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Peer pressure in youth culture
Peer pressure in youth culture
Narrative personal writing
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I had one year before ending Junior High. In my white Nikes and tight skinny jeans, I race to the crowd of adolescent females who cared nothing but young lads and entertainment of drama. As I was being brought up by traditional parents, they’ve always lectured me on being the finest human being possible. Most importantly being taught to give kindness to others regardless by their upbringing, and race. In this generation, it is challenging to be your own kind. Especially being grown to a society where it matters what other people think of you. At the age of thirteen to fourteen, this is crucial period where we start to transition to a young adult and mature. As I start to changeover to a teenager, school year was tough by the cause of trying
People say high school is supposed to be the golden years of your life. I don’t know what else in life is to come; however, my philosophy is to live in the moment and make the life you’re living in the present worthwhile into the future, not only for you but for those who surround you. I live my life participating in our community and getting involved in our school. The activities, and the people I’ve formed relationships with, are what have formed me into the person I am today. The person I am today is not perfect, but I have learned from the mistakes I’ve made.
8th grade, 8th grade from the opening day to the signing of the yearbooks. This is the year of memories, goodbyes, and regrets. 8th grade and I’m still realizing that there are people in the world that would die to go to a school like this. A school where every body knows everyone’s name, respects everyone, and where violence and fighting are about as common as the Yankees missing the playoffs. When I’m done with my homework and go to bed, as the days of 8th grade wind down, summer will come and go, and I will find myself in one of those giant, scary places called high school.
I was told that this, my junior year, would be the easiest year of my high school career. And no, they were absolutely wrong. It was not just school and grades that I was concern about either. I had other things to worry about, things like, driving, clubs, friends and family. I however had no idea that it would be this difficult. Throughout this school year I have learned many things; like the value of sleep, whose really your friend, and that although very important, grades are not everything.
As middle schoolers, or incoming freshman, we didn’t realize how we were acting. We saw ourselves as acting normal, or as a typical middle schooler. Which we would be correct because the majority of underclassmen do act this way, but that does not mean this is a proper way to act. In middle school, everything is simpler, and we acted how we wanted. We did not care if what we said came across as rude, or as disrespectful. Many were disrespectful to teachers, or to their fellow classmates. As we
Over the past four years, we have grown from insecure, immature freshmen to successful, focused and confident young adults. This incredible transformation has been the result of our entire high school experience. Everything from that first homecoming game, to late night cramming, to the last dance at prom. These experiences have pulled us together as a class and we have learned to love and respect our fellow classmates.
When life becomes overwhelming during adolescence, a child’s first response is to withdraw from the confinement of what is considered socially correct. Individuality then replaces the desire to meet social expectations, and thus the spiral into social non-conformity begins. During the course of Susanna’s high school career, she is different from the other kids. Susanna:
Entering my first year into high school my mind was juvenile I was not yet adjusted to the high school atmosphere. At the time I was still worried about the little things in school such as friends and associates. My first priority was never my work; it used to be entertainment over all. Along that came with my priorities came procrastination and that led to me delaying my assignments hoping for a teacher to give me a "second chance". Forthcoming, at the end of the second quarter my ninth grade year I received a rude awakening.
Everyone seemed to be having the time of their lives, the feeling of being free from high school finally sinking into their minds. Forgetting about all of their problems for the night, and letting loose. My mom always says that I’ll regret this when I grow up; not living the full high school experience. But what is really considered the “high school experience”? It is just going to parties, homecoming dances, prom, and being in relationships? How cliché.
Throughout my high school experience, I've been able to obtain knowledge that I can use to better my life. Some of the classes I've taken have been a blessing in disguise. For example, I never expected to learn as much as I did about writing and literature by just simply reading. Many of my teachers have pushed me to my limits and inspired me to think differently from my peers. In general my best English experience was reading "MacBeth" by William Shakespeare in Mr. Elwell's class, where I also realized I had many English skills to improve on.
All middle school students are at different developmental stages--some students have matured significantly, while others still have a long way to go. Hunt, Wiseman, and Bowden conclude that, in looking at attitudes and behaviors, some middle schoolers are “childlike,” while others are “deeply involved in the complex lifestyle characteristics of teenagers (1998, p. 57). They also establish that middle school students are in a time of “significant transition,” a time that some struggle with, while others thrive on this change. (Hunt, Wiseman, & Bowden, 1998, p. 60-61). The middle school age group is typically distinguished as children and teens ages 10 to 14. This age range was not distinguished until the 1980s (Hunt, Wiseman, & Bowden, 1998, p. 58), which coincides with further development in the middle school (in comparison to junior high school). These students are in a stage coined by Donald Eichhorn called “transesence” (Manning & Bucher, 2012, p. 5).
High school is supposed to be a one more step closer to college; it’s supposed to be preparing you for the future right? Wrong. My experience in high school was very different; I never quite fit in with anyone, the “friends” that I thought that I had used me for money. Let’s just say when I was a freshman I had a friend whom I knew from grade school, her name was Meghan Lawrence and she was the kind of person who I really believed I could tell her anything and she would keep it to herself. Once again I was proven wrong, I developed a crush on a boy and she knew that I had a crush on him; one morning before class both he and she went to the corner store, she thought it would be funny to tell him all about my crush, which he tortured me with, playing with my emotions, made me feel like he might actually like me back.
As freshman, we came home from school with the mentality that we were no longer children, but rather had entered into a new stage of life. Everything seemed different and new; we weren’t the big kids on campus anymore. We no longer were the persons being looked up to, but rather were the persons looking up to an entire school of older students. We remember joining our firsts clubs, going to dances, and having Orientation days.
At the start of the new year at Options I just couldn't get it right. I was off task because I was using a computer;therefore I had a somewhat slow start.
You know, it is really strange how quickly time passes, after spending my whole childhood wishing I was an adult, now here we are and it's a little hard to grasp. It feels like just yesterday I was standing here in the same position at eighth grade graduation. Ahh, middle school, such a joyous time for all of us, free of maturity and not a care in the world. The biggest decisions I ever had to make then was deciding which group to stand with at passing time and choosing which shirt from my extensive collection of Stussy and No Feat apparel to wear. We were all naive to the danger that lurked just around the corner. We were unaware that the carefree world we lived in was about to come crashing to the ground in a blazing inferno of real school work and responsibility ... otherwise known as high school.
Having spent twelve years of my school life in just one small red brick building, the years tend to fade into each other. But the year I remember most clearly and significantly is my senior year of high school, where I finally began to appreciate what this institution offered to any student who stopped to look. Before, school had been a chore, many times I simply did not feel motivated toward a subject enough to do the homework well, and seeing the same familiar faces around ever since I was 5 years old grew very tiring soon enough. But I began to see things from a different angle once I became a senior.