Fresh Meat by Hannah Kimmel
August 30, 2010
Filed under Opinion
Everyone wants respect.
In high school, respect is especially desired and important.
Throughout a student’s four years in high school, he or she will inadvertently change and mature, grow and evolve.
The one constant is that respect will always be something they need.
Respect for elders is major cultural trait almost everywhere; again, high school is no exception.
Teachers, staff and administrators should certainly be respected.
And in the hierarchy of high school, so should everyone else in the grade above your own.
If one is using the “respect your elders” approach to conduct, then, logically, freshmen receive the smallest amount of respect, since they are the youngest.
It’s nothing personal. It’s strictly a social norm.
In the not-so-distant past, the freshmen were the top of their middle school food chain.
Guaranteed, while they were the eldest around, they expected, and thrived off of, the respect of the classes below them.
The invigoration of being a person who knows all the tricks, shortcuts and general facts about a school only comes with years of being there.
That feeling is something that everyone experiences at some point.
That feeling shouldn’t be tainted by someone younger being disrespectful.
Although that feeling can generate a sense of superiority, it comes with the well-deserved wait to get there.
When this year’s freshmen become seniors, they won’t be worrying about how they were told to move back at a football game – they’ll be too happy to have the authority to tell someone else what to do and where to go.
Everyone has been in that position.
Freshmen hate it now, but they’ll love it later.
True, freshman year is a big deal with changes and new people, but there is more than enough time to learn respect for their peers, upperclassmen and staff.
Everyone wants respect.
To make sure everyone gets the respect they want, they have to be sure to give some to others as well.
