When I was in the hall the other day, I ran into one of my friends who I hadn't seen in a really long time. We exchanges pleasantries and such, and caught up a bit on each other's lives. Just normal friend stuff. Yet, as always, when people ask me what I've been doing, it inevitably leads to Academy. Here's an inkling of our conversation:
Friend: Hey, so how's Academy?
Me: Pretty good. Long, as always, but it's fun.
Friend: Geez. I honestly don't know how you do it.
Me: Do what?
Friend: Academy! You guys are all geniuses. I swear, if I had half the brains that you do--
Me: It's really not like that. We're like an honors class that has students from North and South and has a bit of a different curriculum.
Friend: But don't you guys all have like 5.0s and do debate?
Me: Not all of us. Yeah, some of us do, but I wouldn't do debate if you paid me, and I have like a 3.8 GPA.
Me: Not all of us. Yeah, some of us do, but I wouldn't do debate if you paid me, and I have like a 3.8 GPA.
That carried on for a while and I had to keep telling her that we aren't a race of super smart aliens from a far away galaxy that learns through osmosis and rules the universe through mind control. It was kind of disappointing, though, because that sounds awesome.
I've been getting crap like this from people since I got accepted into Academy, and I'm 99.999993% sure that the rest of Academy has heard something like this from someone at sometime. Teachers, parents, and a whole lot of students, seem to jump to the conclusion that every single one of us in Academy is some sort of super genius. Don't get me wrong; some of us are, but not all of us are diehard debaters with 5.0s that play five instruments and run professional law firms in our basements. We just have this crazy reputation that we are. It's not all good stuff either--a lot of students think we're arrogant and self-entitled because of our being in Academy, and then they say that we really aren't that smart either. I don't know how it started, but it's spiraling out of control. It can't help that we're locked away in separate rooms learning all by ourselves for three periods every single day. It's like educational isolation. Kinda creepy if you ask me. We never get to do anything at our schools either. I know for a fact that Southies miss almost all assemblies and meetings. Plus, half the time we miss the morning news.
What surprised me the most is how teachers are almost worse than students with the whole ACADEMY-YAY-speil. Some teachers don't really care at all, and that's awesome, but some teachers go out of their way to claim that we're smarter than not only most classes, but the teachers themselves. It drives me crazy. I didn't join Academy to be put on a pedestal and revered as smarter than teachers and honors students alike. I joined because I thought that it was a cool program with a different approach to learning. I get it, we're all smart, but so are a ton of the kids at South and North. We're not really any different from them, and we're certainly not "better".
You're probably wondering how I came to really thinking about this. I know that we've only just started to read "Jane Eyre" but I remember one of the intro conversations we had about it in English sometime. In that conversation, we talked about how Jane is angry with her social standing and how social standings determined a lot back in Jane's time. I guess I sort of paralleled it with my frustration at how we're either seen as pompous and arrogant with no real talent, or insane super geniuses who spend all their time doing homework and cuddling with their history textbooks. No one really sees us as we really are. We just get the title "Academy" slapped on us, and suddenly we've been sorted into a category of dull high school chatter and serve as another source for drama and gossip amongst bored teenagers. Jane is sort of stuck in the same place. People don't actually get to know her, they just judge her because she's an orphan with no money from a poor family.
Also, in English we finished up with "Heart of Darkness". As much as that book annoyed me because I couldn't read it fast enough or understand it well enough, I liked a lot of the points it made. It reminded me of how tons of people thought that the white people settling the Congo was noble and good, but really it was a giant hell hole. I'm totally not comparing Academy to a hell-hole, but the white people's blind acceptance and glorification of something they really didn't know about reminded me of similar people I know.
I know that we're all smart, and that all of us have a lot of potential. I know we do. As Mr. Morgan said last year, "You were all chosen for a reason. You all weren't just picked out of a hat." I just get angry when we're treated as superior and inferior because we belong to a different program than the rest of the school.
God, I really am frustrated today. I gotta go to bed. Night all.
GIFS of the Day:
You are awesome. Never forget.
ReplyDeleteXOXO
Nish
Emily-
ReplyDeletewow, you really rocked this blog post. I agree with you 100% on everything you said. I hope everyone in our class gets to read this because it's so true and basically summarizes our experience in high school as "academites." In all honesty, I hate that term. I have had friends who have used it as a compliment and some use it as an insult in front of me when they forget who they are talking to. This term has, as you pointed out, spiraled out of control. It implies that everyone in academy is locked up in their rooms all day doing homework, applying to Harvard, and receiving a 6.0 GPA, if there ever is such a thing. For me personally, I have always struggled with how to deal with it. I never let anyone I meet for the first time know that I am in academy. It is always the last thing I tell them. I am not ashamed of it, but I prefer that people get to know me before they label me as awkward and anti-social. I believe the question academy kids must ask themselves is how we are going to deal with this crazy reputation we have been given. If you are ashamed to tell your friends that you are in academy then quit. Go ahead. I don't believe that we should put the fear of ruining our personal reputation in school above the type of education we are receiving. I am learning something new in academy everyday, and if that means that the rest of the kids at school still see me as simply an academite then that's fine by me.
P.S. have you read the Urban Dictionary definition of an academite? Here it is: A collection of at any given time 120 or so high schoolers lacking enough social skills to adequately communicate and so smart they could probably end world hunger if they weren't so busy discussing it.
Emily, I am very interested in this blog post, mostly because I really haven't heard anything about this academy "elitism." Truth be told, I heard more rumors about Academy in 8th grade than I do now. But I have heard from other Academites that these things do exist, so I'll take it for granted.
ReplyDeleteIn my opinion, the willingness of people to believe these rumors is just a reason why they didn't apply for, or to a larger extreme, even get INTO Academy (Note that I'm exaggerating). Moreover, I promise, it's not because of harmless rumors; this discrimination is, in my opinion, even more insidious.Here's why:
You and I, as well as the other Academites,know that Academy is essentially a honors class taught in an interesting way; it's not the next battle school (If you haven't read Ender's Game, then replace next Battle School with Ivy League preparatory program). But to people who are outside the loop, subconsciously they believe that Academites are inherently smarter (this statement is not true of all people, nor always true at all). Yet consciously, humans don't like being bettered by their peers, so they attempt to regain equilibrium by justifying to themselves, "well, they must not have any social life, so in fact, I'M better!." I know this from my experience with math; people often ask me whether I just practice 10 hours a day, and when I tell them otherwise, they become frustrated (again, all of this is a clear generalization).
Also, I'm pretty sure most of these beliefs stem from last year's academy, where many of the participants do have 5.0's (or so they claim) and do debate. This is not to say that last year's academy is smarter; Personally, I believe that the fact that difficult, exciting, risky Mandarin was last year's language and boring, common, half of us know it Spanish was this year's language (no offense Senora). The two options just attracted different kinds of people.
Your blog was very interesting; I love thinking about social divisions in schools, especially unique ones like Academy. Thanks for sharing this; I wouldn't have thought about it much otherwise.