Of Chimps & Prom Kings

I have always been pretty self-aware, and by self-aware, I mean that I know that I'm not the best person on the planet. (My mother disagrees whenever I give her a back rub.)

I also have a pretty healthy level of self-esteem, and by healthy, I mean that I think I'm the funniest person I know. (My mother disagrees whenever she makes a joke.)

This is all to say I know where I stand on the totem pole, and I'm okay with where I am.

The same cannot be said for a majority of any high school student body in the country.

Now I have walked among the intelligent with no self-esteem and the airheads who have self-esteem to spare but no self-awareness. I can tell you with great certainty that high school is a jungle filled with intelligent animals who are constantly being told what to do and how to act by the popular, the admired, and the attractive. If high school was a jungle, then it pits the smart and the popular against each other in a war that no one knows how to win.

If these cliques were animals, the smart would be chimps: able to adapt to any situation and learn subjects not even a part of their animal world. The popular would be like pandas: animals everyone roots for, but dumb enough to barely survive on one thing, bamboo and admiration.

All of this being said, I like to root for the bizarre, exciting, and extraordinary. I root for underdogs, or dumb chimps and smart pandas. I actually went to a really nice high school. My best friend was Salutatorian and was one of the most liked people in the entire school. I had friends who were in my AP classes who were crowned Prom King and played for the varsity football team.

I believe that we should not only be teaching students about wars from centuries ago or how to interpret Shakespeare, but instilling a sense of community in high schools and classrooms where there is freedom to cross clique boundaries and become a community of learners. The question, "how can we tell who is smart or dumb" shouldn't be asked, because the stereotype of nerds and cheerleaders shouldn't exist in this day and age. In the 21st Century we should be able to look past differences and become a community, lest we splinter and fall apart.

Thus endeth the lecture.