Questions
from a New Senior
By Chris Shaker - 08/08
NEIRAD enilno edition | printer friendly
As I walked out the DHS doors for the final time last June as a junior, I realized that I would be a senior this year and will soon be going away to school. Where will I be going to college? Will I be able to survive in the business world? Will I be successful in life? These thoughts swirled around my head and it became very clear to me: I was growing up and that in a few years my generation would take the world by storm. My generation would no longer have its hand held. My life would be completely taken into my own hands, not my parents or my teachers.
This new pressure makes me nervous. Most of us don’t know the answer to these questions. (Unlike senior Tyler Foley who is already verbally committed to Loyola.) Then I thought, as I stepped on to my bus and realized that I would soon be driving to school, that I would still have one more year, my senior year. This generated some more thoughts. It made me think of what the changing of the guard would be like between last year’s seniors and this year’s seniors. Would my grade be as risky, as against the status quo if you will? All of these new rules and the expanded commitment policy will now affect the way my grade and the grades thereafter will behave.
Ultimately, I think the additional rules may not deter student behavior. Kids are kids. New restrictions do not necessarily stop them from breaking rules. I feel as though the more rules the administration creates for its students, the more students will feel compelled to break the rules and go beyond the barriers set for them. And I am able to say this because I am now a senior at DHS. I have seen a great change, this change feels like a rope constricting around my neck. This change in the climate of 2008 is reflected with such polices as the new commitment rule. This makes me think of the book, 1984.
“The thought police would get him just the same. He had committed--would have committed, even if he had never set pen to paper--the essential crime that contained all others in itself. Thoughtcrime, they called it. Thoughtcrime was not a thing that could be concealed forever. You might dodge successfully for a while, even for years, but sooner or later they were bound to get you." from "1984" by George Orwell
Where will I be going to college? Will I be able to survive in the business world? Will I be successful in life?
For those of you who have not read 1984 by George Orwell, the main character, Winston, gets into big trouble when he writes a rebellious statement in his journal and then joins a society against the dictatorship government. (see Winston's journal entry in large type to the left)
All Winston has done is write things he dislikes about the government and for this he faces serious punishment: even a single thought that diverges from the party line can yield serious reprecussions. Admittedly, this 1984 scenario I present is an extreme example. Yet, I do believe our society and our administration perhaps are headed in this direction, albeit on much lesser scale.
We are far from the end product netted in George Orwell's fictitious world where society is constantly watched, but not as far as people may think. Now I’m not saying we should be as free spirited and as unrestricted as teenagers were in the 1960’s, but I don’t think we should have things such as our current commitment policy or things like the Patriot Act.
To notice these subtle changes in our society people must take a bird’s eye view and look at how our society has changed. For those of you reading this now that are still at DHS, all you have to do is look at rules such as the commitment policy or the fact that we were not allowed to go to Lake Compounce theme park in 8th grade like the grades before us.
Once you notice these things, if you keep your eyes open, I’m sure you will see that we as a society are becoming more and more restricted. I challenge you the reader to discover this, and not accept it. Because if all of us do not question this encroachment on our freedom, we could fulfill facets of George Orwell’s dark vision.
