Astronaut or Jail?

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12 years. 

We all walk the halls every day together for our whole young life, but how much does this shape one’s personality and beliefs? How does school vs. home shape a person?

Two students can sit in a Rathdrum elementary school in first grade and talk for hours about the drawings they drew. Ten years later, the same two kids can sit in Lakeland High School and not have a single thing to talk about. We all learned the ABC’s together; some will become astronauts, and others will end up in jail. 

Different friend groups, classes, and families shape who every student becomes. 

Melissa Brumbaugh, a teacher at LHS, thinks that both school and home affect who you become equally. If someone is homeschooled, the exposure they would have at school is replaced with more exposure in the home. 

“Positive teachers and coaches can affect in a positive way, while negative friends can affect in a negative way,” Brumbaugh said. 

Teachers and students can feel different about subjects around politics, etc. The things teachers teach us and say to us can change how we all feel and act. 

Aspen Lawson, a student at LHS, thinks that home goes toward who someone is, and school works around that in someone’s personality. Whether or not someone has a bad school or home life can fluctuate how someone is affected.  

“We evolve and adapt emotionally, so if you are having a bad day, try talking to someone and cheer up,” Lawson said. 

Paying attention to how things are going to affect someone can help to avoid being negatively affected. Students are only in school for 12 years; after graduation, people change and begin to think for themselves. 

I think that it is bizarre how we are all so different even though we have sat in a classroom together for so long. I watch some students around me do things, and it shocks me how much differently I would do the same things. I have such different ideals and opinions than a lot of my fellow LHS students. 

I went to elementary school with some LHS students, then went to Timberlake Junior High and High School. Within the two years of being at a different school, some of the students became unrecognizable. Not in a bad way; they had just started to think for themselves and change. 

I believe that every part of every experience we all have shapes us into who we are today. School is half of that, though, so why are we so different? Sometimes I sit in class and wonder how different the lives of the students sitting in the other desks will be. 

Obviously, my parents raised me in a certain way to make me who I am today, but I believe school has as well.