Having tucked a year of Harvard behind my ear with a unsteady hand, it felt strange not to return to where I first began my academic journey. Yet, upon returning, the cognitive dissonance was staggering. The memories I had of high school after an intense first year at Harvard had been stretched, rendered spineless under the many hands a year holds. High school was a place that clutched my youth and kept it close to its chest, was rose-gold in the rearview mirror—but this idea of high school isn’t the version I lived. The struggles of being a student existed during high school and persist now at Harvard—though their respective manifestations are very different.
At my high school, the student body has an estimated proficiency rate of 11 percent in mathematics, and 27 percent in language arts. The dynamics of academic struggles there find a fun-house reflection at Harvard. One can see students at both schools with this desire for knowledge, this desire to progress and grow, yet in both situations students grapple with their own potentials and struggle to push through their academic walls.
At Harvard, students are blessed with a multiplicity of tools and myriad support systems to assist them in navigating these rough tides. In places like my high school, however, these opportunities are more scarce. More often than not, students see academic iron bars blocking their path—they feel defeated. The possibilities for tutoring that do exist are rarely utilized; tutoring sessions are usually more vacant than night school classes.
The absence and misuse of these tools are what propel me to continue returning to my high school. Whatever ounce of help, change, or consideration I can proffer by coming back is worth it.
I gave her my answer, somewhat less long-winded and probably more to the point. She then asked what students could say to the administration to make them change, and a smile sneaked up to my eyes. Sounded like a question I’d hear at a Crimson Editorial Board meeting.
The bell rang, and like clockwork, the students filed out of the room, snaking out of the room and filling the hallway like smoke. On my way out, I heard one student say to another:
“Yo, you know they freed Kodak? Finally.”
Jessenia N. Class ’20 is a Crimson editorial editor in Quincy House. Her column appears on alternate Tuesdays.