harsh tests or loud and angry people.
Any pressure that I face I can guarantee I’ve encountered before, and any problem I have is solvable, or at least worth a try. I don’t have any respect for quitting due to my school’s inability to allow such a concept to exist. All in all, my classmates and I have acquired certain skills even if we never expected or wanted to through the habitual training, schooling, and leadership counseling we received.
We were all a bunch of idiots
But we were a bunch of witty, intelligent, aspiring idiots who eventually grew to become true gentlemen by the end of our era. Although while we were still in our era, my classmates and I found subtle (and many not so subtle) ways to “wreak havoc” upon the school’s faculty and staff by goofing around in class and disturbing the peace as well as perfecting sarcasm to dance the line between seemingly serious and brutally harsh.
I can’t imagine how annoying it must have been teaching a class of young gentlemen who couldn’t refrain from ousting phrases majorly related to genitalia. Either way, I still gained an awful sense of humor probably too crude for most people’s tastes and I find many things hilarious that are often considered childish.
It was a brotherhood that I’m proud to have been a part of
This is the part that is hard for outsiders to understand, mostly because it’s a matter of experience. I’ve played many sports throughout the years, and even though I currently label my college football teammates as the peak of my brotherhood, there was just something about my high school in terms of relationships that I haven’t felt so strongly since I’ve graduated. Due to there being no females in attendance, it was easier for us, as students, to gain deeper relationships with one another. Even though I’m not friends with everyone who I graduated with, I am still proud of the fact that I knew everyone by name and could tell you a few things about each individual classmate of mine.
These bonds we built developed over four years of agonizing pressure, tough classes and general annoyance of our school and faculty as a whole. Since we were together in the same institution, we came together with an ability to talk about our lives and problems with no interference or worry from girls and the outside world. Although my classmates and I have since gone off to college and already started changing and moving on, we will always holster the relationships we developed throughout our four years in high school.
We were all still individuals
There was a perception of us that we were all affluent, privileged white males who thrived on “daddy’s money.” The only true piece of this was that we were all males. And yes, it was a privilege to attend this school, but they didn’t allow just any person with lots money in their pocket to attend. There was an entrance exam for middle-schoolers that determined the enrollment of students, and if any child proved themselves intellectually outstanding even without the financial abilities, then scholarships could be granted.
Although we were always dressed the same, had the same haircuts, took the same punishments and were all treated generally the same, I can’t stress the fact enough that we were all still individuals with our own personalities and aspirations.
Throughout my four years in high school, I learned that nobody truly enjoys academics, not even the professors themselves. It’s the community that we all truly loved and came to grow up within. With this growth came a blossoming of majorly different personalities from every single one of my classmates. The school didn’t always let these individualistic colors bleed through, but the changes became more and more apparent through each passing year.
Some guys were into music and others sports, while there were still ladies’ men, geeks, freaks, obnoxious extroverts, quiet introverts, troublemakers, ass-kissers, guys who liked to drink, guys who advocated for peace, guys who enjoyed video gaming and others who did drugs. We were all still human beings with hearts, minds, ideas and aspirations of our own, and many people seem to not realize this.
