My High School Reunion And High School Choice

Last night was my high school reunion.  We all look exactly the same despite one of us being a grandmother!  (She and her daughter married young!)  We sat down with our classmates, and it felt like we had never left. 

This experience brought to mind a 2012 New York Magazine article, "Why You Truly Never Leave High School” by Jennifer Senior.  This article spoke to me as I attended my reunion and thought about who I had become, and as I sit with our eighth grades who are now choosing their high schools.

Senior describes how the high school years make a significant impact on the development of a person.  (This article contained numerous points of interest, which will definitely be fodder for future articles).  "Give a grown adult a series of random prompts and cues, and odds are he or she will recall a disproportionate number of memories from adolescence." This phenomenon is called "reminiscence bump" - suggesting that memories from ages 15-25 are most vividly retained.   She quotes Ralph Keyes, "Is There Life After High School?" "Somehow those three or four years can in retrospect feel like 30."   Interestingly enough, in the research, these years until recently were not given enough credit.   For many years, researchers believed that ages 0-3 were the essential years, and beyond that it was "tweaking." Laurence Steinberg, a developmental psychologist at Temple University asserts, "If you're interested in making sure kids learn a lot in school, yes, intervening in early childhood is the time to do it.  But, if you're interested in how people become who they are, so much is going on in the adolescent years." 

Steinberg points out that our preferences in life are often based on those adolescent years.  For example, "No matter how old you are, the music you listen to for the rest of your life is probably what you listened to when you were an adolescent." 

Neuroscience explains why this is.  As I've mentioned before in this column, just before adolescence the prefrontal cortex begins to rapidly develop. This area of the brain governs our ability to "reason, grasp abstractions, control impulses and self- reflect"- all of which are intellectual skills needed to develop an identity.  "Any cultural stimuli we are exposed to during puberty, can, therefore, make more of an impression, because we're now perceiving them discerningly and metacognitively as things to sweep into our self- concepts or reject.  'During times when your identity is in transition,' says Steinberg, it's possible you store memories better than you do in times of stability.'"

There are a number of other neurological changes in adolescence that make this time period in life so impactful. One such change is that there is more dopamine activity during this time period than during any other time of life.  This causes everything an adolescent feels to be more intense. 

To make this all even more "intense"  psychologists Joseph and Claudia Worrell Allen point out in their book Escaping The Endless Adolescence, that a century ago when adolescents did not continue on to high school and worked in factories or farms they spent their days alongside adults during these tenuous years.  Now, "teens live in a biosphere of their own" as they spend only 16 hours per week with adults and 60 with their peers (and even more in Yeshivot).  Then students create their own hierarchies and divisions based on what they deem important- clothes, looks, sports ability. It is easy to be labeled in this environment. According to researcher Bene Brown, 90% of adults interviewed said "their unwanted identities and labels started during their tweens and teens." And, whatever strategies we gain to fight those feelings during the high school years, we generally will use for life. 

As I attended my reunion and read Ms. Senior’s article, it again struck me how important the choice of high school is in a child’s life. It cannot be said better than Steinberg said. These years determine “how people become who they are.”

We, therefore, do discuss with our students in Advisory- whom do you want to be come in the next four years?   First, what do they think high school is like? How do they envision high school and the high school experience? Second, how do they envision themselves in high school? What kind of person would they like to become in the next four years? This is a difficult conversation for some students who have never seriously thought about the person they want to be. This is the age when they can begin to think in this way.  And, even if the high school decision is already made, it is good for your child to think about- how do I want to grow in high school?  Of which opportunities should I take advantage?  Should I wean myself from my present friends and look for ones who are a better influence on me?  Do I want to become more independent and responsible in high school and rely less on my parents to help me with work?  Do I want to take my religiosity more seriously?   High school is an opportunity for our children to start fresh. We want them to take this step with thought about whom they can become.

As parents, we need to ask the same question, “Whom do we want our children to become?”  The research clearly states that during these next years their identity is formed, their self-concept is solidified and their preferences are determined- from their choice of music to choice of friends.   

A Pew research study in 2011 found that the largest share of Facebook friends- 22%- are high school friends.  Although I may not have kept in touch with many of my high school classmates, as I saw them last night I knew that they all played a role in forming who I am today.   I can still recall the conversations we had hanging out by the payphones and the carbon paper we used to take notes for someone who was absent. (Yes, I went to high school in the Stone Age).   We reminisced about the teachers, the trips, the color wars and the workload.   I look back on those years as the right choice for me.  May those of us who are making choices for our 8^th graders find similar success.

Advisory Update:

Sixth Grade- Students continued their Organization Unit and further focused on locker management.

Seventh Grade-  Students flexed their muscles and engaged in “empathy exercises” and focused on the importance of not judging a book by its cover.

Eighth Grade-  Our 8^th graders focused on the skills of goal setting and set goals for this year as they lead into high school. They each set these goals on a website called “Future Me” and will receive a list of the goals they made this week the day after graduation. Will they be able to say they achieved their goals?