EDITOR’S NOTE: Adults often remark how cruel children can be to each other. Young people have that conversation, too. Recently, Pacific News Service sponsored workshops in northern California with 150 students about the root causes of violence in suburban schools. Leah Burns, 16, was one of those participants. A journalism student residing in Livermore, CA, her discontent with school centers on the fact that nobody seems to be talking about the real issues students face.

BY LEAH BURNS,
PACIFIC NEWS SERVICE

During my freshman year, I attended a rural high school in the Central Valley. Now in my sophomore year, I go to a suburban high school. The two schools are extremely dissimilar. The large, rural school was mostly Mexican, while the small, suburban school is mainly Caucasian. At the rural school the students had larger social circles, while at the suburban school kids tend to cluster together more.

The biggest difference is that students at my current school are extremely cliquey. There are 15 cliques that I am aware of:

*The Preps
*People who are neutral to cliques
*Cowboys
*Stoners
*Skaters
*Loners
*Goths
*Punk Rockers
*Intellectuals
*African Americans
*Afghans/Paks
*Mexicans/Chicanos
*Asians
*Dorks
*Mormons

All of the groups have a specific area where they reside-such as the Mormon Tree and the Afghan Bench. Many of the individuals who belong to one of the groups are recognizable even when they’re not with the whole group. Goths tend to dress in black, skaters carry skateboards, stoners walk around looking glassy-eyed, cowboys tend to wear Wranglers and spit, and dorks walk around as if they’re hiding and trying to make themselves less conspicuous.

All the cliques have isolated themselves from the rest of the groups. Many students have become indifferent to others outside of their clique. The students at my high school are so cliquey that, even in class, members of a clique will group together. In my English class last semester, the teacher arranged the desks in five groups, and members of cliques automatically grouped together like a flock of pigeons. I see nothing wrong with being in a clique when it’s just groups of friends who share things in common. However, when cliques isolate one another, the sense of friendliness and unity in a school disappears. When groups segregate each other, stereotypes and targeting of others are more likely to occur.

Some of the many things you can be targeted for are race, sexual orientation and religion. I have seen atheists, not religious students, targeted the most. Other students get targeted for weight, hair, the way they dress, whether or not they’re considered attractive, the way they talk, how wealthy they are, and how smart they are. Being targeted for intelligence is a Catch-22 because if you’re too smart, you’re labeled a "dork"-the group that’s the most isolated and least talked to-and if you struggle in school, you’re an "idiot." The girls who are labeled as "easy" are trashed the worst, and often times have their reputations destroyed. Nine times out of ten, once you have been labeled, that label does not go away, no matter what the circumstance.

Some people do not fit into any category and therefore do not belong to any clique, yet they are not neutral. These students are isolated as individuals. I’ve tried to make conversation with those I see, but only a couple have responded. I wonder if they’ve become so isolated they don’t know how to respond. These kids serve as an example of how cruel a place high school can be.