At Ballou High School, bright
students like Cedric learn that “distinctiveness can be dangerous, so it’s best
to develop an aptitude for not being noticed.” How do you think Cedric’s
experiences would compare and contrast (pattern of Development!) with the
educational experience here at Kennedy?
Here at Kennedy the administration put
its students under the microscope in academics.
Are principle Dr. W is always encouraging us to do well on our
standardized test and to take hard Ap class. When we have awards in our class
level; almost everyone gets a t-shirt and an award sheet saying they are doing
well. This gives the idea that almost everyone is a kind of bright student not
just a few like those that are at Ballou.
Ballou the school that Cedric
attends, the administration works hard to single out only the students that go
above and beyond the standard of everyone. This makes them targets in ways that
here don’t happen. Cedric has been
forced to be alienated by the fact that he wants to succeed in a different none
convention way. To the students of Ballou to succeed is to come out and be
alive. They don’t have plans to for a true future; At least most of them.
The thing I feel that has been
pushed here the most is AP class. These classes are hard core and they put a
lot of pressures on the students. Maybe like
Ballou the taking of the AP class is the normal and like Ballou if you don’t take
it some people make judgment on your worth to this school. Not just the
students but teachers also. This makes
students feel that to be a good student they need to take up the challenge and
take that AP class even if it will inhibit them from doing other things like
sleep and maybe have less stress.
At Kennedy the normal is to go to college,
while being just a high school degree and not carrying on with more education
is not the normal. It is what you would say is the Cedric’s of Kennedy. This
can be a sad thing that everywhere we go there are outcast; they have little
friends and with that they have a drive to stuff the different so as to keep
what they are special. Where it’s dropping out or going to a better greener
pasture.
