Fresh Friends by Ashley Funke
August 30, 2010
Filed under Opinion
It’s the first day of high school for the freshmen.
Emotions are running high. The new students are feeling nervous and excited to finally be in high school.
Most freshmen have the feeling they’ve entered a bigger, more complicated school, which they truly have.
They have to worry about the size of the campus, about the teachers and about how they have to live up to certain expectations.
Not to mention worrying about the upperclassmen who tend to enjoy harassing and ridiculing the freshman.
Is this the way new students should be introduced to our school?
Once a person has become a freshman, there is no need to treat them like a complete inferior.
Instead of abusing them, upperclassmen should be good influences to the younger class.
Many times treating the freshmen unkindly is a means of revenge, a continuation of the behavior that the upperclassmen recieved when they were freshmen.
Treating freshmen like this isn’t helping the situation. It creates a vengeful cycle, leaving the freshmen with a vendetta to the following classes.
If upperclassmen treated the freshmen fairly, then maybe once the freshmen hit the upperclassmen status, they will not pass on the cruelty to the newcomers.
However, freshmen simply need to be cautious with what they say and how they act, since they definitely don’t need to irritate or anger upperclassmen.
Sometimes their poor behavior catches attention that’s not wanted, which is why they are targets.
Instead of criticizing and mistreating them for their poor behavior, older and more experienced students should advise the freshmen.
Upperclassmen can simply explain what the freshman has done incorrectly and give an alternative.
Resorting to physicality should never be an option; sticks and stones may break bones, but punches can be just as damaging.
In the end, freshmen are just learning how to be official high school students.
As upperclassmen, we should be helping them remember the freshman experience as amazing, not distressing.
