For college students around the country, heading home for Thanksgiving means the best of times and the worst of times. Sure, you’ll snatch a few days off from classes, at least one warm home cooked meal. At the same time, it goes by way too quickly, you’re probably going to have to avoid your high school boyfriend and your parents are sure to question you all about classes. More »
This Thanksgiving, I’ll give thanks for food, friends, and family (not necessarily in that order), but for the first time in my life, I won’t be spending the holiday passing the cranberry sauce to my mom or watching my dad awkwardly carve the turkey. Instead, I’ll be spending it more than a thousand miles away in my adopted home of Brooklyn, and I couldn’t be happier.
The truth is, while I’ll miss celebrating the holiday with my family, I’m looking forward to avoiding certain things. And no, I’m not referring to the judgment cast by my grandmother for biting my nails or for not sitting up straight, nor am I referring to the always-hellish experience of holiday airline travel. (Last year I was assigned a seat that had no cushion. Just a raw, curved piece of plastic. Good times.) No, I’m referring to the even more harrowing experience of running into people I knew in high school around my hometown when I least expect it. More »
This week a teacher in Illinois was suspended for showing her government class some clips of The Daily Show. There are a lot of reasons that showing a bunch of high school kids clips of the show in class could be problematic. They’ll get an opinionated slant on the news instead of unbiased facts, they might feel uncomfortable with the humor, and they’ll have less time to memorize things the Preamble to the Constitution. But suspending her seems a little extreme.
Even if most of the students disagreed with Stewart’s slant on the day’s events, it could have been a good way to spark an impassioned class debate, and as anyone who’s gone to high school can attest to, there’s a lot worse being shown to students today. More »
Pre-gender reassignment surgery and pre-possible nose job… We hardly recognized the Friends sweetheart and Dancing with the Stars contestant. More »
You mean to tell us that the youngest members of the Kardashian-Jenner family, 15-year-old Kendall and 14-year-old Kylie Jenner, actually go to high school? More »
Are you kidding me right now? This is what Zach Galifianakis looked like in high school? We’d always imagined he looked exactly the same as he looks now, but in footie pajamas and propeller caps. Swoon, crush, swoon. More »
MTV clearly loves young adult reality shows: they already have two huge hit shows about teenage parenting (16 and Pregnant and Teen Mom), and they’ve announced a new show about young newlyweds. Up next: they’re reportedly casting for an as-yet-unnamed show about high school dropouts. More »
While you hear stories of celebrities who gave up college or even high school in order to pursue acting and became multimillionaries without ever having to hit the books again, it’s nice to see someone who’s able to juggle both. Dakota Fanning graduated from North Hollywood private school Campbell Hall yesterday. More »
It’s prom/graduation season, which means that wherever you look on TV there’s an almost fetishistic obsession with these rites of passage. On 16 and Pregnant, Danielle Cunningham sounded more upset about missing out on her senior year with her friends than about the fact that she suddenly had a new baby that she’d be responsible for for the next eighteen years or so. On Glee, Quinn announced, “you can get married as many times as you like — you only have one shot at your junior prom.” Movies from Can’t Hardly Wait to American Pie are all about admitting to your crush that you love them before everybody heads off to college and how high school is some kind of important metaphor for the rest of our lives. More »
The best thing going on on the Internet right now: Researchers from the National Institute of Drug Abuse are answering high schoolers questions on a public chat board. It’s really informative actually, but reminds us exactly how stupid and ill-informed we were about drugs back in high school. Also, it’s hysterical, watching people with PhDs in drug research try to answer questions that you’d usually find on Yahoo message boards. Our favorite questions and answers below: More »
‘Who Would You Rather’: HS Boyfriend Edition – Okay, the choices are Heath Ledger in 10 Things I Hate About Your, John Cusak in Say Anything, Ferris Bueller, Edward Cullen, or Nic Cage in Valley Girl. Aaaaand: Go! (via PopEater)
Are the years of childhood best friendships gone forever? Your school might be hoping so: The New York Times revealed today that some school officials discourage best friending because it leaves out other students and encourages cliques and overall Mean Girl-style behavior. But will it work?
Probably not, especially since teenage BFFs are usually forged on a one-on-one basis, the opposite of a clique. If you foster a community where a bunch of girls are thrust into a social scenario and… More »
A recent study has revealed that the number of in-school friends that high school students have is directly related to the grades they earn.
UCLA professor Andrew J. Fuligni and co-author Melissa R. Witkow say their research has revealed that teens — both boys and girls, across all ethnic groups — with more friends in school with them compared to friends outside of school have higher GPAs. So the more friends you have in school with you, the higher your grades.
“This… More »
Don’t call them emo, call them “Team Jacob.” San Antonio high school students, sick of all this Anne Rice, mopey-vampire b.s., have started obsessing over a new imaginary creature: the werewolf. Which actually makes a lot more sense for high schoolers anyhow: According to facts (or what I learned from Teen Wolf), being a werewolf makes you popular, good at sports, and attractive to the opposite sex. So basically, being a lycanthrope is like role-playing being a jock, except you… More »
VeryVera from I’m Not Obsessed asks who would have been your preference in high school?
You know I will always pick Brad, but dang – Vince was looking pretty hot, eh? … More »