Apathy in Como

December 14, 2009  
Filed under Uncategorized

By ninth hour, Mr. Grebner has had a long day. It’s common for the students in his last hour to wait outside the door while he runs from the cafeteria to his classroom. More than once, he’s had to break up fights, and will end up coming to class five minutes late. Mr. Paddock or someone else with a key to the room will let his students in, and Mr. Grebner enters his class to a room full of AP students.
“I just don’t get it,” he’s said. The fighting is a common occurrence in the school, especially in the lunch periods. It’s not just the fight, though.
“I have never seen as much petty crime in this school as I’ve seen this year.” Out of the goodness of her heart, another teacher gave Mr. Grebner two cookies one day. “I left them both on my desk, then when I came back one of them was just gone.” It’s hard to believe that someone would go to the lengths of stealing, just for a cookie.
And the Como staff and student body wont be quick to forget Homecoming Week, 2009, when the Como Administration cancelled most of the Homecoming events. Mr. Grebner just looked tired when he came into the classroom after having a heated discussion about which should be cancelled: the Homecoming Dance, or the Homecoming football game.
The generation of students that is now at Como has been labeled as the “Apathetic Generation.” Though that name may have been given for political interest or disinterest specifically, it applies to a lot of areas of life for children at Como today. The school is affected by this apathy. So much of life as a student depends on caring about school, caring about work, caring about life in general. Hard work is necessary for a successful life and it seems that lately, there can be apathy found in most areas of the school system.
Standards are climbing and at the same time, testing, grading and courses in general become harder. Students are beginning college sooner, and a large portion of sophomores, juniors and seniors will be taking AP tests next May. Lauren Berger, a young senior (she turned 17 in November) is enrolled at Como, but she is taking all of her classes at the UofM.
“I had my Yale interview,” she said, “I actually enjoyed it!” There are still overachievers out there, but what it now even more prominent is the gap between those that are avid achievers and the apathetic students.
A problem with the growing decline in students caring about the effects of their actions is exactly that, the effect their negative actions have on other people. Como’s Homecoming activities, as Mr. Meisck repeated many times, were cancelled because of just a few people. “98% of the students at Como are doing what they should be, it’s just that small percent that are ruining it for the rest of us.” Even after Como’s Principal and AP’s told the school that there would be consequences for hazing and other pranks, they continued, and at a more vigorous pace. To an onlooker, it would seem that these students just don’t care. Do these few students enjoy ruining events for their entire school, or are they just really apathetic about what happens?
When walking down the halls of Como, screeching can be heard, AP’s can be seen herding children to their classes, and even when the bell rings, there are usually students left wandering the halls. However, despite the petty stealing and disrespectful nature of some of Como’s students, it seems that some teachers refuse to give up on our generation. The assistant principals herd students, but they also send the message that they believe that kids can do better. Mr. Mesick does not discourage the entire school, he does not call children “Bad,” he simply encourages respectful and positive behavior. Because of the increase of crime and social disease in the Como Park Sr. High community, the administration is trying to crack down on enforcement rules that keep children on schedule, working hard and safe from each other. Theoretically, this period of apathy could have been caused by students continuing to step over boundaries, and the continuation and build up of these actions. Now what Como Park needs is new limits and parallel enforcement.
There is hope for our student body. Hope that there may still be a Homecoming next year, hope that each individual here can grow up with positive moral codes of his or her own. Though someone stole and supposedly ate Mr. Grebner’s cookie, some other student left him another not an hour later. “That kind of reassured my hope for man kind.”

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