Blind Brook is kind of an ironic name for this school. No student, teacher, or parent in this community is blind to anything that goes on within the school’s walls. Taking a look at this school is like looking into a microscope, because how big is Blind Brook? Approximately only four hundred and seventy students.
Blind Brook is notorious for being a small, homogenous high school. The boys and girls generally shop at the same stores and wear more or less the same style clothing. A lot of students commit to the same colleges. Of those kids, half of them join the same sorority and study abroad in the same country. With this school being as small as it is, we happen to slip into these habits and trends almost unconsciously, just because everyone around us is doing the same thing.
I believe one of the biggest social issues in Blind Brook is the lack of diversity. Not only do we all look the same, in terms of our aesthetic, but we have also come to act the same. With a tight-knit community, our peers can influence us easily. Over the years, we start to lose diversity in opinion as well. I know I, myself, have fallen victim to the Blind Brook “bubble” and have been sucked into its mind tricks.
In the real world, we are going to meet different types of people. People of different races, of different ethnicities, of different viewpoints, or maybe even simply, of different tastes in music. With the people in this community being so similar, we have been left unprepared to face people who are different from ourselves. This uniformity is not necessarily a negative thing—it just makes it easier to lose sight of who you really are.
But, after all is said and done, what I have come to question is whether I have learned things that will be beneficial outside of the classroom. It prompts me to ask myself, has what I’ve learned in this community going to help me be successful as an individual in the outside world?
Another social issue that is prominent in this school is the unwavering cliques. We have known each other since our days in the womb. Our “friend groups” have been established since we uttered our first word. It is hard to stray from this norm of remaining within your clique until you graduate high school, because these norms provide us with a safety net.
But there is absolutely no problem with making new friends or doing things with different people. In fact, I encourage it. How do you know if you really belong with people who have been implanted for you? How will you know what kind of people you get along with if you don’t explore for yourself? Having these friends outside of your “regular clique” may be looked down upon here. But who cares? Do what makes YOU happy.
Overall, in Blind Brook, and the community of Rye Brook, it is very hard to be yourself. The things you love may be looked down upon here or considered weird. At the end of the day, you need to take a step back and see the world from outside of “the bubble.” Everything is different out there. In five or ten years, you don’t want to think back on your time in high school and say “I really should have embraced who I was and not cared about what anyone else thought.” We can all learn something from having gone to Blind Brook. But, after all, you only have one life to live and you should live it as no one other than you.