Is it always like a bad teen-movie? Highschool around the world, tell us of your experiences.

[Realitycrash]

Highschool. It keeps coming up in every media, and it is not likely to go away anytime soon. It's depicted as a battleground, or a place of learning, or a prison, or pretty much anything inbetween.
I'm always baffled over how it always seem to be depicted as a "Jock vs Nerd (and some Cheerleeders too!)" situation, no matter where in the world it is supposed to take place.
I'm from Sweden, and honestly, I never experienced anything remotely similar to what is portrayed in the movies/games/books.
So, people from the US, is it REALLY this bad? It can't be, right?
How about people from other nations, how were your highschool? Did you have jocks/cheerleaders? Classic "nerds" and bullies?

It just strikes me as an overly American thing, and heavily dramatized as well. My school, as I mentioned, had neither. No jocks (no school-team of any sport, whatsoever), no bullies (none that I was aware of) or classic "nerds".
Then again, I went to a school with 80% girls who all studied aesthetics and/or photography. In Sweden, you can pretty much pick a "major" already in Highschool, and thus different schools will focus on different majors, and gather different sort of people.
Which is sort of my point with asking: Doesn't it work that way in the US? And the rest of the world?
C'mon, let's deconstruct the shit out of highschool.

 

[Lilani]

One thing I've heard about American schools compared to other public schools around the world is that they're much more cliquish (though I wouldn't know how to personally compare them because I've only ever attended public school in the US).

Anyway, I would say my school was quite cliquish, though I don't know if I'd put it on the level of a lot of the movies about it. I think what's going on with those movies is they aren't made by teens who are currently in that situation--it's written by adults who are either reflecting on those experiences, or by adults who have observed those situations from a distance. In either case, their perspectives are a bit flawed because they aren't being written from the mind of a teen. They're written from the perspective of an adult trying to remember what it was like to be a teen in that situation. And while personal experience like that is good, I still think it definitely shows. There's a lot of skewing and demonizing, making the "bad kids" a lot worse than they possibly could have been in reality, and usually for no good reason but to make the protagonist's situation look even worse.

Then there's a lot of dumbing down which occurs, because the adults who are writing it don't trust that the teen audience will "get it" unless the characters are stereotypes, the situation plays out totally linearly, there is an absolute "right" and an absolute "wrong," the protagonist gets revenge without any repercussions, and there is a universal moral at the end of the story. Because, as everybody knows, being a teenager is that simple and that unambiguous.

I see the emotions they are trying to appeal to--being a loner, being misunderstood, dealing with peer pressure and being an outcast. Which are all parts of being a teenager who isn't part of the "it" crowd. But nine times out of ten, it plays out as less of an accurate representation of being an outcast teenager, and more of an idealized fantasy of how the writer wishes their teenaged troubles would have played out.

 

[Lionsfan]

The biggest problem I have with the portrayal of High Schools? The Open Campus' and open schedules they always have. Kid's have time to just walk around school willy nilly, or are practicing their varsity sport in the middle of the day. No High School is like that. And if they want to show a white person's school as being "out of control" they always have 2 skateboarders go off a small staircase. And if it's a black school, then the first classroom will be crazy with kids throwing balls of paper around at each other

 

[A Satanic Panda]

Jocks and Nerds at my school are starting to become one and the same. I know a lot of the people who play sports are also playing stuff like D3, ToR, Minecraft, and know a bit about Internet culture.

Really the only cliques around here are the hardcore anti-socials, and the anime lovers.

 

[EeveeElectro]

I can only think of American High Schools that have been portrayed in movies, so I'll go by what I've seen.

They always show that people are always something. Everyone is either a jock, cheerleader, nerd, goth, metal head. There never seems to be normal people. They all seemed to be mortal enemies with each other too.

At my school there was a huge number of chavs mainly. There was a fairly large group of alternative people who sort of entwined with the nerds. Being in the UK, we had uniform, but being in a clique is more than just clothes.
About 45% percent of my year were just 'normal.' They weren't in any group, they just hung around with each other, doing nothing.

The chavs did hate anyone that weren't like them because that's chavvy nature pretty much, they just want to pick fights.
I couldn't care, I would have been friends with all the chavs if they weren't such horrible people.

Then we all just mangled together in Sixth Form (further education in the UK). We still had groups of friends but there wasn't much stereotyping going on. I think we stopped giving a fuck and just got on with each other. Also all the truly bad chavs dropped out at 14/15 to have children, so we didn't have them to bother us.

 

[Rose and Thorn]

My highschool was pretty much one of those "battlegrounds" from the movies and newspaper. It was littered with bullies and mean people. To me it wasn't a place for learning, and I deeply regret not being homeschooled.

My school had a system, where everyone in the higher grades bullied the lower grades mostly, and when the lower grades moved up, they started bullying the younger people, because they were stupid...is the only way I know how to put it right now.

I was bullied a lot. I have grown an unhealthy dislike for males because of the last 5 years of my life. Even when I left school, everywhere I go there are mean people waiting to bring you down.

If I ever adopt a child they are being homeschooled.

I went to school in Canada, south Ontario, near Toronto. Which is probably the most american part of Canada, so I am not sure if USA is to blame. We had Jocks, we had an American Football team. We had sluts.

I think bullies are everywhere is this world, I don't think Canada is much more different then USA.

It just strikes me as an overly American thing, and heavily dramatized as well. My school, as I mentioned, had neither. No jocks (no school-team of any sport, whatsoever), no bullies (none that I was aware of) or classic "nerds".
Then again, I went to a school with 80% girls who all studied aesthetics and/or photography. In Sweden, you can pretty much pick a "major" already in Highschool, and thus different schools will focus on different majors, and gather different sort of people.

Ok so your school kinda sounds like heaven. Sounds like Sweden is many years ahead of North America in the school situation. I did Fashion, Cooking, Art, Photography, Drama and such in my school but they were only a few out of MANY classes. They were also mostly females, which I found much more comforting. Females tend to be nicer and more mature then Males by leaps. Plus if you truly say no bullies, which is hard for me to imagine *maybe YOU were just not bullied, people find it hard to see the gritty picture if they aren't in the middle of it?*. But if it is as you say, then another point for your school, especially if there is a lack of boys, I can almost believe it.

I wish I had gone to school in England.

 

[robot slipper]

My high school in Canada was quite small, so there wasn't really an established athletic program that would fuel a Jock/Nerd divide. There was some cliquiness, but most people could be put broadly into one of three categories:
-Drug dealers
-Drug users
-Not involved with drugs at all

Captcha: stony-hearted. Thanks captcha, always there to make me feel a little bit better about myself eh?

 

[LordFish]

I went to school in England, if American high schools are actually what they are like on TV, then I thank the gods of Kobol that, although my school life wasn't actually happy, I imagine it would have been much much worse in America.

 

[Realitycrash]

My highschool was pretty much one of those "battlegrounds" from the movies and newspaper. It was littered with bullies and mean people. To me it wasn't a place for learning, and I deeply regret not being homeschooled.

My school had a system, where everyone in the higher grades bullied the lower grades mostly, and when the lower grades moved up, they started bullying the younger people, because they were stupid...is the only way I know how to put it right now.

I was bullied a lot. I have grown an unhealthy dislike for males because of the last 5 years of my life. Even when I left school, everywhere I go there are mean people waiting to bring you down.

If I ever adopt a child they are being homeschooled.

I went to school in Canada, south Ontario, near Toronto. Which is probably the most american part of Canada, so I am not sure if USA is to blame. We had Jocks, we had an American Football team. We had sluts.

I think bullies are everywhere is this world, I don't think Canada is much more different then USA.

It just strikes me as an overly American thing, and heavily dramatized as well. My school, as I mentioned, had neither. No jocks (no school-team of any sport, whatsoever), no bullies (none that I was aware of) or classic "nerds".
Then again, I went to a school with 80% girls who all studied aesthetics and/or photography. In Sweden, you can pretty much pick a "major" already in Highschool, and thus different schools will focus on different majors, and gather different sort of people.

Ok so your school kinda sounds like heaven. Sounds like Sweden is many years ahead of North America in the school situation. I did Fashion, Cooking, Art, Photography, Drama and such in my school but they were only a few out of MANY classes. They were also mostly females, which I found much more comforting. Females tend to be nicer and more mature then Males by leaps. Plus if you truly say no bullies, which is hard for me to imagine *maybe YOU were just not bullied, people find it hard to see the gritty picture if they aren't in the middle of it?*. But if it is as you say, then another point for your school, especially if there is a lack of boys, I can almost believe it.

I wish I had gone to school in England.

I'm sure there were girls bitching about other girls behind their back, etc, but no open violence or clearly defined "pecking-order". As a slightly overweight male, I never got any crap, whatsoever. Then again, there weren't many males around to bully me either.

 

[Psykoma]

I moved at the end of Grade 8 from Edmonton to Montreal (across the country pretty much).
The first years at my new school, I was as close to a ghost as is possible.
If I wasn't in class, I was in the most remote and undisturbed section of the library as possible (even if that meant sitting on the shelves).

No-one even heard me speak outside class for the first two years.

After that I became somewhat attached to the 'weirdo' clique, pretty much because they would always find me and sit near me when I was in the library.
Eventually developped into a few more friends, and my last year of high school seemed pretty normal I guess. I'm told by other people in my class that I was made fun of and teased a lot, but I couldn't honestly tell you what happened that could be considered teasing.
I was still a mute outside of my very close small group of friends.

I don't think my high school experience would be a good teen movie. Too damn boring.

 

[Generalissimo]

at the backwater school of about 1000 students i went to, there were 4 groups:

1. the specials
2. the chavs
3. the successful
4. the pets

1. basically, anyone with special needs falls under this one

2. chavs, idiots, underachievers and bullies. the kind that would thump you for so much as looking at them funny.

3. (i was in this one) overachievers, high-scorers and intellectuals. respected and haled as heroes by all (even most chavs were kinda scared of us)

4. the lowest of the low. these lot sucked up to any authority, be it staff, bullies, intellectuals, you name it. once you had your own "pet" you could order him/her about to your heart's content. i once got a group of years 7s to call me 'sir'.

 

[Hero in a half shell]

Although there were always a few scuffles, my secondary school only had one fight in the seven years I went to it, and that ended after about three punches when one of the guys hit the pebbledash wall and his knuckles instantly swole up like grapes.

But then, we were a rather small country school (400 people) and everyone knew everyone else, We had our clicks and groups, but the school was that small that the four or five groups you hung out with for whatever reasons pretty much included everyone in your year at some point or another.

 

[Artina89]

I went to high school in the UK, and while it wasn't as cliquish as what I understand US high schools to be (I have a fair few friends that come from various areas in the US and they say their schools had their own little groups) what I found was that my high school didn't seem to like people who wanted to do well and go far. I wasn't bullied as such, but I never really was involved in any kind of group really. But it's not all bad. High school has come and gone, and I graduated from the University of Nottingham with a BSc (Hons) degree in Biochemistry and biological chemistry and in a job I love, whereas a lot in people from my school are in dead end jobs or with kids.

 

[SeeIn2D]

Well my high school wasn't like that at all but that's probably because I live in the city. Smaller schools are a lot more common in cities than in more suburban areas where everyone basically goes to the same school. My school was an example of a smaller school so everyone was basically forced into knowing each other early on which in my opinion was a good thing. I knew and was friendly with, if not actually friends with, basically everyone in my grade. Because of this cliques didn't really exist in my school. I mean we had the groups of people that generally hung out together, we had the basketball team, the soccer guys (I was one of them) but in general there weren't any of those bullshit cliques that shun other groups just because. So I'm glad I avoided all that shit.

However my girlfriend lives in a suburban area so there are two high schools where all the kids go to, and she says that her high school was full of that cliquy bullshit I'm fortunate enough to have avoided. So in general I think high school is pretty much the typical cliques and jocks and popular kids and then the group of shunned kids who are deemed "weird and unfit for high society". So I'm so glad I avoided that, and I'm aware of how lucky I am.

 

[Bagged Milk]

Well my high school wasn't like that at all but that's probably because I live in the city. Smaller schools are a lot more common in cities than in more suburban areas where everyone basically goes to the same school. My school was an example of a smaller school so everyone was basically forced into knowing each other early on which in my opinion was a good thing. I knew and was friendly with, if not actually friends with, basically everyone in my grade. Because of this cliques didn't really exist in my school. I mean we had the groups of people that generally hung out together, we had the basketball team, the soccer guys (I was one of them) but in general there weren't any of those bullshit cliques that shun other groups just because. So I'm glad I avoided all that shit.

I pretty much had the same thing. I went to a small public school (around 400 students in total) and, while I didn't have many people I would actually call "friends", everyone was pretty much fine with everyone else (there were exceptions, but not many). Although the freshmen and sophomores were kind of dick-ish, the Juniors and Seniors never really picked on others and were generally laid back.

 

[bojackx]

My school didn't at all replicate any movie adaptations. The different social groups weren't as distinct and there wasn't any notorious bullies, even less so when I moved up to Sixth Form.


I was bullied by some guy in the first couple of years at my school, but I just think he was one of very few at my school. It's a good job too, because he was a horrible excuse for a human being. He was actually in the same school year as my brother, and bullied him too. In fact, he bullied me because I was the nerdy younger brother of the kid he already bullied.

I see that I went a bit off-topic there, but to conclude, my school was nothing like any movie, there were no jocks (a fair few chavs) and I don't even think there were many nerds (well, none that were that stereotypical). I'm pretty thankful, since those kind of schools seem like Hell, and I actually enjoyed my school life after I stopped getting bullied.

 

[MadMage]

WELL.... I cant talk about most schools but every school I've been to in America has been in bad parts (Baltimore, Glen Burnie, and DC) with about 5 or 6 police officers all the time, and 3 parole officers just to handle all the kids who have been arrested. I've seen stabbings and dead people in school, I've seen a kid get scissors stabbed INTO his head over a fucking pair of shoes. I've seen kids beaten by huge groups of kids. Drug deals during lunch, riots, Teachers beaten and hospitalized, Teachers not even bothering to go over the material, Teachers dealing drugs to the kids. American schools BLOW. The OP of "jocks" "nerds" and "cheerleaders" is actually a super stylized version of the drugs, sex, teen pregnancies, IN SCHOOL RAPES, and murders that happen all the time.

Just to sort of make it relate:
Jocks= kids in gangs
Nerds= kids who can fucking read and write and try in school
Cheerleaders= we don't have any.
Goths= home schooled, bullied, or already suicide or killed
"Normal Kids"= People like me trying to go undetected and unhurt till I'm free

 

[Sleepy Sol]

US high schools aren't nearly as bad as their portrayals in movies or books, at least in my experience. Cliques are still there, and there's some hostility between groups at times, but the lines between groups are becoming kind of blurred.

I'm probably one of the nerdy kids at my school but I still have people from every group I'm friendly to. One of my best friends is the star of the football (the handegg variety) team. I have friends who are nerds, friends who would be considered "scene" kids, cheerleaders, jocks, you name it.

There are still "asshole" jocks here though. Pretty sure they're generally disliked because of it.

 

[Lilani]

US high schools aren't nearly as bad as their portrayals in movies or books, at least in my experience. Cliques are still there, and there's some hostility between groups at times, but the lines between groups are becoming kind of blurred.

First of all, props for the Firo avatar. Baccano is the tops :3

Secondly, though I graduated from High School in 2009, I can see the lines getting blurred. When I was in school, video games were still unusual and played mostly by "gamers," and spending most of the evening on the Internet was still pretty "weird." But now with casual games, multiplayer shooters, Facebook, and Twitter pretty much everybody is versed in games and the Internet to some degree or another. Hell, even memes are going mainstream now. Though I would never in a million years opt to go through it again, I think it would be interesting to see what exactly constitutes a "nerd" these days in gradeschools.

 

[LongAndShort]

Yeah, I went to school in Australia and I can only speak for my year and school personally. We all got along pretty well. Yes we fell into groups of friends, but no one was particularly nasty to other groups. Nerds, lads, Asians and skaties (four of the groups in our school, and to be clear we had a great many international students from Asia - particularly China and South Korea - who inevitably spent most of their time with people who spoke the same first language and shared common culture) talked and joked amongst each other happily. Yes, there was bullying. We could be merciless if we wanted, and I'd be lying if I said there wasn't. But I'll tell you what, some of those people being bullied went out of their way to provoke or insult the rest of the student body. But they were the minority.