Reflective Essay On Public School

Two words: public school. This brief statement was the response I gave when asked what the greatest social and psychological experience of modern time was. Public school is probably the most hair brained and barbaric concept ever put forth. In my experience, you take a group of around one hundred and twenty kids stemming from different backgrounds, social classes, races, political beliefs, and sexual orientations, lock them in a classroom with adults who grew up in completely different generations and then you ask them to learn together. That has to be the most unbelievable and wacked out concept man has ever created, and yet, it works beautifully.

Those one hundred and twenty kids that began the education process as strangers not only excel in learning together, they become friends, some lovers, others bitter rivals, but they all grow up together. They experience hardships, deaths of friends and loved ones,

Vernon, where most of the same families have been growing up and going to school together for generations, but even in a quiet place like Mt. Vernon, you meet people who are polar opposites of the way you were raised. With the expansion of travel and integration of people from other nationalities, even small towns can no longer stay isolated from outside influence, which has proven to be quite a culture shock for people who trace their lineage back to when the the town was first established. As such, the kids of my generation have had an exceptionally different upbringing in Mt. Vernon than our parents. At least, I know that my personal High School experience has led me to see the world in a new light. I entered into High School my freshman year as most students do, full of their parents beliefs and moral values, completely incapable of original opinion or thought. During my highschool career I had a total of three close friends, who were ironically completely opposite from me as well as each