This guy was awful, a reason to panic about public schools, teacher tenure, and how broken our education system is. And yet, I learned a tremendous amount about gender discrimination by being subjected to the jockocracy of his classroom. This brings me to reason number one as to why high school is good for us outsider and radical types.
Going to high school allows us to intimately experience the dominant culture, including all that is in need of reform. Seeing sexism up close and personal, as I did in high school, from teachers and students, helped me understand what I need to fight against.
When we talk about diversity it is usually in a positive light: a harmonious coming together of races, cultures, and religions in which every individual is open-minded and curious about one another’s heritages. In practice, diversity can be a total bummer. Yes, it means Muslims and Jews, gays and straights talking it all out, but it also can include rubbing elbows with bigots and homophobes. That’s not to say the latter shouldn’t be reined in — no one should be bullied, much less driven to suicide. But it is also true that the complicated social dynamics of high school are as important to our development as the books we read.
Join the conversation as a VIP Member