In this interview I spoke with a cousin of mine who is currently in the eighth grade about what he thinks high school will be like.This script is edited a bit because Evan is immature and had said some inappropriate things that I had to get rid of.
Q: Tell me your name and a bit about yourself.
A: My name is Evan, I live in Mississauga Ontario. I like watching movies and playing baseball. I turned 14 in February.
Q: What do you think high school will be like?
A: It will be hard because there will be a lot of work and a lot of personal problems and you have to balance both and maybe get a job.
Q: What kind of personal problems do you think teenagers have in high school?
A: They have problems with boyfriends and girlfriends, their friends, fitting in, and bullying. They also have problems with their parents, trying to look good or “find themselves”, drug problems and alcohol problems.
Q: Where do you think you’ve got all these ideas from?
A: Well, I guess through like TV and movies, they also teach us a whole bunch of stuff at school in health class about what will happen in high school to prepare us.
Q: Are you excited to go to high school in the fall?
A: Yeah, I guess. It will be cool to meet new people and be older and stuff, but I’m kind of nervous, I don’t know if I can handle all those problems and stuff.
Q: What do you think your biggest accomplishment will be in high school?
A: Being smart and popular and getting with all the ladies!
Evan’s thoughts about high school have all come from the media; he thinks the world for the average teenager is filled with drama, cheating, lying, drugs and sex. When I asked him about the problems teenagers encounter he only listed problems involving social life, he didn’t mention actual school or studies, in fact he barely mentioned it at all. He has this idea that high school will be just like on TV where everybody has problems that will resolve by the end of the day, and nobody actually does school work. Evan seems to think the goal of high school is to meet women, I left some of his answers out of this because they were inappropriate, but I can say that Evan pretty much thinks after school everybody just gets together and has sex during study sessions, at first I thought he was kidding, but then while he was talking I realized what an influence the media has had on my little cousin.It was mentioned that in elementary school they are teaching kids the "problems" teenagers face, when Evan told me about how they talk to him about pregnancy, drugs, alcohol and suicide, I had to set him straight and tell him that high school isn't a drama filled and bad place, that the average teen doesn't get pregnant after a night of hard core partying and then kill herself. It's clear that even the school's education is highly influenced by the media's dramatic portrayal of high school.
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