As I take in these last few weeks of summer before college move-in day, I have come to the conclusion that I have a lot to say. Though it is true that some things are better left unsaid, I have found almost a burning need to give my final farewell to high school.
Some may argue that graduation was the official exit from high school. I disagree; many people graduate from high school, but not everyone who graduates actually leaves it.
And it’s a hard thing to do-- to leave the place that had become your entire life for four whole years. High school consumes every moment of your existence, dictates your friend groups, controls what level of “potential” the rest of the world sees in you, and leaves you feeling as if this perfect bubble of adolescence could never pop.
But this is not the true high school that many of us know.
Because, in all honesty, high school was not “perfect.” I have spent three months waking up every day knowing that I will not be returning to high school. Never in my life, have I experienced such a positive, healthy, and generally content mindset than I have in these past three months.
The high school I left behind was cruel.
I left behind an administration that only cared about funding. To them, students were unripen fruits that they had to squeeze and maul in order to secure their next paycheck. They were the weavers of chaos-- a governing body that would openly admit to blaming an innocent student for cutting computer wires in the German room, because they were unable to actually catch the culprit. They were the ones who threatened to take away my right to speak as one of the graduating valedictorians because I catered my speech to my classmates, calling me the day of graduation to scream at me over the phone. (These are not exaggerations, by the way). The administration was “fun” and “supportive” when it came to sports and pep-rallies, but soon even the sports teams’ existence was threatened as funding was cut more and more.
Their solution was to change testing and cell phone policy three times in one academic year, and to enforce stricter class rules while our Department of Education refused to set a budget until March the following year.
I left behind teachers that couldn’t be bothered. A lot of them, though they meant well, would not stand up to their dictators. Many stood at the front of their classes, criticizing and berating minimum wage workers as scum, idiots, slugs of society. They blamed their cut salaries on the high schooler trying to balance her G.P.A. and extracurricular while she placed their Big Mac order into the register. Instead of challenging the administration, they whined and moaned to their superiors that the students simply didn’t “care enough” and they “were just too lazy to learn anything.”
Their solution was to assign more homework to prepare the students for state exams.
I left behind teachers that were too bothered. Ones that wordlessly handed the administration hundreds of dollars from their paycheck to pay for a class field trip. (Again, not exaggerating. We love you, Ms. Dillon).
There were teachers that encouraged kids to think for themselves, to question their authorities, and to be selfish about their education. Instead of taking away cell phones, they encouraged students to participate in trivia games online and to answer surveys to gauge the success of their teaching methods-- to find out how the students preferred to learn.
Their solution was to try harder. Even in a system that failed both themselves and their students.
Most importantly, I left behind the System. A cog in the ever-running machine, I had been granted freedom-- a piece of old machinery discarded in favor of a new upgrade for the 2016-2017 school year.
This system had me suicidal at age fifteen. I questioned whether it would be easier to let my academic standing suffer, to keep fighting, or to die. There were moments when my isolation was so strong, I did not talk to anyone for weeks. I spent nights finishing homework until four in the morning, and then the next day in the emergency room because of exhaustion.
This system told me and every other student that they would never be good enough until they could conform. It prepared me for a job market that stopped existing years ago-- killing all sense of innovation and creativity and instead making us wish that we were dead.
It taught me that numbers defined my worth, not my abilities. My S.A.T. and A.C.T. and Keystones didn’t care that I was extremely well-spoken and able with oral presentations. It didn’t matter that I had won awards for creative writing and art, or that one of my closest friends had won “Best Team Leadership” for the past three years on her soccer team.
The system was not put in place to educate, but to control.
I have spent the past four years hating myself; I was angry at a force that I could not name. I watched my peers struggle alongside me. I watched my friends kill themselves- if not through direct death than through substance abuse and poor decisions; not because of peer pressure, but because of the things I am leaving behind.
Because of the high school experience-- the “best four years of your life.”
To high school, I say farewell. I will not miss you. I will not grieve for the memories and the moments that I enjoyed. I will never wish that I could go back. I have survived, and I am not the person I was three months ago. I have made it to the other side.
To the students, both current and upcoming, you are the future. This bubble of acid and self-hate will pop. You will leave them behind. You are not them.
We will be better and accomplish more than anything high school could have ever offered us.
.
