How do Americans.......

I didn't finish 8th grade

High school can be hell, and not just in the US.

Did you ever watch My So-Called Life?

In one of the first episodes the main character is joining the yearbook staff (or being forced to). As she's meeting with the yearbook faculty adviser there is a voice-over (paraphrased, since I don't remember it exactly): "What do they even do yearbooks? If people really remembered high school the last thing they'd want to do is make a record of it."

There are some good things about high school, but it's a difficult time for most kids. It's not just the school, they are starting to become adults, but not quite, and without the freedom they think they deserve. I remember thinking that my life would be perfect once I got my driver's license and a car . . . that way I could get away from those pesky, demanding parents.

No. To me, high school was an evil place with evil people doing evil things. Extracurricular activities with kids from other schools saved my sanity.

Yes, I loved high school.

Representation of high school on TV makes me wonder if I ever went to a "real" high school. Sure, we have fights, some drug problems, a campus officer, and kids gets suspended. We don't have gangs, though we had a couple of fake ones as a joke. Everyone seems to have somebody for a friend, except for one kid I can think of. He said stupid things and instead of owning up to it, just acted like a jerk. People tried to be nice to him, but he kept acting like a jerk. He also assaulted his girlfriend, though they are still together I think, and he probably dropped out. Too bad, but he was really a strange exception to the rule.

Kids call names, they toss around "fag" and stuff, but we really don't have a big bullying problem, at least not like TV shows. I watched a movie where some girl dumped her drink on another girl's head, etc. That would never fly.

The gay population is small, but we do well here, thankfully. At worst, there is an undercurrent feeling of anti-gay sentiments. It's discouraging, but I've never been outright harassed for being gay. I'd get all in their face first.

For me, High School wasn't as bad as Middle School.

High school is Year Nine (in UK terms) to A-levels afaik. From 13 to 18 afaik.

ETA:

I think the US (like the UK) have good schools and bad schools. Some of the secondary schools my friends have had contact with (in the UK) are horror stories in their own right, for LGBT kids. Others are decent enough. THere's a strong undercurrent of homophobia in UK schools as well. 'Poof' and 'wooftah' are heard in breaks, without adults getting involved.

Let's see.... Junior High is grades 7-8

High School is grades 9-12
Freshmen, Sophomores, Juniors, and Seniors

Seniors tend to be turning 18 years old so the ages of high school would be about 15-18

Junior high is about ages 13-15

Middle school here is 5-6 so the ages would be 11-13 about
BUT middle school can also be grades 5-8 and eliminate Junior High

Elementary goes from ages 5 to 11

I loved high school, except for the fact that I wasn't a *pretty* girl and didn't have boyfriends. As soon as I went away to college that all changed and I couldn't figure out why.Then I went to a high school reunion and found out that all the guys I had crushes on were too afraid of me to ask me out.

Not sure how that happened.

I was a busy kid, though. I was racking up any and every extracurricular activity that would increase my chances of a good college. So between JCL, forensics, student council. theater, writing competitions, chess club, math team, announcing high school sporting events blah blah blah I didn't have time to be miserable. I was never bullied, although my brother was bullied pretty horrifically until he hit 6'2" and 195 lbs in his sophomore year. Then he became really popular. I was never popular, but I was respected. I wasn't part of a clique, but I had an airtight circle of friends who shared the same interests and with whom I still communicate today. All of the bullying I experienced when I was a teenager came at home.

Middle school in my part of the world was sixth grade through eighth--ages 12-14 approximately. High school started in ninth grade(freshman year) and finished with the twelfth (senior year), when most of the graduating class is eighteen. (I wasn't. I was a year younger than my class) Some parts of the country have different definitions for middle school and high school. I was actually in the first ninth grade class to be put into high school; before that, ninth grade was the last year of middle school.

CheekyWench said:

For me, High School wasn't as bad as Middle School.

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This. Middle School was awful.

High School where I went wasn't like it is on TV though. It was mostly divided between the athletes and the brains. The athletes had their own breakdowns, though I don't know what those would be b/c that was not my group.

Then the brains split into several groups. The most popular kids who ran Student Government (and the school) were in all the AP classes. They were the ones who had the leads in the plays and musicals, they joined all the other groups like Spanish or Latin club. Then there's the smart unpopular kids like me - in the same classes and clubs and in the same musicals and plays...but running in our own little circle of friends on the outskirts of the popular kids.

We were pretty segregated racially too. I don't say this to sterotype, but it's true - there were only 2 black kids in any of the AP classes or Honors classes. The rest were athletes - and our school was not known for its sports. LOL. We sucked.

No gangs, as far as I knew. I didn't know anyone who claimed to be gay or who seemed like he/she may be. I did know a boy in middle school who was not shy about being gay and had the biggest crush on a football player. The football player took it all in stride too. It was pretty cool.

I hated high school. Life started getting better at college (university to you UKers) and has been getting better ever since. You couldn't pay me to go back to high school. Even if I could know what I know now I wouldn't go. Not for anything.

mirandashell said:

Could someone help me out? What the ages for high school? And middle school?

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Middle School - 11-14
High School - 14-18

mirandashell said:

And thinking about it..... is that website needed?

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The youth suicide rates, especially amongst gay and lesbian kids suggests it is. You might want to look into why it was created and why people are supporting it.

I was lucky enough to have an older sister whop came back from uni and told me basically the same thing. It had a huge, huge effect one me to know that things got better after you got out of the festering bitch-pit that was my high school.

regdog said:

I did. It's been awhile since high school, but I had a good time

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Me too - Lurved every minute of it.

There was a rash of gay suicides that sparked the "It Gets Better" campaign. Shouldn't have needed those suicides to start a movement, though.

mirandashell said:

I kind of thought I was....

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I mean on the site itself, it is all explained there.

I am not American but had no trouble understanding where it came from. While I was in high schoolI saw enough kids called fag and slammed against lockers, I saw a girl with mental illness deliberately goaded into rage attacks on a daily basis, I saw a girl who disclosed she was sexually abused by her dad followed by her peers chanted 'daddy's girl' over and over--and I could go on with dozens more examples.

If you happened to go to a school that didn't tolerate that, that's great. But it is not about nationality and a lot of people were not that lucky.

The problem is of course that there was just as many teen suicides a year before the "spate", and there will be as many a year from now: both in the UK and in the US.

I have recurring nightmares where it turns out that I never completed the credits needed for high school, and unless I go back and redo it, my college and graduate degrees won't count.

I didn't think I hated it that much at the time, but my dreams say otherwise.

Well, you suggested the problem only exists in American (or the initiative is not needed at all), I pointed out that it doesn't exist only in America and is really pretty bad in a lot of places around the world. That is all. And I'm not being snarky. I had a lot of pretty traumatic experiences in high school, and that's without dealing with homophobia.