JRob Guillaume Zetelumen

I've been active with the Pagan community throughout the region, I've been doing spiritual healing with singing bowls, and am generally striving to live a good life by the best standards I know.

Most of my fondest memories of my high school years have very little to do with high school. I remember my friends, and I remember the activities that we decided we wanted to make our own. As far as actual school things, my memories tend to be somewhat tainted.

Mostly I remember a lot of pressure to conform. I wasn't a rebellious youth; I was always on the honor roll, captain of the debate team, captain of the drama club, and generally trying to live an ethical life, so it's not like I was a bad kid. I just wanted to peacefully do my own thing in an environment which seemed to stress conformity-- the daily pressure to conform to meaningless rules for the sake of conforming just like everyone else; that is the experience that I think of as high school. What could be the desired result? A country filled with people who are trained to follow rules and do what they are told -- or in other words -- a compliant work force who don't question authority and have never heard of the Milgram experiment.

Strict rules are as likely to encourage non-conformity as they are to encourage conformity. The ancient Spartans had strict rules so as to encourage sneakiness, a desired trait in a warrior society. Tommy Smothers has said that The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour never tried to get away with anything until the censors tried to limit what they could do. The Russian mafia grew into one of the most vicious organizations in the world under totalitarian tyranny. The stricter the rules, the more deviant things become. The only rules that people truly embrace are the ones that they decide upon themselves. The trick is not to impose rules, but to help in individuals positive development of their own rules.

I suppose it isn't surprising that American public schools don't understand this. America is a nation which believes that we can bomb people into submission, despite evidence from all over the world that bombing only strengthens the resolve of an enemy (remember England in WWII?). Or the fact that America has the lowest percentage of midwifes in the developed world and the highest infant mortality rate. Or that America leads the world in Carbon emissions despite it being common knowledge that that's a bad thing. And don't even get me started on the evilness of Monsanto. I just don't know why America is so unwilling to accept simple truths. But this is off topic.

Recently I had to go up to West High to get a copy of my transcripts. There was a cop in the parking lot. I walked up to the front doors, tried several and found them to be locked. I noticed a buzzer, pushed it, and the door unlocked. Three scowling people stared at me as I walked in. The areas were fairly large and yet five different people rudely invaded my personal space. There were cameras monitoring everything. When I left, the cop was still in the parking lot.

So basically our old high school seems like a minimum security prison.

It's getting so restrictive in public schools that it's hardly surprising that kids are snapping and going on killing sprees. Enforced conformity for non-ethical purposes is not conducive to the positive development of free thinkers. It's no wonder that the U.S. is falling behind

This probably also explains why I'm not making the reunion a priority. It isn't that I don't think about some of my old classmates like John Carroll, Shawn Kelly, John Iverson, Terry Smith, and others, but that when I think back to high school, I think about it as something that I survived and from which I've moved on. I am no longer that pressured and frustrated kid. I'm now free to live my life the way I believe I should. It's not always fun thinking about a time in my life when I didn't even have freedom. I am curious to see the growth of people I remember but every memory seems a little bit tainted by the experience of high school.