Just Being Who You Are In High School, Is No Easy Task

     In Emily White’s essay “High School’s Secret Life she talks about the different social “Cliques, there are the preppies, the nerds and the jock’s even a group she calls the “natural helpers”.  In the essay by Lucy Grealy “Masks” there was not that same comparison or detail, but what was very much the same in both essays was the role that lunch time or the overall lunch experience played in how one’s assumed identity was judged. “The cafeteria is the place where forms of human sacrifice occur, the merciless rituals of cruelty on which the kids thrive (White, 15)”.  For some students in both essays lunch was an empowering time and very much defined their social status but for others like Lucy it was torture and for her got to the point that for her to keep her own sanity had to have her lunch in the guidance counselor’s office to avoid complete harassment at lunch. One message that was fluent through both essays is just how much especially in those middle school to high school years we want to be accepted and when we feel that we are not be accepted for who we are we will try and fine a “Clique or Tribe” that we feel we are best matched with and that would be the easiest to conform to and that becomes our new identity.

     I graduated in the early 90”s and there were “Cliques” mainly just jocks, rockers or skaters but everyone was very accepting of everyone.  It was a smaller high school and at events or parties there was always a mix of all the groups and if you were like myself and did not necessarily fit into one of those three categories you were still invited, I am not sure why now there seems to be such a huge divide and students feel the pressure to fit in to a particular group.  I feel I was lucky to have the high school experience I did and not have the pressures I feel my kids have now in high school and middle school.  Unfortunately I think high school students’ put too much emphasis on those years, and with it being such major part of the self identity process, if you do not have clear picture of who you are and where you want to go, you can easily lose yourself.