A travelogue from Barcelona-Avignon-Paris will come by
and by. We are in our Paris apartment
now; Kathy's having foot problems, so we're keeping it quiet for part of the day
today.
A few of you have seen this and probably don't want to
read it again. Inasmuch as it consists
of a backward look at my high school experiences, many of you might not want to
read it. Whatever. The second piece is more general.
* * *
There
are volumes and volumes of sociological research on American high schools, of
which I have read precisely none. What
follows is a reflection on the circumstances of my high school in a particular
geographic location at a particular time, uninformed by any research on
schools.
Some
of the southwestern part of Minneapolis has Minnehaha Creek running through it
on a winding east-west path. My high
school, Washburn, sits just north of the creek by a couple of blocks. The reach of its student body (in the day
when the schools drew almost exclusively from the surrounding neighborhoods)
included (1) large homes (mostly built before WWII and some before WWI) around
or near one of the city lakes (Lake Harriet) and a stretch north of the creek
as well as (2) homes that were more modest, primarily post-WWII, and south of
the creek. (This is not a sharp line of
demarcation; some of the homes immediately south of the creek were more similar
to those north of it than to those farther south. As with urban development in many cities,
there's a hodgepodge of houses both north and south of the creek, but I think
my generalization is largely correct.
There is also an area farther north of the school that is also
characterized by more modest dwellings, in some cases more modest than those
south of the creek. My focus here,
however, is on those in the two areas I have described.)
When
I was at Washburn (1966-69, grades 10-12), it was still a silk-stocking
school: many of the students came from
well-heeled backgrounds, from families that resided in the large homes around
the east and south side of Lake Harriet and along/north of the creek. Many others came from the more modest homes
south of the creek, and the families by and large had correspondingly more
modest incomes. The latter group,
however, was by no means "poor," and in fact was by relative measures
affluent, but just not as affluent as those north of the creek. Washburn, along with Southwest High School,
had long been the school for the well-to-do in Minneapolis if the parents
didn't send their children to private schools.
I grew up south of the creek; my elementary and junior
high schools were close to our home and, naturally, my friends from grades K-9
came from that area. When we went to
Washburn, we encountered an entirely new group of people who came from a
different socio-economic-educational background: parents who were far more likely to be
college-educated and in professional careers, more socially "elite"
(I'll leave that term undefined), and who made considerably more money than my
family and those of my K-9 circle of friends.
I became friends with some of the kids from that group (and remain
friends with a couple of them to this day).
It was clear to me even then, however, that there was a status (I'll
leave that term undefined as well) difference between my new high school
friends and my friends from earlier grades.
What happened over my high school years, I realized on
reflection a number of years later, is that I gravitated toward the higher-status
group and away from my friends from earlier school years. I can't say I was ever fully a part of the
new group; socio-economic class distinctions, even as finely graded as those
were—this was a bunch of upper/middle class white kids whose family incomes
were different but none of whom were even faintly deprived—are not ever
completely erased. But I did spend much
of my time with the new group and far less with the others. I have reflected from time to time on this
evolution and concluded that it was to some extent social climbing and to some
extent aspirational: I wanted to be in
an affluent professional class and have friends who were similarly
situated. My parents' friends (even
though my father was a college graduate and in a professional career) and my
friends' parents—almost all extremely nice people—came predominantly from
blue-collar occupations (butcher, carpenter, printer, plumber,
electrician). I liked them but I knew
early on that their jobs were not ones that I wanted.
I met one of the lake/north-of-the-creek group our first
quarter in high school, someone with whom I remain good friends. (I reminded him last fall that we had now
known each other for 50 years. That
makes me older than I like but I'm just glad I'm alive to say it.) It was this friend who brought me into that
social circle by including me in events; looking back, I'm not sure why, but he
did (I suppose, obviously, because he liked me as a friend). A couple of other guys from that group also
became friends (but, for whatever reason, only one of the girls, whom I dated
briefly in college and with whom I also stay in touch). While I was somewhat close friends with those
three or four, I think it was nonetheless true that for the larger group I
remained an outsider. Not disliked, not
unwelcome, just not integral. Had that
one friend not begun including me, however, my involvement with that social
circle likely never would have happened.
There is one incident that stands out in my mind that
typifies my perception; there were any number of others, but this one I recall
vividly. A group of us (me plus some
from the lake/north of the creek area) went to one of the kid's homes after an
event. The girl whose home we went to
called her dad about us being there; he adamantly refused to let us stay
without one of her parents in the house, so we had to leave. I recall, however, being impressed by the
large entry foyer, the prevalence of dark polished wood everywhere, the broad
staircase leading to the second floor, the apparently expensive furnishings and
decoration, and the spacious living and dining rooms off the right and left of
the foyer. This was not a house like any
of my pre-Washburn friends lived in, but it wasn't out of the ordinary for
neighborhood it was in. (The girl whose
house at which this took place confirmed that it was indeed her house,
accurately described.)
At our 45-year class reunion, I was talking with two
people (one of whom I had known very well in high school and college, although
we drifted apart after that, for no particular reason, and one of whom I had
barely known in high school—and still didn't).
My once-upon-a-time friend came from south of the creek, a family of
modest means, and the other one from north of the creek (a well-to-do family). I asked them if they had been aware of this
north/south distinction that I had observed; the one from south of the creek
immediately nodded his understanding while the one from the affluent family
north of the creek said she had no idea what I was talking about.
I must acknowledge that there's an alternative
explanation that may account for some of the difficulty those of us from south
of the creek had in joining the lake/north-of-the-creek social circles. Ramsey Junior High School sits on the same
city superblock as Washburn; the two are divided by the Washburn football field
and bleachers. A huge percentage of
Ramsey students moved to Washburn, friendships and social circles intact. That group included the students who came
from the lake/north-of-the-creek area.
Only about half of the students from my junior high school, Anthony,
came to Washburn, so a number of those junior high school social circles were
disrupted. It may be that those of us
from Anthony were not able easily to join the established social circles (and
pecking order) that had transferred mostly intact from Ramsey.
It may also be true that this distinction between
students from south of the creek and the lake/north of the creek is a figment
of my imagination. My friend's instant
recognition of it, however, suggests the perception is not uniquely mine. It is possible, however, that by and large
those from the lake/north-of-the-creek area did not perceive the distinction,
perhaps partly because they had their established (affluent) social circles and
weren't paying much attention to other people.
It is also possible that many from south of the creek didn't notice the
distinction, either, for the same reason—they had social circles that had
survived the transition to Washburn—or they noticed but didn't care.
It
would be an omission worthy of criticism were I not to include an assessment of
my personal characteristics (or my perception of them, anyway), which certainly
could have affected my reception by new groups of classmates. I don't think I was in the
"egghead" category, or whatever it was, and I surely wasn't in the
"popular" category. Like the
majority of students, I was just there, neither outstanding or attractive in
any particular fashion nor particularly repellant or different, neither
reclusive nor outgoing, certainly not "hail fellow well met." As I look back on myself, I think
"bland" might be one appropriate term, and thus it is perhaps less
surprising that people did not immediately jump to welcome me as a new friend. I don't think that anyone in my professional
career or my current circle of friends would use that term.
By the time we were all off to college (at that time
something like 90+% of Washburn graduates went to college), my path parted even
more from my friends from my youngest years—but never completely. As is true for everyone who goes to college,
I made entirely new friends. In my
experience it is the college and graduate/professional school friends as well
as those made during one's career who tend to remain lifelong friends, as
opposed to friends from K-12 school years.
So where do things stand after 50 years? Of the lake/north-of-the-creek circle, I
remain good friends with two of the guys (and, as I mentioned, with one of the
girls). Two other guys vanished from my
life shortly after college (one of them vanished from the life of everyone
who'd been at Washburn, as far as any of us can tell). Inasmuch as I never developed any solid
friendships with the rest of them, they faded away the same way that many of
one's high school classmates do. At
class reunions, I have conversations with many; to whatever extent my
characterization of the distinctions between groups of students is accurate, it
has mostly disappeared (although, naturally, people who knew each other well in
high school still tend to congregate even if they only see each other at the
reunions).
All
of the foregoing being said, I never lost touch with the friends who'd been
close in elementary and junior high school, but I didn't see them more than
once every 5-6 years.
Until recently.
I've been glad in the last year or so to resume a more frequent
friendship with a couple of my friends from my youngest days. I'm glad they did not, at some point, say or
think "to hell with him" because of the distance I let grow between
us. It's been rewarding to renew and
refresh the relationships. We are all
fairly recently retired, from professional careers, so even though we were
south-of-the-creek guys, we went into the professions, not the trades. We came of age, and in a high school, where
the children of white middle-class parents were going to college—even if their
parents hadn't. So as we wander towards
our senescence, we find we have much in common.
So what's my overall take on my high school experience
five decades later? I'm ambivalent. Socially it was a confusing time for me,
somewhat remote from my friends from elementary and junior high school but
never more than a hanger-on (at best) of the aspirational group I encountered
at Washburn. Academically, it was
extraordinarily rewarding: we had a
crackerjack philosophy teacher, I think my history teachers are responsible for
my life-long avocational reading in history, I enjoyed the social science
classes, and I'll grudgingly concede that I learned Shakespeare and some
literature from my Washburn teachers.
Math and the sciences? Not so
much, foreshadowing a lifelong lack of interest in the fields (except, in
recent decades, as an avid lay reader of advances in the sciences). I don't have any truly bad recollections of
high school, just some that were frustrating.
To the extent that I "blossomed," it was in college and
thereafter, perhaps evidenced by the fact that with only one short interruption
I remained at the University of Minnesota for 46 years as a student and staff
member and achieved, some faculty and administrators have told me, minor
"iconic" status for the work I did.
I can settle for that.
One
thing I want to be careful about is implying that the more affluent classmates
looked "down" on those of us from homes that were less affluent than
some north of the creek; I don't believe that at all. My point was that the difference existed,
some were indifferent to it, some didn't notice it, and some just didn't pay attention
because they already had a social group coming out of Ramsey.
[I
don't touch on the issue of race in this reflection because there were very few
students of color at Washburn in the late 1960s. Of our graduating class of ~750, perhaps
20-30 were non-white (I haven't counted the pictures in the yearbook; maybe it
was more—but if so, not a lot). I can
recall encountering only one or two non-white students in elementary and junior
high school (and they were Asian-Americans); the neighborhoods, and thus the
schools, were almost entirely white. I'm
not claiming race and school segregation wasn't an issue in Minneapolis
schools, only that it isn't germane to the points I wish to make here.]
A note on terminology.
I have used the terms "guys" and "girls" in the
preceding narrative. It seemed to me
just wrong to use "men" and "women" in this context; I
don't believe we thought of ourselves as "men" and "women"
at the time except in a purely biological sense. I also tried out using "boys" and
"girls," but that didn't fit, either.
I came to realize that at least in my mind, using "guys" and
"girls" together implies teenagers or very young adults, whereas
using "boys" and "girls" together implies little kids. (And using "guys" and
"gals" together in a text would imply adults.) This nuance may be entirely my imagination,
but that's my story and I'm sticking to it.
I consulted with my long-time faculty friend in English to whom I turn
whenever I have questions like this; he told me, apropos of guys and gals and
boys and girls, that "the distinctions are real but unfortunately not
fixed, and the context will often imply the right application." My interpretation of his comment is that I
can use the terms as I have within the narrow context of a high school
setting. My use of "girls" in
this part of the letter obviously should not be construed as demeaning
females/women. See my note about
Christine Grant.
* * *
I suppose I shouldn't be surprised that when I write a
few paragraphs on a subject, I notice over the following few weeks or months
that an article appears in the scholarly or popular press that's directly
related to what I wrote. It happened
with high school popularity.
Mitch Prinstein, a University of North Carolina
distinguished-chair psychology professor, has published a book on popularity
cleverly titled Popular. (He also teaches enormously popular courses
on the subject). Popularity, so the
thinking goes, was something we left behind when we departed high school for
college and careers and became grown-ups.
Prinstein (reviewed in the Atlantic)
says that's not the case. "'In a
very real manner . . . our experiences with popularity are always occupying our
minds.' He adds: 'We never really left high school at
all.'" He also wrote that "our
high school selves are 'deeply embedded in our souls forever.'" Given my perception of my high school self,
this proposition makes me shudder.
In Prinstein's view, there are two bases for
popularity: status and likeability
(about one-third of those with high status are also likeable). Status popularity is high school stuff we can
all recall; it may provoke admiration but not necessarily liking. Likeability is just that—related "to
charm, to friendliness, to inquisitiveness—it’s the charisma that draws other
people to you, largely independent of status or beauty or any of the other
metrics that generally give people rank in American culture."
Moreover, for neurological reasons related to the
enormous growth of the human brain around the time of puberty (and, so, the
time of middle/high school), "newfound brain capacity collides with
newfound self-consciousness. The
adolescent brain is primed both to take in the world around it more than ever
before, and to process that information with more self-awareness than ever
before. Which is another way of saying
that teenagers are particularly cognizant of identity." High school, so the research suggests, is
"a powder keg, emotionally, and popularity—or, more specifically, teens’
conception of popularity—is a fuse."
Prinstein
also makes a strong case for everlasting adolescence: He cites study after study . . . all
suggesting the ways that popularity imprints itself on people’s lives, far
beyond the teenage years, through both its presence and its absence. Popularity affects people’s ability to find
success in their careers, regardless of their intelligence or their work
ethic. It affects their ability to find
fulfilling friendships and romantic relationships.
I don't have the means to conduct an analysis of my high
school class of 750, but my impression from communicating with many of my
classmates suggests that the most popular people in high school are not
necessarily the ones who have been most successful in life (defining
"success" in some general fashion).
I have some trouble buying into all this.
What is probably unarguable is that popularity (defined
as social connections) is linked to health and lifespan. There's ample research demonstrating that the
larger the network of friends, the longer the life, and the higher the quality
of the relationships, the greater the link between them and longevity. The converse was also true, not
surprisingly: those with fewest social
connections had the higher mortality rates ("being unpopular . . .
increased subjects' chances of death—more strongly, in fact, than did obesity,
physical inactivity, or binge-drinking.
(The only factor that seemed to be comparably hazardous to subjects'
longevity? Smoking.)") Lack of popularity "has also been one of
the most consistent risk factors for depression, anxiety, substance abuse, and
even criminal behavior."
So,
the theory goes,
even
forty years later, we can predict who will graduate from high school or
college, who will succeed at work, who will apply for welfare/social services,
and who may suffer from debilitating mental health difficulties or addictions
all by knowing how popular folks were in high school. What may be most surprising, however, is that
our popularity plays a role that cannot be accounted for by our socioeconomic status,
IQ, family background, prior mental health difficulties, or our
appearance. There’s something about the
way we are regarded by others that changes our life trajectories quite
meaningfully and substantially.
Our biases grow out of our
high school experiences and popularity.
We are suspicious or trusting, we assume friendliness or conflict. In Prinstein's words, "Our adult brains
began to form to help us survive in the hallways of high school. The problem
is, we left high school long ago—and our brains never got the memo."
I find this depressing, if it's true.
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