Students make school bad, not the administration

By Carlos Hernandez

Throughout my 12 years in public school, I have experienced everything someone in the public school system can. And, what I know for certain is that students make school bad, not just the administration.

I remember the first time students started acting all tough, ghetto, and gangster-like, and I remember the time when those kids started to get into serious trouble. I can also recall the first time someone offered me substances. As a boy, seeing other boys dress all ghetto like sagging and wearing clothes with clear gangster-like messages, it really intrigued me how many people got influenced by this behavior. 

Not just the guys but also the girls who dressed in certain ways, especially in middle school (where all of these things start to happen), started dressing ghetto, acting ghetto, and getting into drugs. These girls would wear revealing clothing and go against what all the other girls in school wore. 

For some strange reason, high school students are drawn to doing the opposite of what we should be doing, especially when it comes to school, which makes school a harder, worse environment for us all.

Middle school is where all of this starts. I remember looking innocent and childlike in elementary school, but when I entered 6th grade, everything changed. 

In elementary school, there was bullying that affected many students greatly, and that persisted into middle and even high school, but the main reason is that students in schools are all interconnected, which causes the spread of bullying and rumors, and somehow becomes just normal socializing. 

All of these things lead students to be influenced by their environments. Students cannot escape their school environments, but some (not enough) learn to adapt to the pressure and the toxicity of the environments. 

In middle school, I witnessed how the popular rap gangster music would influence the boys to act certain ways, which I saw firsthand when I saw my 8th-grade science teacher literally unable to teach because the ghetto kids were way too rowdy. In middle school, these things make the environment harder for everyone, as security guards and teachers become stricter because of students who cause a ruckus. And they most certainly don't change in high school. The shock was even greater in high school. 

High school really is middle school, but just with a tad bit more freedom. 

These same students bring their ghetto gangster culture and do drugs in the bathroom, and walk like they pooped their pants, and wear expensive designer clothing just to act and look like a bum. These are the same people who make high school a DAYCARE-PRISON for us all. Even though gangs in schools are decreasing, the problems still persist.

As a senior, I see all too clearly how high school really is just a daycare for irresponsible young adults. These students are typically freshmen to sophomores, with a few juniors involved. By senior year, these students typically have already left that behind because they have more really important things to do, or have already dropped out of high school, or are indeed up in prison- the real world is meeting them. This contagious, toxic, messy, ghetto, and gangster culture has affected my experience at high school tremendously. 

It’s not the school administrations fault that they order the security guards to make students wait outside to use the bathroom or to just straight up close the bathroom door in my face as I really have to go (true story by the way, it happened to me and I was PISSED), but I understand why the guards have to do that because there's too many students who are immature and purposely act out and don't follow basic rules that make school unbearable for us. 

The school administration has its own problems, yes, I agree, but there wouldn't nearly be as many problems in this school if the students changed their behavior and just started acting right. 

This goes to show that after my four years in high school, it's more of the same, just daycare prison. It's a daycare for these rowdy, gangster, ghetto kids who won't listen or do anything productive, and I'm trapped here with them until I graduate. 

Our school environment and culture cannot possibly improve until our attitude and behavior change. It starts with us changing, not the school administration itself.