This is a speech I gave my freshman year for a winter Student Culture Forum at Deerfield.
There is a divide. There is a divide between different ethnicities here, and there is a divide between different socioeconomic classes. But I do not believe that it’s always something to berate. Human nature is such that we will always feel more comfortable being with those who are most similar to ourselves. I believe it’s something that has to be embraced, at least in some parts.
Deerfield has changed a great deal since it was an all-boys boarding school for white males of a very specific economic class. The reality is, however, that certain traditions still endure from then, but the students who have to live with these traditions in our school today are not all kids who come from that kind of a background. So it’s only natural to feel a bit like a stranger, or an alien at times, even if those who “don’t belong” outnumber those who do “belong.” The traditions and the exclusivity don’t just end in school. To take a pretty recently relevant example, dances like gold+silver and holiday ball are attended by a pretty distinct group of kids here, and that’s never going to change, while, thinking back to my own Camp Becket experience, a lot of students here who are part of the “dominant culture” come in already knowing each other. If they don’t, it often ends up that they have friends in common or places they’ve been to that they find in common.
But how far are you going to ask kids to mix when there are these divides? Kids who are worried about paying their way through Deerfield and eventually college have different outlooks and different modes of thinking from students who have never and will never have to worry about it. It’s not good or bad one way or another. We’re still kids, and our socioeconomic situations are given to us, and none of us should feel guilt or self-deprecation about our economic standing in relation to another student.
The most difficult part about it, though, is that in no public school today is there quite as big a gap between those who have and those who don’t in any one given student population. Deerfield is artificial in the sense that we are a chosen group of kids, not chosen as in the “chosen ones,” though Choate might argue that we’re just that self-absorbed, but chosen as in pieced together. We’re all chosen for the diversity that we can contribute to the community as a whole, and while that’s one of the best parts about Deerfield, it also leads to some pretty unrealistic situations. A lot of kids here end up seeing things that they never would have had to see if they went to another school, dreaming about wealth that they couldn’t have imagined before coming here, and wanting to fit into a group of kids that they never would have had to meet otherwise.
I think a lot of people shake this worry off by saying “yeah, it’s a real-life experience so better have it sooner than later.” But is this degree of smashed-togetherness really that real-life?
This is a high school. There will be popular kids, there will be unpopular kids. I personally don’t really believe in the word popular, but it’s used enough in the real world that I’ll give myself the liberty to do the same. We live in a world where pop culture promotes wealth and beauty as the two most valuable assets an individual can have, so why wouldn’t that be reflected in the way any school culture works? It’s a sad situation, however, when we define the “average Deerfield student” with a bunch of brands during Connect 4, and over a third of our population either doesn’t know the brands that comprise or can’t afford said “standard” appearance.
On top of everything, Deerfield is a boarding school. In many schools, students can make the decision to present themselves in one particular light or another, but when you’re living with your classmates and friends, it’s nearly impossible to hide things about yourself and about your background. Openness is good, openness is great, but at our age, where we have these insecurities and self-doubts, not just because we’re Deerfield students, but because we’re teenagers, and let’s admit it, it’s a pretty awkward age, sometimes I wish there was more liberty to conceal at this school. In reality, it’s all kind of laid out for the whole world to see, and even when you don’t want to see or be seen, everyone you know is within hand’s reach.
A lot of these difficulties in being a Deerfield student, however, are things we need to embrace because in coming here, we make the choice that we want that life, that we want to be a part of this. And personally, I do, I really love being a part of everything here, or at least most things. But all I want to ask of myself and the people around me is a concession, that heritage is something to honor but oftentimes something to question, that there are good traditions and bad ones, and that realities we take for granted might sometimes only be true because we take them for granted.
There is a divide. There is a divide between different ethnicities here, and there is a divide between different socioeconomic classes. But I do not believe that it’s always something to berate. Human nature is such that we will always feel more comfortable being with those who are most similar to ourselves. I believe it’s something that has to be embraced, at least in some parts.
Deerfield has changed a great deal since it was an all-boys boarding school for white males of a very specific economic class. The reality is, however, that certain traditions still endure from then, but the students who have to live with these traditions in our school today are not all kids who come from that kind of a background. So it’s only natural to feel a bit like a stranger, or an alien at times, even if those who “don’t belong” outnumber those who do “belong.” The traditions and the exclusivity don’t just end in school. To take a pretty recently relevant example, dances like gold+silver and holiday ball are attended by a pretty distinct group of kids here, and that’s never going to change, while, thinking back to my own Camp Becket experience, a lot of students here who are part of the “dominant culture” come in already knowing each other. If they don’t, it often ends up that they have friends in common or places they’ve been to that they find in common.
But how far are you going to ask kids to mix when there are these divides? Kids who are worried about paying their way through Deerfield and eventually college have different outlooks and different modes of thinking from students who have never and will never have to worry about it. It’s not good or bad one way or another. We’re still kids, and our socioeconomic situations are given to us, and none of us should feel guilt or self-deprecation about our economic standing in relation to another student.
The most difficult part about it, though, is that in no public school today is there quite as big a gap between those who have and those who don’t in any one given student population. Deerfield is artificial in the sense that we are a chosen group of kids, not chosen as in the “chosen ones,” though Choate might argue that we’re just that self-absorbed, but chosen as in pieced together. We’re all chosen for the diversity that we can contribute to the community as a whole, and while that’s one of the best parts about Deerfield, it also leads to some pretty unrealistic situations. A lot of kids here end up seeing things that they never would have had to see if they went to another school, dreaming about wealth that they couldn’t have imagined before coming here, and wanting to fit into a group of kids that they never would have had to meet otherwise.
I think a lot of people shake this worry off by saying “yeah, it’s a real-life experience so better have it sooner than later.” But is this degree of smashed-togetherness really that real-life?
This is a high school. There will be popular kids, there will be unpopular kids. I personally don’t really believe in the word popular, but it’s used enough in the real world that I’ll give myself the liberty to do the same. We live in a world where pop culture promotes wealth and beauty as the two most valuable assets an individual can have, so why wouldn’t that be reflected in the way any school culture works? It’s a sad situation, however, when we define the “average Deerfield student” with a bunch of brands during Connect 4, and over a third of our population either doesn’t know the brands that comprise or can’t afford said “standard” appearance.
On top of everything, Deerfield is a boarding school. In many schools, students can make the decision to present themselves in one particular light or another, but when you’re living with your classmates and friends, it’s nearly impossible to hide things about yourself and about your background. Openness is good, openness is great, but at our age, where we have these insecurities and self-doubts, not just because we’re Deerfield students, but because we’re teenagers, and let’s admit it, it’s a pretty awkward age, sometimes I wish there was more liberty to conceal at this school. In reality, it’s all kind of laid out for the whole world to see, and even when you don’t want to see or be seen, everyone you know is within hand’s reach.
A lot of these difficulties in being a Deerfield student, however, are things we need to embrace because in coming here, we make the choice that we want that life, that we want to be a part of this. And personally, I do, I really love being a part of everything here, or at least most things. But all I want to ask of myself and the people around me is a concession, that heritage is something to honor but oftentimes something to question, that there are good traditions and bad ones, and that realities we take for granted might sometimes only be true because we take them for granted.