Dear Knoch High School,
When I was little, I loved a show called “Good Luck, Charlie” on Disney Channel. If you haven’t watched an episode, all you need to know to understand my reference is that the eldest sister, Teddy, films videos for a video diary for her youngest sister, Charlie. In these videos, she usually gives some kind of advice or lesson to Charlie to help navigate her teenage years. She ends each video (and episode) by saying, “Good luck, Charlie.” With that in mind, I feel like my entire oeuvre (yes, I had to look this up) of newspaper articles is exactly that: my complaints, what brings me joy, and my advice to anyone who is willing to listen. So buckle up one last time as I grace you with my overabundance of (opinionated) wisdom…
I’ve heard many people throughout high school say that they “can’t wait to leave” or talk about how much they “hate it here.” Everyone seems to have a grievance to raise when it comes to high school.
And listen, I get it. Knoch High School is not exactly the High School Musical that we were promised.
Regardless, I stand firm in my opinion that high school is an enjoyable experience overall.
I mean, who doesn’t want to run sweet sixteen sprints at 9 in the morning at basketball practice? Or get death glares from the line of girls waiting for a vape in the bathroom when you are literally just trying to pee? Or get slimed by incredibly dense dodgeballs thrown by the baseball kids in gym class prison ball? Or be forced through metal detectors at 7 a.m.?
In all seriousness, there are definitely some major ups and downs to high school. However, I don’t think that makes the entire experience totally unworthwhile or miserable. I don’t think it justifies a visceral hatred for the institution. No matter your opinions on your individual high school experience, education is good, and there are a lot worse things that people could be forcing you to do than going to school.
I’ve been going to school for 13 years, and 12 of those years have been spent here at Knoch. 12 years is plenty of time to make memories, both good and bad. While I’ve been lowkey embarrassed the entire day after deciding to dress the theme for spirit week, slow-danced awkwardly at homecoming, and gotten a little too mouthy with the people at the metal detectors once or twice, I have also accumulated countless good memories that I know I will be able to look back on in the coming years.
I’ll look back on the dodgeball tournaments before Christmas break.
I’ll look back on my freshman-year geometry class.
I’ll look back on all five years of Spanish classes. Especially senior year in Spanish V, being the only girl. The chaos is hilarious, but I feel bad for poor Señora Davies, who is one of the best teachers that I have ever had.
I’ll look back on my sophomore year when I was first elected class treasurer and the cabinet tried to put on a wiffleball tournament. We ended up with like three teams, and I don’t think we made any money.
I’ll look back on planning prom senior year and all of the stress/chaos/prayers that it took.
I’ll look back on the first time that I got varsity time in basketball: a home playoff game with both sides of the stands packed during my freshman year.
I’ll look back on pie night every fall with the volleyball team and our annual trip to Buffalo Wild Wings.
I’ll look back on throwing shot & disc all four years and all of the amazing memories that I have from track. I have a feeling that I will remember every event that I tried over the years, whether it was my immediate love of throwing or when I tried my hardest in long jump but just couldn’t stop scratching and falling face-first into the sand.
I’ll look back on getting both my verbal and visual theme picked as the yearbook’s theme this year.
I’ll look back on senior year homecoming and the amazing pizza that I had afterward.
I’ll look back on doing the Best Buddies polar plunge, specifically the feeling of absolute shock that my body went into as soon as I hit that water.
I could go on and on and on with different memories, both good and bad, but I’ll stop boring you. The point is simple: make the most of your high school years and try to embrace all facets of being a teenager at a public school in America. It can be pretty awesome if you stop worrying so much about how other people perceive you.
The best possible way that I can think of to wrap up this article is with one of my unused senior quotes:
“Not an end, but the start of all things that are left to do.” -Hozier
I’ll never again be an unsure kindergartener with my mom slinging my backpack around my shoulders.
Or a nervous fourth grader headed to a new building with a different playground to explore.
Or a petrified sixth grader trying to figure out what sets off the metal detectors.
Or an anxious freshman trying to fit in with all of the upperclassmen.
I’ll never be those versions of myself again.
But this is the beginning of the first chapter that the rest of the senior class and I truly get to write by ourselves. I want to fill all the pages of this chapter and leave notes in the margin for a different, future version of myself to look back on.
My final piece of unsolicited and very cliché advice is that the best way to learn is by trial and error; try everything and regret nothing.
P.S. Zack Weiland complained that I didn’t include my future plans, so if you are curious, I will be attending PennWest California as history major.
P.P.S.
With this being my last article for the newspaper, I feel that I have to air my lone grievance:
A couple of months ago, I had a rough morning at the metal detectors and wanted to document my feelings for a future article. Around mid-February, I was at the metal detectors and saw the people working them waving a kid away from the door while he was standing outside in -7-degree wind chill. Instead of just letting him in, they forced him to walk around the side of the school to the main office entrance. Not only is it freezing, but it will make him late, which is so unproductive and forces the office secretaries to impersonate the school police officers. Letting one kid in was not going to make a difference, as there were already like 30 kids in the lobby that had yet to go through the metal detectors. I understand rules, but I simply cannot see the empathy in these situations. One minute, two minutes after 7:30- it doesn’t make sense to me. If it were 80 degrees, alright, fine, he can walk, but a wind chill of below zero… that’s just ridiculous. Our safety is not taken into account when they do that. Not only are you forcing him to walk in the freezing cold, but part of the building that he was forced to walk around doesn’t have a sidewalk or a crosswalk. What if he gets hit by a car? Is it worth the couple of seconds you gained by not letting him go through the door, which would force you to go through his stuff? That is literally what you are paid to do. My basic empathy tells me just to push the door open a few inches and let him in. And I’m a rule follower. I get that we need to be in the building by 7:30, but I’ve been locked out at 7:29 before, and yes, that makes a difference. That minute that you took from me is now wasted walking to the other side of the building. Then I have to ring the bell and wait to be let into the main office, and go through the metal detector there with all the other kids who have been shunned from the door. We all pile our stuff onto the teeny table and hope that we will make it through before the bell so that we don’t get a tardy. Which I wouldn’t have had to worry about being tardy if you had just let me in the door that I was originally trying to get in. Trust me, I know that I wouldn’t have been tardy because I’ve been at the metal detectors at 7:30 and made it to my first period on time. Thank you for your attention to this matter.
The most sincere sincerely,
Good luck, Charlie,
Savanna 🙂
