Something I've observed and lived throughout my years in high school is the feeling of a hierarchy. I'm not going to get into what creates the hierarchy or why it is there. What I want to talk about is how it affects the interaction between individuals. I've always thought of high school as a pyramid of people. The top are on top and the bottom are on bottom. The higher a person is on this hierarchy the easier it is for this person to communicate with people under them. The lower someone is on this hierarchy the harder it is for them to interact with people above them. I started thinking about this idea because of Jenice's senior project (your documentary was full of great idea and topics I'm just focusing on the labels aspect). The people in this hierarchy are labeled as popular or nerdy etc. In doing so, it seems as though many teens are blocked off from opportunities because they can not interact with many other students (at least not easily). Los altos doesn't seem that cliquey but this hierarchy seems rather prevalent.
I think this is true in more of a middle school setting, but I feel like once you get to high school the popularity label kind of drops, at our school there are so many different groups that could be considered the top, is it jenny chin and her squad, or rachel glein and her squad, or another group completely different, it could honestly be anyone I feel like at our school. I think los altos does a great job making people equal and making people fit in, I think that these groups are made based on their interests and some are bigger so they seem to make a bigger appearance at the school.
ReplyDeleteWhy do you think this hierarchy exists? Could it be the media? Also, a lot of movies and tv shows display this hierarchy which could be an influence. However, like Rachel said, our school has many groups so I think the hierarchy is ranged
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