High School
 

The "game" thread got me thinking.

I went to a large Chicago suburban high school. IIRC, there were about 4,400 students enrolled when I graduated. The high school itself encompassed many well-to-do subdivisions (there were some subdivisions where every house was over $1 million in 1992). At that school, you pretty much had to pick the one thing you were going to concentrate on because the competition was so fierce. Most of the varsity football team did private athletic training (and would go on to a full ride at a division one school in college). Most of the band members took private lessons. Most of the drama club had private acting coaches. If you were going to be good enough to make any activity, you had better go out and get private instruction and practice year-round. There were fewer than five students in the school that played more than one varsity sport. The clubs were dominated by AP students trying to bolster their college resumes. These students essentially formed cliques dominating these clubs and pushed all other students out. (Well, you could join, but you were probably going to be excluded from any planning and assigned the crap work.)

This left a large swath of the school unwilling to commit to a single thing or unable to pay for the private instruction to make the cut. I was in this group. Neither I, nor any of my friends participated in any clubs or sports.

I have friends who went to much smaller high schools in small towns. Their experience was the opposite of mine. Most played a sport every season (three a school year) and participated in multiple clubs. Very few were going to go on to play their sport in college, and college resume-padding wasn't a concern as elite private schools pretty much outright refuse all rural students. The only downside I can detect is that where I was able to get through high school pretty much anonymously, these kids were all known to their peers, teachers, parents, and other townsfolk. Mistakes could follow you for the rest of you life in a small town, and probably the lives of your children and grandchildren as well.

When I lived in Gwinnett County, it seemed like they had managed to strike a balance. The county was the school district. From what I could tell, there were something like 30 high schools in the county and they all had roughly 1500 kids. Small enough that everyone could participate, big enough to have a variety of activities for students.

is it better to be a big fish in a small pond, or versa visa?

Dunno, seems like the small pond would be more fun but could limit potential and achievements.

I could see arguments both ways.

I attended a two-room rural school thru the 6th grade. Largest class was 10 kids.
The teacher knew the students as if they were family. No regrets.

My high school was brand new as a result of white flight out of Detroit. As such, there were two primary groups: a buncha 'rich kids' whose parents were mid-level auto execs, parts dealers, small business owners, etc. on one side and the long-term locals consisting of small-town agricultural types on the other. They were called 'farmers'. The 'hoods' gravitated toward the farmer side because they didn't have much money. The 'jocks' did sports.

Of course there was a lotta overlap. I seemed to switch around depending on the season and who happened to be giving me rides to school. I was in band (which had its own category), a jock, a hood in the off season, had to work for spending money (farmer) and spent a lot of time with a girl whose father was a big-shot in the recording and concert promo industry. She actually saw the Beatles in concert. Her dad would come home with a stack of concert tickets and we'd choose which concertS to go to FoRFREe!

Interesting times. I was special but nobody told me.

my dad's brother gave me two quotes in life:

1. there is nothing sexy about desperate.
2. dont peak in highschool.

i use #1 daily.

#2? high school wont be a blip on anyone's life radar ever. there isnt a thing that happened to me in high school that sculpted me into the person i am today. i sure has hell didnt learn about math in high school..i was crafting my game!

Total opposite for me, vash. Everything I ever learned was in high school. Except juggling. I learned that in college.

Went to a very interesting state basketball playoff. One school was one of those that didn't have requirements basically letting anyone that wanted to play bball play. The other only had a few really good players. It was very interesting to watch as the school with low requirements happy to be at the championship rotated thru all their players giving everyone the opportunity to play in the big game. The other school kept playing the same 5 players top players. The game went into so many overtimes battleing back and forth I lost count.

The crowd erupted when a couple of the players were rotated in. One was a really short guy, the other was a really fat guy.

The team playing all of it's players ended up winning.

High School...arrgh! Only two genuinely happy kids. That would be the quarterback and the head cheerleader.

Every year I went to HS those two had to get married. No, I was not a football player.

My son just graduated from a really small high school earlier this year. His graduating class was 55 male/female students, so Sports were a big part of his experience. He (6'0" 185#) was a standout defensive end, who confounded many larger competitors, and was always leading tackler on defense. and leading blocker on offense. He was awarded 2nd team all conference honors for their division.

The coach told us later that if he would have been at a larger conference competing school, he most certainly would have been all-county, and probably had scouts looking at him, but being on a 1-9 losing record small school sealed his sports career.

Not necessarily. Ours was a small school, but the star running back got a full ride at U of O. Alas, blew a knee. Knee surgery during the early 60's was not like today. So, he spent his time at U of O as a punter. Went through grade school with him...nice guy, always willing to give us without his natural ability tips on how to improve. Frankly, a better coach than the teacher who volunteered to be the coach...

The system of grooming kids like they are today was far in the future back then...late 40's through '61, the year I graduated.

Yep, I got what I wanted out of high school. That was out of high school...

Only completed 2 years of high school, both at different schools.
So cant say high school had a big impact on me.
Did get a GED about 3 years later, so I do have a diploma.
But not once did any potential employer ask me if I ever graduated high school.

i learned the basics to riding a unicycle in college. never got great at it.

dont get me wrong. i loved high school. i had a blast. made a few life-friends. but in general, it didnt craft me.

i get saddened by people that still talk about high school..at our age. main reason i quit FACEBOOK. "throwback thurday" = WTF!!! people kept high school pics!!