Looking back at elementary school, I remember being friends with people I couldn’t imagine being friends with today. I wouldn’t call myself “popular” nor “a bookworm”, but “in the middle”.

I remember being friends with people who are now of different cliques in high school. Elementary School was the time in my education career when everyone got along and played together during recess.

It’s amazing how people change throughout the years, physically and mentally. In middle school, that is when cliques started to form. Middle School was probably my least favorite because everyone came together from different schools and starting forming cliques. There is a myth that cliques do not exist in high school, but they really do.

I really don’t like using the word “popular”,  but these kids obviously exist in high school. Then you have the jocks, the anime club, the bookworms, the rebels, and the middle class. At lunch, you can perfectly see the depiction of cliques. Just like the all-time classic movie, “Mean Girls” but not as harsh. But the formation of cliques is what I call immature but it is almost impossible to avoid.

In elementary school, although we were very young and new to the education world, we weren’t dispersed into cliques. Everyone sort of acted as one and didn’t care if the kid he or she was hanging out with was different from him or her. We weren’t afraid of being judged and we all got along perfectly. Elementary School was a time I really enjoyed and I wish I could expierence it all over again.

Leah Canonico says,”There were no cliques in Elementary School and there wasn’t a lot of pressure on you yet by your parents.”

Middle School was my least favorite but high school isn’t so bad. FHS isn’t too extreme with their cliques, but we do have them. Of of the things I hate about the high school environment is drama. I have witnessed a couple of fights between guys or girls, and it’s just immature.

I hate to say this, but people seem to never get enough of them. High school drama is just pathetic and unnecessary, everyone hates it. But teenagers have it the worst right now, developmentally.

Tori Moses says, “People should just leave their problems at home and not start drama in public.”

We are still trying to find out who we are and find our interests. We are afraid of being judged, and we are all trying to fit in. It’s something that very few teens can avoid, and I admire people who are carefree.

We are growing into adults and forming stable relationships for the people we care about the most. What I also observed with teens is how they treat their parents. When we were 5 or 6 we were attached to our parents and we weren’t embarassed to be with them.

Then as we ge older, we start treating our parents differently. We get embarrassed by them and try to avoid them as much as possible. We get into fights with them and hide our thoughts and feelings from them.

But not all teens are like this. Some teens say that they “hate their parents”, but do they really mean that? Imagine not having your parents for guidance and support, what would you do?

Kathleen Fitzgerald says, “I can’t imagine not having my parents to guide me, I wouldn’t of come this far if it wasn’t for them.”

But sooner or later, all of us will eventually pass teenhood, and become mature adults. Teens get the introduction of many responsibilites, like having a job, obeying your parents and curfew, having stable relationships, overcoming insecurities, keeping up with schoolwork, staying out of trouble and the worst, the college application process.

Its extremely stressful. But once we become mature adults, we will have other people to care about in our lives besides ourselves. Most of us will choose to get married and have kids, and others will not. We will have to maintain a steady job and take responsibility.

So enjoy high school while it lasts, and don’t be afraid to make mistakes because this is this time to make them. Then when you throw your caps up into the air at graduation you’ll be thrilled to move on to bigger and better things in life; its a part of growing up!

For more information on transitioning to highschool, check out: http://www.pamf.org/teen/life/school/highschool.html