Being part of a clique

March 23, 2009 deboramarques

Have you ever belonged to any “school tribe”? I have! Let me tell you a little bit about my own experience. When I first lived in Rochester in 1992, I was only fifteen. I was an exchange student looking forward to improving my oral English skills. I had a tough time trying to adjust myself and finding out where I fit in. The school I went to was very poor, and even though I was a minority member myself, still I struggled to find my spot under the sun. Black people rejected me for not being black, Latinos said I dressed differently and they made fun of the fact that I considered myself Hispanic when I did not know how to say a word in Spanish (my primary language is Portuguese). I ended up hanging out with the very few white people that belonged to that school. They were all rockers, head bangers, Gothics or whichever other term you want to name them. We got along well, we had “rock” in common. That was only a phase though, a fashionable wave. Soon after, I went back to being “normal”. Belonging to a clique, had a high price. At the same type you make friends, you gain enemies. And unfortunately people judge you improperly by your looks and not by whom you really are. What I would like teachers and parents to consider is not to judge a book by its cover. Give our teens a chance, give them more credit. Some of them are really good kids. Some are just temporarily hiding behind weird-looking shells.

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2 Comments Add your own

• 1. Stephen Ransom  |  March 24, 2009 at 11:00 am

  Yes, that is a sad reality. We are all guilty at some point of this. However, here is an area where virtual collaboration can help and break down the walls of individual differences that we so hastily judge. In SecondLife you can create your own avatar and look however you want. In email, there is no visual. On wikis, you are as good as your brain. Same holds true with many of these technologies. Let’s judge each other by the worth of what we can produce rather than language, race, body, or popularity.

• 2. Stephen Ransom  |  March 24, 2009 at 11:00 am

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