Being a freshman, by definition, means being a student in the first year of high school or college, but it's also defined as being an imbecile novice or simple-minded rookie in a specific area. Freshmen in high school are abused; there is no softer way of saying it. On day one, the upperclassmen destroy these young, excited students' spirit by essentially putting them in their place, which I guess is fair. The very first scare of "Freshmen Friday" puts fear into the heart of us rookies, and this fear and inferiority sticks with us until the next year.
Being a freshmen means putting up with this abuse and more. In all honesty, the maltreatment that freshmen receive is overlooked by the pressure of high school itself. High school comes as a shock to a lot of the students coming in from eighth grade because of how unbelievably different content, teaching systems, and grading systems are in high school. For freshmen, we get used to the verbal abuse and use it as motivation to convince ourselves that we're actually in high school now.
Like I said, Freshmen Friday sets that fear in our heart for months to come, but it's also the first of many methods for freshmen to take a little bit of attention for themselves. As rookies in a new environment, it's crucial to feel at home and important, and ninth graders love the attention. A lot of different grades are known for having different milestones in their high school career. For example, the seniors graduate next year and juniors have SATs. But freshmen's is just the fact that they're freshmen, and we love that! Not many people, upperclassmen especially, get to see how the teasing, shoving, and slander actually give us freshmen the attention we use to motivate ourselves until we're sophomores!
Still, nobody likes being a freshmen. On a personal note, I'm excited to destroy the freshmen's spirit next year, but that's just the problem. No freshmen likes the abuse that they receive the actual year of, but they still feel obligated to taunt the freshmen next year, and the years after that until they're freshmen again in college! It's a cycle of hate, and I'm certain this freshmen class will not be the one to break the cycle because we're bitter about the abuse we faced, and now it's "cool" that we're not freshmen anymore. Basically, we have to give next year's ninth graders our wrath.
High school itself just screws with a lot of people's brains, but being a freshman means something so much more than "adjusting to the high school content," as a math teacher from Northview High School has put it. Being a freshman means adjusting to societal standards of perfection and humility. Freshmen year is supposedly the easiest, but for us freshmen, it's the hardest we've faced. Next year, we'll say the same to the ninth graders: it's the easiest grade in high school, and they'll be confused. I've said it before, freshmen have to live through hell, and it's ridiculously unfair and just should not continue.
Nonetheless, I'm excited to give them all hell next year.
