School Cliques

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School Cliques

The sounds of laughter and excitement ring throughout the playground on a bright, sunny, typical day for elementary school students-classes, recess, and hurt feelings from the “popular” girls in the class, because they called another fellow student’s clothes ugly. What gives these girls the privilege to destroy another person’s feelings and self esteem belongs to one word: cliques. This word can bring fun, joy, and happiness, or sadness, low self esteem, and depression in students of all ages. A clique is a formation of people, sort of like an army, a leader, and followers. The problem with cliques is that they promote fun and excitement when deep down it also destroys the followers and the bystanders. A clique may seem cool, but a person can survive without it, because sometimes they do more harm than good.

Cliques have been a part of school life for generations (Johnson 89), and as the years go by, it seems that they get worse. Cliques are, at their base, friendship circles, whose members tend to identify each other as being mutually connected (Adler and Adler 56). A person can see how a clique relates to an army by having a leader and followers, and how the cliques have power over the others in the grade, the same way that an army has power of a country. A clique functions as a body of power within the grade; incorporating the most popular individuals, offering the most exciting social lives, and commanding the most interest (Adler and Adler 56). A clique is composed of a leader, one who is in control; the followers who do as the leader says; and the wannabes who would do anything to be a part of the clique. Researcher Laura Sessions Stepp, who wrote Our Last Best Shot, Guiding Our Children...

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...ues forming earlier is that many nine-year olds don’t yet have the emotional equipment to handle rejections and petty torments (Adler and Adler 90). Friendships are destroyed and ruined as one friend is accepted and the other is rejected. Eva, a twelve-year old who attends school in New York City, said, “Being popular isn’t worth it if you’re not happy. It’s better to be yourself” (Johnson 90). That is what life is all about too, being you and being happy, and if a twelve-year-old knows that, we all should have seen that too.

Works Cited

Adler, Patricia M., and Peter Adler. Peer Power. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1998.

Johnson, Beth. “Back to school 2001: The Trouble with Cliques.” Good Housekeeping Aug. 2001: 89-90.

Meltz, Barbara F. “Middle-School Cliques A Common Challenge.” Boston Globe 27 Sep 2001, sec. H: 8.

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