A look back on my high school experience

In seventh grade, it amazed me that most students did not have something they were passionate about—something they would want to pursue in life above everything else. At the time, I wanted to be a composer. That was it. Creating music was all I wanted to do. Slowly, though, that passion began to die off.

Middle school, for the most part, was full of bright-eyed kids—even the ones people considered stupid. Then you get to high school and you find (especially in the mixed classes) the most unadulterated boredom plastered on various dead faces around you in class. Ghost-like zombies everywhere. You could tell the ambitions of youth died off. I lost interest in composing by tenth grade.

It’s hard to grasp that I spent four of my most important developmental years in this place. Every teacher I’ve had, I’ve found as a wonderful person. The school is also a beautifully safe and well-supplied place. These are things to appreciate. But there is no motivation to become anything extraordinary. Only two or three teachers made me believe that I could become something greater—something seemingly impossible. The rest of the high school experience was just a constant reminder to remain normal.

I find this affects kids in lower classes the most.  Once these students fail an exam early on to get into some higher up class, they stay in the lower classes. Then the standards are set at rock bottom for them, which lead them to falsely believe that they cannot achieve anything higher. Earlier in the year, I did a group activity with a classmate. We had to discuss certain topics, and it was her turn to talk. She said quite simply: “I don’t know anything about this. I’m not that smart.”

There are so many other people at this school with that exact same mentality and nothing is ever done to change it. They continue going through high school thinking they’re idiots, and some probably continue thinking that for the rest of their lives.

I don’t think that all these students in lower classes are just inherently stupider than those in higher classes. Nor is it as simple as “If they tried, they would succeed.” It’s ultimately up to the individual to pursue knowledge, but there are so many other factors that work against certain students’ will to try. The standard is set low, so they perform low; not knowing that they have unbounded potential and that the standard is completely illusory.

My sophomore English teacher told me a few times not to just give up on my ambitions. These were side notes written on a trivial English paper and a yearbook, but apparently they’ve had some lasting effect on me, since I still remember them. I’m planning on becoming a film-maker—maybe partly because those comments have stuck with me; I don’t know. I’ve realized that if I make films, I cannot do it because I want to achieve the effects that other films have on me, but because no other film can express my individual thoughts and conflicts. And this is true: films don’t express the viewer’s feelings; the viewer projects his feelings onto the film. So if I make films, I must make them to understand and articulate my own conflicts. Any attempt to copy another film would be meaningless. As Werner Herzog, a German film director, says: “We have to articulate ourselves, otherwise we would be cows in the field.”

I hope this need to articulate myself does not die off. And hopefully, it doesn’t die off in you either.