Question 1794: Yearbook club or student council? (and why…)
I wan’t a member of either group, but this is a no-brainer if you seek power in high school. Student council is relatively toothless and is subject to the whims and decisions of the faculty and administration. Sure, it might look good to have been on student council when you’re applying for college, but in the end, so what? I can’t remember a single one of our student council presidents or members.
What I can remember is getting each year’s yearbook to see what everybody’s horrible school photos looked like. To see how many times a given person was in candid shots. Because frankly, nobody has power equal to that of the yearbook photographers. If they liked you, you were golden. You looked good in your photos and those were included liberally among yearbook pages.
If they didn’t like you–or even if they didn’t know who TF you were–you ended up with shit like this for posterity.
I have no yearbooks … and didn’t serve on student council, I can tell you who did … the most popular kids. One of them arranges another girl, one of the nerdy studious kids to arrange everything for our class reunions. which I have never attended. You look adorable, those stockings are great.
Thanks.
I was on the newspaper staff. I was still deciding my future in journalism or education. I never worked for a paper. I did teach. Now I do neither.
A thousand years later, nothing about high school matters except the friends who stayed friends and the teachers who offered something of value (either in their subjects or as adults who could be trusted). High school and its cliques and heartbreaks are best left behind the day we graduate. It amazes me how many people hold on to what they were or were not in high school.
I was in plays. My performance as Villager 2 in the PHS production of Frankenstein was the stuff of legends. I have often thought of writing a monster fighting girl traveling the world with a Prince that has been cursed and is now a talking dog … she would be called THE VILLAGER. I was also in thechoir, although I could not sing …weird
Senior class play; no particular talent. Color Guard captain in the band, no musical talent. I was in a few other clubs here and there, but no one cared then, and no one cares now.
I cared about books and boys. One was better for me than the other.
I wasn’t at all interested in either of those, including that yearbook extension the Face Book and its cliques and backstabbing. I was one of those with severe acne too, which kept the nearby locker chicks well away from me, but not their toxic Hairspray fumes, nor their ghastly dislike. I still cringe when I remember those blondes in whiny “like, OMG! My Hair! It…. [Dramatic Pause] …MOOVED!!!!!!!” as I choke to death from their fumes.
But there were plenty of guys I liked, some even as friends, and there were plenty more guyes who didn’t like me for being so “weird” (usually, my hyperactivity did that to anyone!) nevermind gay.
So High School was an overcrowded prison which was economically ran down to nothing. Only a handful of teachers there were trusted and truly impacted my life. One math teacher I had I met again in passing at a Panera finally succeeded in making math make sense to me, and I told her that and how I became a math tutor (sometimes teacher) and an engineer.
Despite the relentless being an American, my England public High School (circa 6th grade Mom said she was too young for me to be in High School already!), however, was far superior to that American public High School Prison (TM).
Two of my best teachers were math teachers, and thanks to them, I stopped thinking I was stupid in math. It wasn’t my natural subject, but I did finally make good grades because of their patience and teaching skills.
Yearbooks must be nostalgic to look back on. We don’t have them here.
I remember three major players in this kind of nostalgia–yearbooks, class rings, class keys, awards pendants, etc. : Jostens, Herff Jones, and Balfour. I’m sure there are more companies now, and I wonder if the yearbook concept is still as important now that every student has a phone with a camera to capture their memories.
It was definitely a big business.
My Dad worked at Jostens