Why You Never Truly Leave High School

This is an interesting article from New York Magazine highlighting the importance that experiences in adolescents play in shaping our lives.  Ms. Senior notes that high schools are arenas of 'social combat' that are 'almost sadistically unhealthy places to send adolescents' for a variety of reasons, including the lack of contact with adults:  ''...psychologists Joseph and Claudia Worrell Allen note that teenagers today spend just 16 hours per week interacting with adults and 60 with their cohort. One century ago, it was almost exactly the reverse."  Because of this, adolescents establish their own set of rules for sorting or creating a hierarchy as the only thing they often have in common is age.  Ms. Senior points out that this non-mixing with people of a variety of ages is artificial and never occurs again in one's life.  She also cites various studies centered around the powerful emotion of 'shame' and how adolescent actions involving shame can stick with people their entire lives.  She also notes that high school might be the defining American Experience because just like a high school, we live in a world that is a 'box of interacting strangers'.  

I recommend it as worth the time to read as it raises interesting questions about how Blair is perhaps different from the larger public high schools that the studies focus in on, and whether even with our communities ability to overcome some of these obstacles there could be more that we could do as the adult members of the community to help our students navigate this important time in their lives.

Why Your Never Truly Leave High School