Capturing Dreams: Being an American High School Student (II Part)

 

If you’re here to listen stories about American students’ life-style you’re in the right place, but if you haven’t yet, consider checking my previous article, because we’re on the second part already!

 READ PART I 

 In every American high school movie, we always happen to see characters with a very characteristic kind of leather jacket, which is worn by the athletes and, in case you didn’t know, it’s chosen by the high school and is different for every school.

But not everybody gets the honor to wear one! Only the best athletes from every sports receives the right to buy it, and they are usually pretty expensive. The athletes that qualify have reached the Varsity team, the one that competes under the name of the school for the district championship every year.

 Today, one of the biggest questions about American high school is going to have an answer:

 ·       Are sports in High School as big as they make it seem?

Well, they’re even worse! In fact, sports in school is one of the biggest focus point of the instruction system, to the point that it becomes an obsession.

On average, every year 150,000 dollars get spent by every high schools on their sport teams. In fact, there’s no high school that lacks at least a football field. Students go to school even as early as 6 A.M., or stay late in the afternoon, just so they can practice every day.

 As you may imagine, the biggest sport of all is football, which can be open to every male student, but you usually have to make it through the try outs to get in. Every school also has a cheerleading squad and a student band that plays at every game during half time, along with the color guard.

During football season, when they usually have games every Friday evening, they even modify the whole Friday class schedule just to fit a Pep Rally in between first and second period.

·       What’s a Pep Rally?

It’s basically 40 minutes of hyping up the competing athletes, the competitive spirit and celebrating the school’s accomplishments. 

cheerleading performance during a Pep Rally

For this reason, and to wear them at the actual football game, most school have their own merchandising, and even a shop where it gets sold!

If football, cheerleading or color guard don’t appeal to you though, don’t panic! Every school has a multitude of other sports from which you can choose, usually open to both genders. Between them you can find soccer, basketball, baseball, softball, tennis, wrestling, gymnastics, track, cross country, water polo, swimming, twirling, golf, lacrosse and others depending on the state.

·       What if sports are not your cup of tea?

The answer is very simple: clubs! It’s rare for students to not join any extracurricular activities. In fact, school are provided with every kind of club, such as debate, calligraphy, or even cooking, and as long as you have two friends and a teacher that support your idea, you can even come up with your own. 

debaters from a debate club after a tournament

And of course you are totally allowed to join as many as your personal schedule allows! The only problem is that while some of them meet barely once a month, others require a whole lot of commitment, just like sports.

·       Why are these activities so deep-rooted?

If you think about it, it’s almost like a natural consequence of their frenetic school life style. Especially in big schools, while always switching classes, desk mates, and having only 6 minutes to go from class to class, making friends it’s not as easy as it might seem.

All these options, apart from being fun, relaxing and helping the students’ development, serve to bring together teenagers that have something in common.

·       What’s next?

Consider yourself lucky, because this first chapter about American high school it’s not over yet! Stay tuned for the third part, where I’m going to share with you some goodies, and we’re finally going discover what to actually expect from school dances!

Today's Blogger

 "How you doin'? My name is Eleonora Campi and I'm attending the third year of Liceo Scientifico. I consider myself a very curious person, that likes to embrace new adventures everyday. From natural environments to big cities, I enjoy spending time travelling. That's why I've been a scout for over 8 years, and I'm trying to study multiple foreign languages. In fact, the two things I loved the most since I was a child have always been Japanese culture and cats. Hopefully, through my work on this project, I will be able to convey to you all new enchanting facts!"