Across The Table - Music Taste, do our personalities affect what we listen to?

Rachel Everett, Marcus Kim, Dhruv Singh, Suhani Mahajan

Staffers Dhruv, Marcus, Rachel, and Suhani examine a study linking personality to music taste, discussing the validity of the study and their own experiences with music. Listen on Spotify or Apple Music.

Marcus Kim: HeIlo, and welcome to Point of View where we give students a place to listen, learn, and lean in. I'm Marcus,

Dhruv Singh: I’m Dhruv,

Suhani Mahajan: I'm Suhani,

Rachel Everett: and I’m Rachel.

Marcus Kim: And today we'll be discussing the psychological similarities between our emotions, personality and the music that we like. So there is a study by Heriot-Watt University that tries and draws a connection or correlation between our personalities and the type of music we like to listen to. So for example, if you really like pop, rap, country, or dance music, you could be described as like conventional, extroverted or even hard working. On the other side of the spectrum, if you prefer to listen to indie, rock, jazz, or classical, you could be described as creative or introverted. I personally really like pop music. I like the more chill side of pop music. And sometimes when I'm at the gym, or playing like Valent, I like hard rock music. I'm kind of extroverted, so I could definitely see how pop being extroverted makes sense.

Rachel Everett: Do you think that you fit in with that box of pop music, with the whole hard working and high self-esteem?

Marcus Kim: I'm definitely not hard working, but I would consider myself pretty extroverted. I do like some indie songs, and sometimes when I am feeling a little bit introverted. There are flaws in the study, obviously, but I can kind of see how there is some sort of connection.

Dhruv Singh: I feel like, for me, personally, I listen to all kinds of music. I listen to at least a little bit of each one of these genres. But when I'm looking at it, I kind of feel like, it's like a false correlation, or it could be construed as that. Because when you look at the distinctive characteristics when they're mentioning the genres, they kind of just reflect the culture and the perception of that genre at the time. I'm sure if this study was done in the 80s, or 70s, when rock was the predominant form of music and like the pop genre and stuff, that would be listed as like the outgoing, hardworking one, right? But now, culturally, we've shifted over to like, electronic and like hip hop and stuff be more on the pop music. Now that's gonna be more like the extroverted, outgoing, self esteem heavy genre, or at least the personalities that people say that genre has.

Marcus Kim: Going off of that, when you think of heavy rock, and metal and stuff, when you think about it, you would think about someone at a concert like banging their head in a mosh pit or something. It says that people who like heavy rock and metal tend to be introverted and might have low self-esteem. So, I can see how there is an idea, like a heuristic idea of what someone might be if they listened to heavy rock or metal, but actually it might be the opposite.

Dhruv Singh: I feel like the music comes first not the opposite. Like I tie these caricatures and ideas of these people to the music because I know people who listen to music who are like that, you know what I mean? This study kinda like insinuates the idea that if you fill these like personality boxes, then you will end up like this afterwards maybe if you listen to more of this music, which I feel is kind of flawed, because I feel like that's not the right way to read it or at least that isn't like an accurate way to read it.

Suhani Mahajan: I feel like that's a way to generalize, you're right. But also, just based on your mood and whatnot, if you reach for different music, I think your feelings in that moment when you reach for a different genre of music might actually be similar to these descriptions. So also, the whole people who listen to rock being creative, but also like often introverted, I think that's plausible enough. I don't know how the study was conducted, but I don't know if it's right for us to suggest that the study is incorrect either. It's very possible if we look at a bunch of people and their music tastes there might be a correlation.

Dhruv Singh: So, I guess you're right. There definitely will always be a correlation between someone who listens to music and the music you listen to since music has moods and emotion in it. So obviously, like you're gonna share that mood or like that kind of personality. I don't know if any of you guys like listen to a genre that you particularly connect with.

Rachel Everett: I feel like I do at least a little bit country music. I always get hated on for liking country music. I don't know why it's good music. I listen to more country pop. The study says country music fans are typically hardworking, conventional and outgoing. I like to think that I'm hardworking. I also like to think I'm outgoing. I definitely get stuff done, and I'm always out and about with people. I kind of disagree with the conventional like, I think maybe you have that like stigma of like, oh, country music is for, like, conservatives, or like Republicans or something. And it says, conventional, I don't like to think that I'm, like, maybe traditional. I like to think I'm open minded, in a sense.

Dhruv Singh: Well, that brings up another criticism I have of the study, just to dunk on it a little bit more. Because some of that definitely, because you gotta consider that genre comes from a very specific culture at the time, that's where you get the new name. Funk was a thing and then it diversifies a bit more, then you end up with stuff like hip hop and based off of that, it ceding off. So country stems from the rock and pop of the 60s and 70s, right. But then as it becomes more rural, and it becomes like foci, and then it splits off more. And then you end up with the genre of country coming from other roots. So they took what they liked about folk, which is the storytelling nature of it, and the values and stuff, and then they like, split it off even more. And they made it like, okay, now we're going to talk about this specific value that like country music has, which is the stereotype. In my head, it's like the stereotype of like, a cold beer. It's something like that. That's not the case, obviously. But like, that's what I've been like. So obviously, when you look at how music genres split off, there's always gonna be that connection that you could find. This study is just bringing it to focus.

Rachel Everett: So, you're saying that even though the study categorizes these things differently, there's always going to be a connection within them.

Dhruv Singh: I'm saying that naturally with media and music at all, you can always tie it back to where the genre comes from, and you can just say that like 'Okay, if you listen to this, you probably follow those roots a little bit.'

Suhani Mahajan: I think it's also based on like, what you're talking about roots and everything, how you are introduced, or how you experience the music, like, how did you get introduced the country? If you don't mind me asking?

Rachel Everett: I don't remember, I think it was always on the radio. We only listen to one radio station. It was always on in the car; we would always change the radio stations if it wasn't. So, it's always been like that kind of comfort place for me. So that's how I got introduced.

Suhani Mahajan: Actually, yeah, I have to say, if I think about the radio, like early childhood, like 2000s pop is what we listen to. And pop music, according to this study, talks about how I'm supposed to be hardworking, and have high self-esteem. And I think, I mean, I’d like to think that's true. But I also associate pop music with family and that warmth because those are the memories I have associated with that genre of music. So, I think the whole roots thing that Dhruv was talking about, I mean, it's not exactly what he was talking about, but-

Dhruv Singh: I think that the fun thing about music and art is that everyone has their own way of finding it. So, like Rachel grows up with the station, right? And then you end up liking that music more as you get older, and like you were kind of getting something like that too Suhani. You said you like K-pop right? You kind of found that. So, at one point it's not like you were with that as you grew up in some of that. For me, I had this thing where I really hated music up until late middle school. I was kind of that loser who only listened to video game soundtracks. If anything with lyrics played, I'd get really annoying about it. I'd be like, no, I don't want to hear it.

Suhani Mahajan: I'm also the type of kid who just didn't want to wear words, like shirts with words on them.

Dhruv Singh: I did not have an opinion about that.

Marcus Kim: I definitely see myself in that. In late middle school, I would always be that one kid where they would be like, 'What music do you listen to?' and I would be like, 'I actually don't listen to a lot.' I really didn't enjoy music because I didn't really have a reason to listen to music. I didn't feel like buying Spotify and I didn't really like ads and I hadn't really found an artist that I liked. So, I definitely really didn't listen to much music. I kind of generalized all music as the same, which actually going back to what you were saying Dhruv, let's say for example, even within rock, right? If you look at Elvis Presley, both of them are technically wrong, but the emotions that they show and the emotions that are in it, and the reasons you would listen to it, or the type of people that would listen to it, there might be some overlap, but generally they're on opposite sides of the spectrum of raw, right? You were saying how music genres branch off, even within these genres, people will still go to different artists for different things. So that could also be a flaw within the study because it doesn't really account like what is a genre.

Dhruv Singh: I think that genre as a concept is kind of flawed too. So when you take these big, sweeping things and say anyone who listens to this genre is like this, you're inherently gonna miss a like a lot by simplifying it like that, because it's nuanced.

Suhani Mahajan: Are you talking about the way that you're describing how genres are created, and there's so many branches of them, so you can't really generalize?

Dhruv Singh: I think that genre is a really helpful way to group things, right? But when you're grouping anything like that, anything that's kind of nuanced, you're missing a lot, right? So genre. I don't know how it actually forms. But when it happens, it misses a lot, like so. For instance, it's also tied to the cultural norms of the time. So genre mainly has been in the past been dictated by white people if that makes sense. You can trace back anything. Black music wasn't given like a serious genre, it was more just considered in that group. So jazz and stuff like that would have been electric guitar elements and stuff. But then when it becomes more popular in the mainstream, like white group started using electric guitar, it becomes like, rock and roll, if that makes sense. You could trace that line through history. So in general you're going to be missing a lot whenever you refer to genre as like a de facto identifier if that makes sense.

Marcus Kim: So I think going past the idea of genre a little bit like what you get out of the music, right? So for example, um, I think it wouldn't be very controversial to say that indie or like chill music is more of an invoker of emotion, where listening to something like classic or jazz is more complex music, right?

Suhani Mahajan: You can still experience emotions with any kind of music.

Marcus Kim: Of course, but no, again, Heriot Watt also did a study that know those more structurally complex musical genres like classical jazz and world music, people who like that typically go into like, you know, stem or like mathematical, very like binary, like binary career paths. On the opposite side of the spectrum, people who tend to like more music that invokes more emotion typically go into like more like creative or humanitarian paths. So I can actually definitely see that. I upvote that. I upvote that. I resonate with that a lot.

Dhruv Singh: So you're saying that, if you tend to gravitate towards a certain type of music, you can kind of see that you might be interested in other things as well. If you like, complex musical, you'll like complex fields, and like medical fields.

Suhani Mahajan: How your brain interprets music is just like a clue to how your brain interprets other things, or what it prefers.

Dhruv Singh: I can kind of see that, I think, but then I think it also just comes down to the fact that people will always consume music and media differently. I know that I personally don't gravitate to one kind of thing. I don't really like just classical music. We could tie that back to the fact that everyone kind of enjoys music for different reasons.

Suhani Mahajan: So then let's talk about that. Marcus, let's start with you. What draws you to the music you listen to? Why do you listen to it?

Marcus Kim: So typically, okay, so let's just go down the list. So when I'm listening to like pop music or just for fun, like you know, when I'm just like, chilling, that's probably for I don't know, like just to entertain myself right? Over when I'm like, working out or like playing Fowler and I'm listening to like heavy metal or like that, that'd be more for like, I don't know, more of like a, like a strong sensation of sorts. And this actually ties to a theory of like, why we listen to music. So there is a theory, seven main reasons why we listen to music for entertainment, a sense of revival, to feel a strong sensation for mental work to find a sense of solace, diversion or a release of emotion. And thinking about my playlist, right? And depending on my mood, or why I'm listening to music, the songs I'll choose change, so I could definitely see that.

Dhruv Singh I can definitely see that. I'm kind of curious. What does mental work mean?

Marcus Kim: So how, when I looked into mental work is you're listening to music, just for the sake of listening to music you're not having in the background, you are 100% focused on the music, like you sit downs, like you go to an orchestra, or you go to an opera and you're focusing strictly on the music itself. I think that could be considering working.

Suhani Mahajan: As a K-pop fan, I'm gonna say, I mean, what you described was going to a concert or something to experience the music and as someone who's gone to K-pop concerts, yes, I'm going to experience the music, but I think that's also a different environment. Just because the experience is different. So.

Dhruv Singh: I think that hits like a dip that hits like a different thing with like strong sensation and entertainment. Right? I think he's referring more to like a concert hall for like orchestral pieces. Like when you go to see like an orchestra performance. You're not clapping and like singing. You're like, yes, that is a very interesting key. Like, different. But yeah, I kind of like I this part of the study, I kind of agree with more, I feel like there's still probably like, I couldn't think of anything off the top my head, but they're probably still missing some reasons why people like MIT might listen to music. But I feel like this is a lot less general in that, like, I think that everyone can at least relate to some of these reasons.

Marcus Kim: I know we're talking about like, why he was in music. I just kind of think about this, but it has like no one thought of like location. And like how that might affect how you listen to music. Because I know I drive. So my car playlists are like 10 times different from like, my, like, quote, unquote, school playlists, like the place I played school. Like my car music. My car music is basically like, pretty busy. Because I just it's like the base just feels my car. So all of a sudden the like, like old school rock, like so many armies are really good, like black. But like when I'm at school I kind of listened to were like, not necessarily mellow, but more just low, calmer, more upbeat.

Dhruv Singh: Sometimes I used to wish that like, I had a superpower where I could just hear it was in people's headphones. It was like, everyone listens to such different stuff.

Rachel Everett: You got to be the guy on Tik Tok.

Dhruv Singh: That kind of thing is really interesting to watch, because everyone just uses music because as a different way when they're just walking around school or driving. I like something with a little rhythm when I'm like walking around during school just because I'm walking, I'm going places.

Rachel Everett: Do you ever try and walk to the beat?

Dhruv Singh: Oh, well, I don't try.

Suhani Mahajan: He's gonna start skipping.

Dhruv Singh: But I think it probably happens anyway. But like, when I'm driving, listen, like more stuff that just helps me focus, because driving is a passive activity and that like I'm thinking, but I'm thinking like as actively. So like, I wasn't like we were lyrical stuff and stuff like that. Like, it just depends on the person.

Suhani Mahajan: It’s really interesting. If you drive with Dhruv he will sing the lyrics as what he's saying.

Dhruv Singh: Maybe.

Marcus Kim: I mean, but then there is a reason why we listen to music. And then, but there was also like, I don't know, some agreement disagreement with, you know, if it's predetermined. So then I guess the general overarching question is, is music taste and your enjoyment in music, something as esoteric is that, are you able to put a study behind it?

Dhruv Singh: I don't think so. I don't think it's ever going to be that accurate. But that's how I feel about this.

Suhani Mahajan: Yeah, I don't think if we don't even understand our emotions and feelings, like, the way the brain kind of comes up with these, I don't think we can understand the correlation between feelings and preferences and music.

Marcus Kim: I mean, I guess to take a counterargument. You know, neurons either fire or not, right. And that's how our brain is made up. So if our brains and emotions are technically all stemming from like, yes or no, one or zero responses, could eventually if we map out our brains and the technology is good enough, could we then create like a perfect playlist for someone?

Dhruv Singh: That's a really interesting concept. I wonder if that's actually that's the future.

Marcus Kim: I mean like in this future.

Dhruv Singh: If this study is correct then yeah, I guess so.

Suhani Mahajan: Says Dhruv after bashing this study.

Dhruv Singh: I don't think. I don't know if he can, but like, yeah, that's what this study kind of asserts.

Marcus Kim: Does anyone? Okay, so does anyone know their 16 personalities type their like, four letter personality type? Yes? So I found on Spotify playlists, for I know, it's so cheesy, there's gonna be like, these, you know, I, it's really interesting, because seeing the diff like, I thought I was one four letter combination. But instead, I'm actually another. And so I overloaded like, my first one. And then I was like, Oh, I'm at this other one. So listening to the different music that the Creator put into the playlist was actually really interesting. Because it turns out I like both. So like, it's not necessarily that your personality type is going to determine what you like, but it's, it seems more fine-tuned to you in a way.

Suhani Mahajan: Did you like when you found out that you were actually a different, like, personality type? Did you find like that the other playlists suited you more?

Marcus Kim: Let me check. So I just found, so I'm an ISFP. And looking at the songs, I definitely feel like I vibe with it a lot more than the original one I had. They're all kind of very light airy music in. I don't think that's a good way to describe it. But they're all good ones with a good beat. Not necessarily too heavy. When, with the other one, the INFP that I thought I was, is kind of more like deep, more like, not necessarily darker, but like deeper songs. Maybe if you can consider them heavy. So seeing how the music swats changed depending on the personality type. I definitely think I resonate with my current one more, which is kind of interesting, because it didn't think I would be any different.

Marcus Kim: Regardless, music kind of resonates with us. I mean, whether it's based off of your emotion, or just how you're raised or the culture growing up in. Music is just kind of always prevalent. I think, with how popular music streaming apps like Spotify are, I think music will just continue to be a part of our lives and the upcoming generations because music is just more accessible, right? And no, we're still trying to figure a lot about our brains and trying to decide what we like. And I just think on the closing note, music will just always be here. And I think maybe we should just chill and enjoy it rather than try and find out why we like it.

Rachel Everett: And check out the Spotify playlist that's linked in the description. We've added some music from all of our different tastes, so yeah.

Marcus Kim: Thank you so much for listening. For a transcript of this episode, head to the Point of View tab on our website nhsmessenger.org and follow us on Instagram, Twitter, or Facebook at @nhspointofview for updates and new episodes. I'm your host Marcus,

Dhruv Singh: I'm Dhruv,

Suhani Mahajan: Suhani,

Rachel Everett: and Rachel, and this has been Point of View.

Across the Table - Changing Childhoods, an evaluation of the accelerated maturation of children

Jordan Anderson, Marcus Kim, Suhani Mahajan, Orelia Thottam, Delisa Troupe

Hosts Jordan Anderson, Orelia Thottam, Marcus Kim, and Suhani Mahajan discuss the shift from their childhood experiences to the ones they observe around themselves today. Listen on Spotify or Apple Music.

Suhani: Hello, and welcome to Point of View where we give students a place to listen, learn and lean in. We're your hosts Suhani,

Marcus: Marcus,

Jordan: Jordan,

Orelia: Orelia.

Suhani: And lately, we've been thinking about how we see kids and mind you, these are like middle school aged kids, that we realize they seem a lot more mature or appear a lot more mature, then we remember being at that age, and we wanted to talk about them more and actually share our observations.

Marcus: So if we're going to go off observations, in my neighborhood, there are a couple of middle school kids, right. And mind you, I was kind of a nerdier kid back in middle school. So of course, I wasn't as social in middle school as maybe some of the middle schoolers I'm looking at now. However, you know, sometimes on Friday nights, when I'm hanging out with my friends, and we get home at around, I don't know, 10:30, I see these middle schoolers out with their skateboards and their phones. And I could definitely see them passing as kids my age, I'm not sure. It's just how they carry themselves, what they do, the way they interact with their peers, and just some of the things that they say and do just make me question, “Oh, my gosh, these guys are like four years younger than me.”

Suhani: You kind of forget that too, because this weekend, I hung out with my sister's friends and when I was talking to them, it didn't feel like I was talking to you know, significantly younger children until I reminded myself, “Wait, some of these topics aren't really things that they should be or that I remember talking about when I was their age”. Like they're talking about really intimate relationships and they're, you know, bad mouthing some kids or you know, just like gossip, but this kind of gossip, at least I wasn't exposed to until like high school, and not until the later years.

Jordan: Whenever I see middle schoolers, I always compare how they're acting from when I was in middle school. When I was in middle school, I was weird. I was really weird and closed off. I was like a gremlin. But then when I see other kids that age, and they're acting like how I act now, I always find it interesting how we were the same age. Like they're 12, their 12-year-old lives compared to mine. I was like, more kid-ish. But now they act like I act as a 16-year-old. And I'm just like, “Okay, what are you doing differently that I didn't do? Or what did I do that you didn't do?” You know?

Orelia: It's also like, when I was in middle school I was in India. But when I was in middle school, the way we used to have fun, the way we used to hang out with our friends, and the way our school life was. When I see kids over here, when I see middle school kids, I’m friends with a few middle schoolers and I speak to them, and the way they tend to hang out or the way they spend their time, as in leisure time, it's just different. Like, it's similar to what I do with my friends now. Like, if it's going out at night, hanging out in the mall at night, and then coming back home or something like that. They're doing that stuff now, when I didn't have permission to do any of that stuff back then.

Marcus: I mean, of course, and this is all from the perspective of a semi-affluent suburban life, right? Like, of course, it would be different if we were to look at maybe like, you know, a richer area city or even like a more poor area of accounting or such, but seeing these kids grow up in similar environments as us, it just makes you start to question like, why is this generation suddenly more socially mature than I was? Right? And I think, to kind of, you know, point a finger, I would kind of say, I think it's because of the amount of exposure that they have to social media, right and just technology. Because, you know, with technology, information can be diffused, right. Like, with social media and technology, you know, like gossip and information, or maybe more adulterated content that, you know, some kids shouldn't be exposed to at such young ages happen to kind of come across their radar. And I don't think it's exactly a bad thing that younger generations are, you know, getting iPhones and iPads at earlier ages, but it's just something that us as a generation, like our older generation have to kind of look back and say, “Okay, well, how is this different from us? What can we learn? How can we guide them in a way?” I'm not really sure, but it's definitely the technology and social media that, I would say, is propelling younger kids forward a bit more.

Jordan: Like I can see kids having a phone for maybe security purposes and like when they go out so that they have contact with their family. But then I see 10-year-olds and 11-year-olds having Instagram, Snapchat, and I didn't get social media until seventh grade and even when I did, I was only following my family and only my family could see. And I didn't really show any other people because my family was like, “Oh no, that's your personal thing.” But now my sister's friends try to follow me on Instagram and it's weird because they're little babies in my mind. Even though we're not that big of an age difference, only four years, but they would do things and post certain things and I'm really questioning their thought process and why they're saying those types of things or like, why they're looking at that type of stuff, or acting like it.

Marcus: Like bro, you're like 12, chill. What do you have to do on Instagram? Like go and play hopscotch man. What are you doing on Instagram and Snapchat? Like, actually, what are you doing on Instagram and Snapchat? It's very easy to look at it very pessimistically like “Oh, this younger generation is being ruined by technology”, which is kind of hypocritical because we, you know, the older kids by half a decade or so, we also grew up with technology. But it's very easy to slip into that mindset of “Oh, wow, these younger kids are being ruined by technology.” So it's definitely a slippery slope.

Suhani: Well, I'm not trying to blame but I think what you were talking about, the exposure through social media being the propellant of this, you know, expediting maturity, is that the same things that we are seeing at our age, the clothing trends, the ideas, like, you know, how we hang out, if that's being posted on social media, and younger kids are also exposed to that, they get those same ideas without realizing, you know, there's a good five, four year gap between who they're seeing doing these things and who they themselves are. But now that they're copying, which, obviously, if you're exposed to something, and you like the idea, you're gonna adopt it as your own, there's less of that gap.

Jordan: And trying to fit in because they see it and they're like, “Oh, since they're doing it, that means I have to do it.” So even if what they're doing is not the right thing to do, they feel like they need to do it in order to fit in with everyone else around them and stuff like that.

Orelia: It's also like, when we had that kind of exposure to that kind of social media, we had parents filtering what we were seeing and how much time we were spending on it. But now with kids doing it, many times the parents are not even aware of the fact that they have those social media accounts, or they're lying to their parents about it and not telling them about it. So there's no filter to what they're watching or what they're getting exposed to.

Suhani: And the tricky part about social media is how much you can filter it. When we got social media at the beginning, I mean, five years does make a difference about how recent or how much information is already out there. So regardless of how many filters we were exposed to, there's only a certain amount of media that we can see. Whereas now there's like 20 times that, if not more. So there's such a huge variety of things that children can see and some of it's good, like Marcus said, and some of it's bad.

Orelia: And that’s the extent to which things are changing. Like they're getting exposed to more violent or explicit things than we were exposed to. If we were exposed to, on a scale from one to ten, if we were exposed to the 0.3 stuff, they get exposed to stuff that's equal to nine or ten.

Marcus: Yeah, I mean, I think to kind of take these ideas and form it into a thesis, I would definitely say that the growth of technology and how many, you know, connections there are exponentially increase as time goes on, right? So I think even though it has been, you know, five years, like, four, five, six years in between how we are behaving and how we're looking back. You know, you would say five years, and that's not a lot of time, but in terms of technology and the advancements and the amount of changes in internet culture that have happened. It's definitely not a reach to say that the landscape and technology and social media that we grew up with is completely different from how these younger kids are growing up. And you can be critical and say, “Oh, well, you're exaggerating it’s really only been four years.” But in four years, so much can change. Like, comparing internet culture now versus when I was in middle school, it's like night and day. Like, even just looking at stuff like the memes, right? Like memes back when I was in middle school were just slapstick jokes, and then now I'm looking at some of the memes and jokes that are being thrown around today and I don't even think I should be describing those jokes. But it's definitely, gosh, it's a completely different world from four years ago. It's four years. That's not a lot of time, but it's just so much has changed.

Suhani: So then other than social media, what other reasons could there be for, you know, some of these younger kids to be more mature than at least we remember being at that age, or, you know, knowing about these more mature topics.

Orelia: The environment that they're in, or like, what they're surrounded by, it's that as well. Stuff that goes on in their house or stuff that goes on in their friend's house and their friends tend to talk about it. Because at the end of the day, they are like 11, 12 year olds that are having to experience things that are not normal for them, or are hard to digest for them and they need to speak about it to other people. And when they do, your friends also get exposed to it and you don't know how many of them actually go home and tell their parents about it, to ask for help for them, even for their friends. So they're getting exposed to such kind of topics that they feel like, “Okay, all of this is going on with my friend, I need to help them out.” And they try to wrap their heads around it, and they read about it and understand from other people and then they just have a better idea about those kinds of topics.

Jordan: If we're talking about the environment, we also have to think about sometimes kids, they have to grow up faster. Like when it comes to taking care of your younger siblings or something, you need to be the more mature example for them. For instance, let's use an example. Let's say, parents, they work day and night, and they're not really home all the time. You're maybe like 13, and you have little siblings that are five or whatever. You have to be the so-called parent for them. Since their parents are working, you have to mature. Now they’re looking at you and they're gonna follow what you do, like follow in your footsteps. So you have to be the more mature example for them, which leads to the 13-year-old having to grow up a little faster than a normal 13-year-old should or would be.

Marcus: Speaking of 13-year-olds, someone brought this up a couple weeks ago, but looking back at the recent Olympics that happened. Some of those kids that were competing, like in the Olympics, like they're, like 12-13 years old, and they're on an Olympic stage. And that is commendable, right? Like you've achieved so much out there teen but is it really objectively better to have, you know, these kids being thrown into the world of adults at such a young age? Like is it objectively better to skip those couple of years where, you know, you would play outside and just have goofy, fun, ignorant, enjoyment with other peers your age. Some could maybe say that it's tragic, almost, that they've been kind of gypped of their childhood. But I guess it's all about how you see it. Because from one angle, well you're competing in the Olympics at the age of 13.

Suhani: I have to say, the thing about playing outside, I think that's how we remember our own childhoods. But if I think about my cousins who are like eight ish, right? And like elementary school, they're glued to their screens. So I think the whole childhood experience itself has been redefined. I don't know if my cousins go outside nearly as much as I did. I remember you know, going outside, actually, like picking up sticks and whatnot, you know, just like, like actually, you know, really doing random stuff because I had nothing else to do, you would see all the neighborhood kids out together because there was nothing to do at home. But now everyone has their own screen.

Jordan: Like the Ipad children.

Marcus: Like you see them out in public, and they have like, a leash backpack on them and they're like, on their crusty iPads with like, the big rubber case and they're watching Coco-Melon or something. But honestly, I think I can maybe pinpoint exactly when that transition happened, right? Because I don't want to sound like a conspiracy theorist but Fortnite. I sincerely think it's Fortnite that was the genesis of this, you know, difference in growing up right? Because I remember like, like you said, Suhani, I remember playing with sticks right? I remember some of my fondest memories in childhood were just walking out introducing myself to a random neighborhood kid and like throwing a stick at them. Or like climbing up a set of stairs, in my mind it was a really high set of stairs, but it was maybe like a foot up, and just jumping and then climbing back up and jumping off of it and pretending I could fly, right? And then Fortnite came around, right? And then we made that transition from, you know, playing outside with our neighborhood friends, to getting off the bus and saying, “Hey, do you wanna play Fortnite after school? Right? And then you could see the change in YouTube content, right? It went from more niche stuff to more, you know, daily “Let’s Play” content that you could definitely see a kid enjoying more, right? So I would say we, as you know, ‘04, ‘05, ‘03, you know, that kind of early 2000s timeframe, we were able to definitely get the benefit of, you know, the playing outside childhood and also growing up with technology, like almost a perfect balance. And now since technology is rapidly growing, these younger kids are growing up having less of that playing outside, and more of growing up in complete technology.

Jordan: Weird fun fact, when I was eight and my sister was four, we had a garage at this time, and my mom would take us outside to, you know, ride our bikes. We used to literally look for bugs on the ground, take our bubble gun and trap the bug in a bubble. Don't ask me why we did that. But we thought we were the most amazing, we thought we were part of John Wick or something, trapping bugs with bubbles. But now my sister stays in her room playing Roblox and I join her sometimes, but like, it's crazy to think that we used to go outside all the time. But I don't leave my house. Neither does she. She never leaves the house. And when she does leave the house, it’s to go to her friend's house. But then they end up playing like Minecraft, which they could have done if she wouldn’t have left. But they just changed.

Marcus: Let me just ask, is this a bad thing?

Suhani: Well, I don't know because my sister is, talking from experience obviously, is, you know, not this conventional younger kid that we're describing. She cannot sit still at home, like refuses to. In the summer, I remember when we first moved to Georgia, she actually rang a bunch of our neighbors doorbells and was like,”Hi, are there any kids here? Can I play with your kids?” because she just really wanted to make friends. And though we just moved, I think there's like 20 kids in my neighborhood, like, age ranging from my age to five year olds who know Ruhani. I am Ruhani’s sister, and they, you know, now come outside and play and they'll ring our doorbell and ask if she's available. So I think you know, it depends on who you are inherently.

Orelia: I was just thinking, how does this affect them? They weren't exposed to a portion of childhood that we were exposed to, like without technology. So how does that change, that when they grow up, when they are of our age or even older than us, when they go to that age, how is that going to affect the next generation? Just think that they've been exposed to more advancement in their childhood that they don't know this portion of childhood that we were a part of.

Marcus: Yeah, I mean, of course, when we say generations, we're talking about micro generations, right? Like, there is definitely a big generational gap between let's say, like millennials and Gen Z, and then even within Gen Z, they're micro generations like, early 2000s. and then late 2000s, or, like, early 2010s, right? There's a big difference in culture, right? So again, we are kind of young ourselves so we can't really say but I'm pretty sure if I were to, you know, throw a blind dart, I would definitely say that, with these next coming generations, rather than having a negative outlook like, you know, they haven't really experienced childhood, they've grown up fast. I think that with these younger kids that are coming along, right, you know, maybe we're when we're in college, when we're in college, looking back at upcoming middle schoolers, right? I don't know what will happen, right? But I definitely think that, at that point, technology will be advanced to such a point, you know, where maybe instead of playing outside with sticks, they'll be playing in virtual reality with sticks, right? So I think maybe that what we're looking at these middle schoolers now, it's kind of like the awkward phase where you know, it's right in between playing outside and right in between complete technological immersion, right?

Suhani: So it’s really transitionary.

Marcus: Oh, of course, that's what I think. Of course, I can't even tell you what will happen tomorrow, let alone in a couple years. I don't even know what will happen next period, right? So I don't know what's going to happen within these next couple of years.

Suhani: I mean, on top of that, you have to realize that we’re high schoolers. To some extent, we're also still kids talking about, you know, like a half generation difference of, you know, kids who are younger than us by five years. And we're evaluating their behavior and comparing it to us, though, you know, our parents consider us kids, probably people in their mid 20s honestly consider us kids. And sometimes I look around the school and also consider myself a kid.

Marcus: It’s really easy to take, like a critic's view and say, “Aren't we technically growing up too fast by taking these, you know, deep conversations about, you know, our own critiques on younger generations, like, is that not a form of growing up too fast?”

Orelia: Not really in my opinion, because we're just comparing something that we went through, and kids that see now, you know, they're not going through it, or they're going through it very differently. And because it's so induced by things that they're aware of, and most of us at our age we weren't, and in some ways, it's actually good, like, they're more aware of things, when they grow up, they most probably will have a better outlook and a more positive outlook towards things. But at the same time, they're getting more toned down and stressed out at this time, because of what they're exposed to.

Suhani: I think each generation will have its own, you know, different experiences and whatnot. I think it's just how you react to that, right? So these kids when they grow up, maybe they'll be talking about, “Yes, my childhood didn't really have a lot of going outside, but now I am, because I realized that that's something I want to do.” Maybe because they've only had one side of the spectrum, they’ll choose and they'll have that conscious decision making of, “No, I want something else.” We don't really know, right?

Marcus: But like, what is the spectrum, right? Of course, the definition of the two sides of the spectrum will constantly shift. Like what we think is, you know, again, like playing with sticks versus playing Roblox or Minecraft online. That's our spectrum, right? And in a couple years the spectrum might be, you know, oh, you're just playing Minecraft with your friends versus, you know, talking with them in VR chat or something. I'm not sure if you guys know what I’m talking about. It might be crazy to think that in five years, these middle schoolers that we're talking about might be sitting down and having the same conversation like, “Wow, these middle schoolers, they’re growing up way too fast”, right? Like, what if, five years ago, the high schoolers of then were looking at us as middle schoolers and saying, “Wow, these middle schoolers are growing up way too fast.” We're young, like you said, so I don't want to get ahead of myself. This conversation could be happening, you know, every couple years or so, right? Like maybe it's not just these younger kids. Maybe it was the same thing for us. Like maybe it was the same thing for the current college kids, right? Like I could definitely see us as maybe being a bit too reactionary in the way like, maybe this isn't the worst thing.

Suhani: Okay, but I mean, regardless, the people older than us, you know, kind of turned out okay. I'm sure we’ll turn out okay, in our own way. So regardless of what happens, I think everyone will find a way to cope or to fill in whatever gaps they recognize.

Jordan: I feel like it’s repetitive because even my older sister, she's in her 20s and She looks at me and tells me, “Oh, I didn't do that when I was 16. Oh, my friends didn't do that when we were 15.” Like each new generation is going to be, “Oh, we didn't do that. We didn't do that. We didn't do that”, like as time moves on- oh this sounds like a movie quote- as society grows and stuff like that.

Suhani: I think on that note, before we get too cynical, we should conclude the episode, so this concludes our Across the Table. Thank you so much for listening. For a transcript of this episode, head to the Point of View tab on our website, nhsmessenger.org and follow us on Instagram, Twitter or Facebook at @nhspointofview for updates and new episodes. We're your hosts Suhani, Marcus, Jordan, Orelia and this has been Point of View.

Books Bans- A World of Grey

Marcus Kim, Suhani Mahajan, Sofia Mang, Dhruv Singh, Caleb Smith, Grace Yang

In the first episode of our two-part series, host Caleb Smith discusses the wave of book bans sweeping over America and the effects of categorizing books. Listen on Spotify or Apple Music! 

Caleb Smith: “Love who you want to, and do it unapologetically, including that face you see every day in the mirror.”

“Many of us connect with each other through trauma and pain: broken people finding other broken people in the hopes of fixing one another.”

These quotes from All Boys Aren’t Blue by George Matthew Johnson advise us to practice self-love and healing from trauma, practices that almost every single person would promote as healthy and beneficial. What happens when we condemn texts that encourage youth, the future leaders of the world, to love themselves and heal from their pasts? Is the restriction of books a necessary action to help avoid explicit material to our youth? What becomes of our society when we restrict literature to black-and-white categories of either “acceptable” or “unacceptable”? Who determines this? Is this new wave of book bans driven by political agendas?

Hello and welcome to Point of View where we give students a place to listen, learn, and lean in. I’m your host, Caleb. Join us on episode one of our two-part series on Book Bans as we dive into these questions and the implications behind the recent surge of book bans in America.

Please note that this episode references sensitive topics including suicide, violence against minorities, mental illnesses, and sexual violence, and may not be suitable for some listeners.

On January 10, the McMinn County School Board in Tennessee voted to remove Pulitzer prize-winning graphic novel Maus from its curriculum, effectively prohibiting teachers from teaching the book. The board’s reasoning for this ban, as stated on its website, was due to the book’s “use of profanity and nudity and… its depiction of violence and suicide.” The book tells about the horrors of the Holocaust from the authors’ parents’ point of view as Jewish people, themselves. Art Spegielman, the author, stated he believes the real reason the school board removed the book was because of its focus on the Holocaust, but the school board did release a statement that it values “teaching our children the historical and moral lessons and realities of the Holocaust.”

Additionally in Texas, multiple books are being pulled from school library shelves due to complaints from parents and school districts’ reviews of the books. Several of these reviews and complaints were spurred by an inquiry from Republican representative Matt Krause back on October 21, 2021. Krause compiled a list of 850 books and asked Texas school districts for information on their whereabouts and costs, then asked schools to review books that deal with topics ranging from human sexuality to people of certain races or sexes being inherently oppressive. An associate editor at Book Riot found that around 60% of the books on this list include LGBTQ+ themes. The North East Independent School District started reviewing the books on the list and removed more than 400 books dealing with race, sexuality, and gender. The district received backlash with an online petition of people who believed this review was hurting colored and LGBTQ+ students.

Texas governor Greg Abbott has also contributed to the banning of books by sending a letter to the Texas Education Agency to “investigate any criminal activity in our public schools involving the availability of pornography.” In response to this statement, many parents have challenged books with the claim that they are pornographic. Authors rebut these claims, saying they come from reading isolated passages, and that the book as a whole encourages teens to act on their desires safely. Other complaints have been filed about books that deal with race; parents claim they make kids feel guilty for being white.

More recently, Forsyth county in Georgia removed eight books from its media centers shelves after a parent complaint of sexually explicit material. Of these eight pieces, four of them feature POC main characters. Four other titles were moved to only be available in high schools. These books include Looking for Alaska by John Green and The Absolutely True Diary of a Part Time Indian by Sherman Alexie.

This censorship of literature impacts students the most, so we sat down with a few high schoolers and a teacher to discuss their thoughts on these book bans.

Ashley Ulrich: Hi, I'm Ashley Ulrich. I am a teacher at Northview High School. I'm one of the co-chairs for the English department. And I've been teaching here, this is my 15th year, and I primarily teach 10th graders and juniors.

Book banning is not a new concept. It has been a political controversy for forever, it feels like. I have definitely taught books that have in times and places been challenged or banned by groups at different times.

Smith: Book bans have been around for centuries, with America’s first book ban taking place in 1637 on Thomas Morton’s New English Canaan, which critiqued Puritan practices. Since then, our country has grown much more accepting, welcoming people of all religions, races, and sexualities. Some of this societal progress can be attributed to books that push people to be uncomfortable and face reality. For example, Uncle Tom’s Cabin, published in 1852, exposed the cruel nature of slavery to the public, strengthening the abolitionist movement.

Literature pushes the boundaries and tells about all facets of society.

Ryan Li: So like if you only approve certain texts, you only learn what those texts are teaching you. You don’t have the vast variety of, you know, different points of view, which is what makes literature so special.

Smith: It is a unique form of communication as it defuses ideas from all kinds of people. Anybody’s ideals may be challenged with literature, be they democrat, republican, or anything in between. No book is objectively correct or incorrect.

Ulrich: I think most sources are not that black and white. So it becomes tricky without picking out the most outliers of examples to, I think, pin down on a spectrum of, you are terrible, and you are great. There is a lot of gray in the space between objectively promoting good and objectively promoting bad.

Smith: For example, the “Handmaid’s Tale” offers Christians a critique on the possibility of the overbearing power of religion. It is written through a female point of view that shows the flaws of a male dominated society that is often seen in religious texts. Stripping away the political ideas associated with a story like this, we reveal a genuine warning about how individual rights may crumble under an overpowering government. Beneath the political veil that society has given “The Handmaid’s Tale”, lies a genuinely amazing piece of literature that critiques our status quo regarding religion and power structures. Putting “The Handmaid’s Tale” into a strict black or white box of either being pro-conservative or pro-liberal takes away from the story and the message it is trying to send. By reducing this work to a binary, the heart of this book is lost.

This pattern of exposing the worst parts of humanity in hopes of achieving reform or simply to make people think, can be seen in many popular books, whether they are taught in schools or not.

Li: It’s not really sort of something I can put my finger on exactly, it’s just sort of a feeling you get after you read a book. It sort of expands your worldview on things, like a subliminal message, things that slowly change the way you view the world through reading different texts, through reading things that concern these controversial topics that sort of, you know, expand your knowledge on them.

Smith: For example, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, a book in the curriculum of many school districts across the nation, discusses uncomfortable topics such as mental illness and the terrible treatment that mentally ill people have received historically. The content makes readers think about the conditions in the medical system as well as about the bigger questions, such as things that are worse than death. In One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, the setting is a mental asylum, where the patients are often rambunctious and punished for this behavior. The setting could lead readers to believe that there is something innately wrong with people who have mental illnesses. Rather than moving Cuckoo’s Nest to the ‘no good’ box immediately, an inspection of the book reveals how it uses the setting as a critique of the treatment of people with mental illness.

Ulrich: With a book, there is a writer, that writer is writing for an audience to communicate a message, and understanding the purpose of the message that they're trying to communicate and the audience that they're trying to reach. And what they hope to accomplish with that is important with any text, whether it's a speech, or whether it's a novel or any other form of communication.

Smith: Actually engaging and reading the book shows how the setting itself presents the mistreatment and horrors that happen in a systemic institution for people deemed ‘insane’. While Cuckoo’s Nest is a controversial book, it is not being targeted in this most recent wave of bans, along with many other hard reads. They are still being taught in schools across the country, and there is one defining factor about these books: they are from the so-called “normal” perspective, that being of a straight white man. Both the protagonist, Randle McMurphy, and the book’s author, Ken Kesey, come from this majority.

Vangala: Honestly, if you look at the publishing industry as a whole, even though there are so many people of color, so many LGBTQ people in America, it’s a largely white straight world. I think by banning these books and preventing people from accessing these kinds of stories, you’re showing them that only one kind of story is valid, and one kind of story is acceptable.

Smith: This doesn’t mean that Cuckoo’s Nest is any less important of a text, but it is a glaring pattern in these bans.

Ulrich: We're seeing right now, a lot of questioning of writers that are not from the majority population, people of color, people who are from the LGBTQ community, and a lot of superficial elements of texts are being used as the justification for why books can be banned outright for all people in this you know, whole school or home school district or whole state. And in doing so, there is an implied argument that people like that don't have a place that we shouldn't be listening to what they have to say that to me is problematic.

Smith: One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest is comparable in content, albeit a bit more serious, to The Absolutely True Diary of a Part Time Indian. The Absolutely True Diary of a Part Time Indian was banned due to profanity and reference to sexual acts, but Cuckoo’s Nest is much more violent and contains more sexually explicit material, and has not been challenged in the newest wave of book bans. This raises the question of whether sexual content is being used to ban books or if the real intention is to prevent students from reading books showing a certain viewpoint.

Ulrich: I am more inclined to see the removal of whole groups of texts, because they're written by a certain type of person, or because they have, you know, content of this type or that type or this type or that type. I think that oftentimes, we can sometimes use those labels as a hide, for a real reason why sometimes a book might be banned, that we might say this content is what is objectionable, but really, it's a challenge to the status quo, or it's a challenge to the viewpoints and the feelings that people have. That is, at the heart the problem.

Smith: The striking difference between One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest and The Absolutely True Diary of a Part Time Indian is that Sherman Alexie, the author of The Absolutely True Diary of a Part Time Indian, is a Native American author showing the day-to-day life of a different culture, and Ken Kesey, author of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest is a straight white man.

Vangala: I mean, it’s the same kind of idea where if you see the acceptable stories, and it’s The Great Gatsby, and it’s The Catcher in the Rye, it’s stories of white men. And then you look at the stories that are banned, and it’s about the Holocaust, and it’s about Melissa, a transgender girl, you’re seeing very obviously that one type of voice is seen as acceptable and some voices are seen as unacceptable, and when you identify with a voice that’s seen as unacceptable, it’s really damaging to your growth.

Smith: On Goodreads, a book review website, a parent reveals that she started reading parts of The Absolutely True Diary of a Part Time Indian and crossing out sections she thought were inappropriate for her child. It is an honorable task to be a parent and every parent wants to be the best for their children.

Ulrich: If a parent is really concerned about content in a text, as a parent, they have the right to determine what is appropriate for their child, in the same way, they should have that right to determine what a child can watch on television or see in a movie or playing a video game or listen to in music.

Smith: But allowing opinionated parents, often acting on a political agenda, to pick what is “too harsh” and to restrict those texts for all students across the board can be dangerous. Media has an effect on people's worldview, and it makes sense that a parent would want some knowledge and control over what a child is exposed to in their formative years. However, there is a difference between this contained parenting and the sweeping actions of a larger administrative board.

Ulrich: Speaking as a teacher and as a person, I think there is an inherent difference, which is probably come across in some of my other comments between a parent making a choice for their child, and someone making a choice for entire groups of kids or entire groups of populations that they may not intimately know. Those two things to me are very different circumstances. I see the biggest issue when someone thinks that they know best for whole groups of people without having any direct connection to them. A teacher, a parent, even an administrator who's directly involved in the lives of that group of kids, to me, is in a better place to make a judgment call for what feels like a more founded reason than making sweeping judgments from a position that's very detached and removed.

Smith: The themes of racial prejudice, sexual desires, and domestic abuse in The Absolutely True Diary of a Part Time Indian and other heavy topics addressing the LGBTQ+ community and sexual assault have become more relevant, but have also been more targeted in recent bans.

Li: I don’t think I’ve read many books concerning these themes outside of school, which is why I think implementing book bans is especially harmful, because sometimes school is the only place you’re exposed to these types of themes.

Smith: Banning these books across the board insinuates that the bigger ideas in these books are outright wrong, and can push them to be seen as part of political agendas.

Ulrich: When we take an entire group of texts, and give it a label, and then say that that is unacceptable, particularly if it is a flat ban, and across the board, instead of in an individual context for an individual kid, that to me can be very problematic, because it suggests that there is something inherently negative about the writer or the writers intentions. And that might be one person's view, or, you know, a group of persons’ views. But that's probably not a pan of a view for everyone. In fact, many books, unfortunately, find themselves, you know, for different reasons being challenged, because they might run contrary to the perspective that a group, you know, wants to advocate for and kind of make a political statement about.

Smith: The idea in modern American society that LGBTQ+ ideas are liberal and conservatives are anti-LGBTQ can be attributed to the current black and white, yes or no, of the American political climate. The world is not black or white, but a shade of gray. People cannot be labeled in a binary fashion, and to an even greater extent, the ideas that people share cannot and should not ever come close to a bilinear scale.

Ulrich: I try to include a variety of themes in the texts that we explore. I think questions about who we are as people, and what matters to us. And the way that we interact with other people are probably some of the most fundamental things that we can work with students about and have them think critically about, especially when we look at the world. On a bigger scale, once you're not in high school, I mean, interpersonal relationships and having a sense of who you are, and what matters to you. Those are fundamental things that shape every part of a person's life. So giving kids texts that are exploring identity, about sense of self, about how we relate to others, how we relate to people that are different than us, how we acknowledge that there are perspectives that are perhaps different than our own. To me, those are some of the most fundamental, important things that we can talk about. Because through that, we're addressing things that give kids the ability to make choices in the future about who they are, how they see themselves, the way they interact with others.

Smith: Katy Independent School District has banned the book and memoir “All Boys Aren’t Blue” by George M Johnson. In this memoir, Johnson explores the trials and triumphs of a black queer man growing up. Many could immediately label this as dangerous. It could expose our youth to sensitive topics such as sexual violence or uncensored sex.

Li: In terms of literature, most of the stuff that starts to, for required reading, that does deal with sexuality and things along those lines, happens in eighth grade. A lot of the reasoning behind these bans is that, you know, these people are too young to learn about these things but I feel like at that age, you’re already mentally mature enough to handle topics and themes of this nature.

Smith: The book could be labeled as liberal propaganda and be shoved in the ‘no good’ box and shipped away. However, as explained earlier, All Boys Aren't Blue explores topics of sexuality, masculinity, and consent, which aren’t topics that can be relegated to a political party. These themes include the discussion of the ‘republican father’, the idea of a strong breadwinning male figure, the explanation of consent and dangers of sexual assault, and even the talk of American childhood.

Vangala: When it comes to a book, you have to put, there’s so many people that work on a book. Even writing a book just takes years and years and so much thought that when it comes to a book, you know that there were a lot of eyes that went over it. When there’s sexually explicit conent in there, it’s for a purpose.

Smith: Forcing a label on a book antagonizes its contents. The stories that this work of literature can provide to society are lost through the attempts to section it off into a political party. There is something for everyone in books. Labeling them as black or white, red or blue, is a dangerous practice that prevents the dissemination of literature and stories within society.

Vangala: I believe that the people who are instating book bans are doing it with the belief that they are helping children, but by doing that they are actively hindering our education. They are, again, limiting our worldview and making us believe that only one type of person and one type of story is worthy of being heard.

Smith: We live in turbulent times that no one can predict. Literature and restrictions have been hand and hand for centuries. However, we have to critically analyze the reasons and how they are being restricted and ask the hard question of ‘is this okay to do’. The growth and development of our youth is at stake and prioritizing a political agenda can prevent them from learning the realities of the world and changing it for the better. Join us in our next episode to talk to the students, authors, and teachers these bans are affecting. Thank you for listening to the first episode on Book Bans. -For a transcript of this episode, head to the Point of View tab on our website nhsmessenger.org and follow us on Instagram, Twitter, or Facebook @nhspointofview for updates and new episodes. I’m your host Caleb Smith and this has been Point of View.

Point of You - High School Then and Now

Orelia Thottam, Marcus Kim

Point of View Host Marcus Kim speaks with teachers Mr. DeLong and Mrs. Pope about their high school experiences and how they compare to what they observe in their classrooms today. Listen on Spotify or Apple Music. 

Marcus Kim: Hello, and welcome to point of view where we give students a place to listen, learn and lean in. I'm your host, Marcus Kim, and today we'll be interviewing Mrs. Pope and Mr. DeLong about their high school experiences. So Mrs. Pope and Mr. DeLong- how are you today?

Mrs. Pope: Great! Thank you. How are you, Marcus?

Marcus Kim: Not so great. It's a day in school.

Mrs. Pope: Right! Yeah.

Marcus Kim: Yeah. See, unlike you guys, I don't get paid to be here.

Mrs. Pope: I don't know if you can say I'm paid.

Marcus Kim: Oh, this is this is very true. All right. So, of course, a lot of students kind of forget that teachers were once High Schoolers too. So, if you guys could describe your past high school selves in one phrase, what would it be?

Mr. Delong: I think mine would be quiet and reserved.

Mrs. Pope: And I'd say mine would be nerdy, but nerdy and in love with learning. I wanted to be at school. I wanted to learn. That was-

Marcus Kim: So you would wake up every day excited to go to school?

Mrs. Pope: Yeah, I was that little nerd that enjoyed just the activity of being here at school in the learning process.

Marcus Kim: Would you say that- so for those of you that don't know, Mr. DeLong, was actually a student of Mrs. Pope. So, Mr. DeLong, was there ever a day that you didn't want to go to Mrs. Pope's class?

Mr. Delong: Not for Mrs. Pope's class because her class was always very fun to be in. But there were definitely times in other classes that I would just not want to try.

Marcus Kim: And Mrs. Pope, you said that you enjoyed going to school every day. So were there any classes you didn't like?

Mrs. Pope: Um, you know, I think a lot of you will identify with this, that the first time I remember ever needing to leave a class because I needed to cry was math.

Marcus Kim: Oh, I see. I think a lot of Northview students can relate.

Mrs. Pope: I think a lot would identify with that. So that moment, that math moment, when I realized that the A's I had been achieving in math were crashing, and so I sort of reached my limit in my math experience.

Marcus Kim: So you went to high school in South Africa, and was there as like a specific teacher in your high school experience that made you decide, "Yeah, I want to be a teacher."

Mrs. Pope: Um, you know, it, I really want to be honest, I don't think it was a teacher. Funny enough, there was an elementary school teacher, my seventh grade teacher, she was really inspiring. But high school, not particularly, it was more college. If I go actually towards the college experience, which you guys are still going to experience, it's often the college professor who maybe has more creative freedom to really inspire you in a direction. Also, my parents both came from teaching environments. And so I grew up in the world of having parents who had taught and have been teachers and in a family that were teachers. So I think that was part of what inspired me more than actually the teachers in school.

Mr. Delong: Yeah, I mean, similar to me, son of two teachers. I would say in terms of teachers that Northview when I had, he's not here anymore, but Mr. Pfeiffer was my ninth-grade math teacher. And he was very eccentric and he also stuttered like me as well. And I don't meet a lot of people that stutter or like so like, blatantly, as I do from time to time, and it was different, but refreshing to see someone who was in this profession who could overcome that and sort of own it to a certain degree.

Marcus Kim: Right. Do you have any students like yourself that have stutters?

Mr. Delong: Not to my knowledge? No, I mean, some students will stutter but that's just from being nervous, not from like, just an innate inability to say something because of genetics.

Marcus Kim: Are there ever times where like, you see some of your own students and relate your past high school self to those students?

Mr. Delong: Yeah, I mean, I was pretty awkward at times and a lot of these kids can be pretty awkward too. I think being able to communicate with adults is very effective. And that's definitely something that like, I've learned to get better at and obviously, being an adult now too. But there are students who are very difficult to communicate with because they either can't make eye contact, they can't articulate their ideas in a way that I can understand them the way that they want me to. So that's things that I tried to pick up on and I will go out of my way to try to help them.

Marcus Kim: And Mrs. Pope. Um, well, you've been on this earth a little bit longer. So you- no offense- you do so what do you say you remember your high school? Like your high school experience fairly well?

Mrs. Pope: Um, you know, I do, I think we've got to remember, I think sometimes when you get caught up in the high school experience, you think this is the be-all and end-all. And you're really at the start of the journey of your life, you know, graduating high school is one tiny step and the full extent of what your life becomes. But hey, I remember particular moments, you know, like, like a time I failed math and realized that come to the end of my math journey, or like, like, making the first team for my field hockey team. So those were kind of moments where, you know, those academic moments? Meh. You don't remember, near as half as actually those social moments and the interactions you had with people that sort of cement that memory for you and make the high school experience you remember.

Marcus Kim: Yeah, and I've actually experienced three different high schools. And Mr. DeLong, as alumni from Northview, would you say that, from the time you graduated, was the cutthroat super strict, academic kind of environment the same?

Mr. Delong: Yeah, I mean, I think Northview has always been really competitive. I think also, Northview is very cliquey. I mean, I think we're very diverse, but like students have very set sets of friends. And I know that’s the same for all high schools, but I feel like Northview has it pretty severenstill. So like, students are very set on who they want to communicate with, and share ideas with and whatnot. And a lot of my friends are also former students of Northview and almost all of mine, I actually never talked to when I was a student here, it was after high school, in college, or just outside that, like those barriers kind of broke. But I feel like at Northview, there are very high barriers to be able to communicate outside of like your friend group.

Mrs. Pope: Just to add to what Jason is saying, I think, you know, it's funny, we want to say, you know, Northview has a lot cliques- every high school does- I think it's the nature of high school, the nature of being teenagers and, and university was a different experience. I think you break those boundaries, and you find bigger connections and deeper connections with people than you do at the high school level. I don't know if it's a safety aspect at high school, you're still discovering yourself and your identity and who you are, that creates these cliques that we find comfort with. We're not, we're forced into whatever the situation is.

Marcus Kim: Right. So, both of you as teachers at Northview, of course, Mr. DeLong, in Math and Mrs. Pope in English, you've definitely seen some students that are super, super stressed and getting perfect grades is their absolute number one priority. Now that you guys are adults, do you have a different retrospect and kind of a different view on life?

Mrs. Pope: I think, when I look back with my larger experience, a few more years on this earth, this perspective, you know, looking back, I think it's so hard because you get caught up in the high school experience, and I don't blame you. I mean, that's your narrow worldview at the moment and what you're feeling. So I think the stress is, is worse than possibly what your parents had? And you know what I'm going to say? I'm going to say yes. And I think for you to recognize a real sense of stress and to feel an extra pressure, I'm going to say yes. I feel like every generation almost demands of the next generation, a closer move to this perfect student and this perfect place. And there’s that, you know, if you're going to be successful, what job are you pursuing? And what career are you getting to to the point that we've lost sight of just being human beings in the moment and enjoying things in the moment? There's a real pressure to try and meet this outside expectation. And I don't think it's got lighter. I think it's gotten harder.

Mr. Delong: Yeah. I mean-

Mrs. Pope: I think, you know, what I'm gonna say, the more global we become, it's almost more like how do we meet the global competition? We're not even talking about local competition because you know, if you think back to your parents, often it was, where they went to school was where they were going to work and get their jobs, maybe not your parents, but your grandparents. Now, your work can take you anywhere in the world. But then who are you competing against? What does that look like? And when we're up against a world of more and more educated people, it's closing in on us.

Mr. Delong: It's a vicious cycle. My opinion has ever evolved about this pursuit of perfection. I think that because it's a vicious cycle, you're almost forced to. Where, like a lot of these college professors today couldn't be professors if they were students now, because like the barrier for entry is so much higher now. And I think the best way to combat burnout would be to just find the profession, find the job that like that, that you want to do. And I think if you can't, if you can find that route, then burnouts going to be a huge problem.

Marcus Kim: Oh yeah, I've seen amongst my peers a lot of burnout. And I see it basically any class I go to, right. Like, it might seem mean to say, but sometimes I see some of my friends have gray hairs from all the stress they've been under.

Mrs. Pope: And maybe it's not necessarily the pursuit of a career or finding out what it is that you want to do. Because there’s so much out there that we don't know what we want to do, but maybe your passion, you know, like that you can follow your passions, so that you're not being forced into things that are not you. And we know so many students that are being told, you know, you're going to have to follow this technology route or this business route, because that's where you're gonna find success. And then you're like, wait, I want to draw pretty postcards and send those to my friends. Yeah.

Marcus Kim: Yeah definitely, because a lot of people or a lot of my peers are like, oh, yeah, I need to do so well, to prepare me to get into a good college, right, and to then get a good job. So then an interesting narrative comes up, where it's: are you truly preparing yourself for life after high school by studying immensely and always being so absorbed in academia?

Mrs. Pope: No! Um, and, you know, it depends on who you are, like, I think you've got to find that, that route of academia that inspires you and moves you, you know, I love reading great essays. And, you know, with AP lang experience, all of the grades, right? And the great writing that’s out there, I love that pursuit of academia, but I'm not going to sit and learn how to code. I think you've got to decide what it is that, that you like, the most, and, and to put yourself out in that direction.

Mr. Delong: It's, it's a balance, it's a balance thing. But I've definitely seen people that have changed their lives from purely moving to academics, where they didn't, they didn't have a direction in life. And they sat down and they taught and like, they taught themselves coding, or they, you know, they did the work. And, you know, I think, you know, there comes a time when being a college kid is fun, but then you got to start paying the bills. And it's like, yeah, I did an art major, but that's not gonna, you know, pay for my rent or pay for my water, so.

Marcus Kim: So it's all about the balance, right?

Mr. Delong: Yeah, the balance and I think the practicality of just, not anything you do will work. It has to be lucky or pick a business major. Yeah, they make a lot of money.

Marcus Kim: All right. Well, thank you so much for your time here. I'll let you guys get back to your classes so you can teach the future generation of America or other countries, who knows, but thank you so much for your time.

Mrs. Pope: Well, Marcus, anytime.

Marcus Kim: This concludes our talk with Mrs. Pope and Mr. DeLong thank you so much for listening. For a transcript of this episode had to the NHS Point of View tab on our website nhsmessenger.org and follow us on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook @nhspointofview for updates and new episodes. I'm your host, Marcus Kim, and this has been Point of View.

A Spooky Story by Marcus Kim

Marcus Kim

In this special episode, staffer Marcus Kim tells a spooky story called, "The Whistler" written by user u/Grand_Theft_Motto from the subreddit r/nosleep. Listen on Spotify here!

Marcus Kim: Hello and welcome to Point of View, where we give students a place to listen, learn, and lean in. I’m your host Marcus Kim and today I’ll be telling you a spooky story.

Every night, no matter the weather, something walks down our street whistling ever so softly. You can only hear it if you’re in the living room or kitchen when they walk by and it starts exactly at 3:03 AM. The sound starts faint, somewhere near the beginning of the lane near Carson’s place. We’re towards the middle of the street, so the whistling moves past us and it fades away in the direction of the cul de sac.

When I was younger, my sister and I would sneak into the kitchen some nights to listen. Mom and Dad didn’t like that and we’d catch Hell if they ever found out but they weren’t ever too hard on us since we always stuck by the one Big Rule.

Do not try to look at whatever was whistling.

My neighborhood is a funny place. I’ve lived here since I was six and I love it. The houses are small but well-kept, good-sized yards, plenty of places to roam. There are lots of other kids here my age, I turned 13 back in October. We grew up together and would always play four square in the cul de sac or roam around the back or play in the trees during the summer. This was a good place to grow up, I’m old enough now to see it. And there’s only two strange things here; the night whistling and the good luck.

The whistling never bothered me too much. Like I said, I couldn’t hear it from my bedroom. But mom and dad don’t like talking about it, so I’ve stopped asking questions. My dad is a strong guy, tall and calm. He has an accent since he moved to the US as a kid. His family, my grandparents, they’re from the islands. That’s what they call it, anyways. My dad, the only time he isn’t so calm is if the whistler comes up.

He talks a bit quicker, his eyes move faster, and he tells us not to think about it too much since it’s not good to talk about it. But he always keeps the one Big Rule: do not try to look outside when the whistler goes past.

Not that we could even look if we wanted to. See, there are shutters on the inside of every window, thick pieces of heavy canvas that pull down from the top and latch at the bottom of the window frame. Each latch has a small lock, about the size of what you’d find on a diary. My dad locks those shutters every night before we go to bed and keeps the key in his room.

My mom…I don’t know what she thinks about the whistling. I’ve seen her out in the living room before 3:03 AM when the sound starts; I could see her if I cracked my door open just an inch to peek. She’s not out there often, at least I haven’t caught her much, but once or twice a month I think she sits out on the big red couch just to listen.

The whistler goes past and hums the same tune every night. It’s…somewhat cheerful.

Remember how I said there are two odd things about where I live? Well, besides the night whistler, everyone in my neighborhood is very, very lucky. It’s hard to explain and dad doesn’t like talking about that part either, but when people live here, good things happen. It’s small things, like winning a radio contest, getting unexpected promotions, or finding some arrowheads buried in the yard, you know, like the authentic kind.

The weather here is pretty good. There’s no crime at all and everybody’s gardens bloom a little bit extra in the fall. “A million little blessings,” I’ve heard my mom say about living here. But the main reason we stay here, why we moved here in the first place, is my sister Nola. She was born very sick, something with her lungs. We couldn’t even bring her home when she was born, only visit her in the hospital. She was small, I remember, small even compared to the other babies. A machine had to help her breathe.

We moved into our house here to be closer to the hospital. As soon as we moved here, Nola started getting better. The doctors couldn’t figure it out, so they chalked it up to whatever they were doing but we knew they were confused. But my parents knew, even I knew, Nola getting better was just another of the million little blessings we got for living in this neighborhood.

So that’s why we stayed even after we found out that, for every small miracle that happens here every day, now and then…something bad happens. But only to those who look for the whistler.

See, our neighborhood has a Welcoming Committee. They show up with macaroni casseroles, a gift basket and a manila folder whenever someone new moves in. They’re friendly. Four people showed up when we moved here seven years ago. The committee made small talk, gave me a Snickers bar, and took turns holding Nola. It was her first week out of the hospital so they were extra careful.

Then the committee asked to speak to my parents in private so I was sent to my room where I still managed to hear nearly every word. The Welcoming Committee told my parents about how nice the neighborhood was, really exceptionally, hard-to-explain kind of nice. And then they told my parents about the even harder-to-explain whistling that happened across our street every night at 3:03 AM. They explained how it started at 3:03 and ended at the tick of 3:05. The group, our new neighbors, warned my parents that the whistling was quiet, would never harm or hurt us, as long as we didn’t look outside to try and see what was making the sound.

This part they stressed and I pushed my ear into the door straining to hear them. People who went looking for the whistler had their luck change, sometimes tragically. A black cloud would hang over anyone that looked. Anything that could go wrong, would. The manila folder the committee brought over contained newspaper clippings, stories about car crashes, ruined lives, funerals, public deaths and freak accidents.

“Not everyone dies,” I heard them say. “But if their life goes on, even if they live, there’s no light in them ever again, no presence.”

My mom, I could tell she wasn’t taking it seriously. She kept asking if this was some prank they played on new neighbors. At one point my mom got angry, accusing them of being racist or even trying to scare us out of the new home. But my dad calmed her down, told her that our new neighbors were sincere and were just trying to help. He explained that he grew up hearing these kinds of stories from his mom and that he knew there were strange things that walked among us. Some of the strange things were good and some of them were bad but they were all just different.

After the committee left, my dad went to the hardware store, bought the canvas blinds, the latches, and the locks and installed them on every window in the house after dinner. That first night in our new house, I crept out of my room at 3 a.m. only to find my dad sitting awake on the living room couch, holding my baby sister. My dad held up his finger in a shh motion but patted the couch next to him. I sat and we waited.

At exactly 3:03 we heard the whistling.

It came and it went just like the neighborhood said. The whistling returned each night and we never looked so we got to enjoy our million little blessings every day. Nola breathes on her own every day and she’s grown into a strong, clever girl. My dad even joined the Welcoming Committee. We don’t get new neighbors often, why would anyone want to leave? But when a new family moves in, my dad and the committee would bring them macaroni casserole, a gift basket, and the manila folder. I can always tell by the look on my dad’s face when he comes back if the new family took it seriously or if we’d be getting new neighbors again soon.

Not long ago a family moved in directly next to us. The previous owner, Ms. Maddie, passed away at the sweet age of 105. She’d lived a good, long life. Our new neighbors, they seemed like they’d fit in just fine. They believed the Welcoming Committee, took my dad’s advice about the locking shutters since they had a young kid of their own. Whatever newspaper clippings that were in that manila folder, whatever evidence, my dad never let us see. But I imagine it must have been awfully convincing since our neighbors got along with no issues for the first month.

One night, when our new neighbors had to leave town, they sent their son, Holden, to stay with us. He was 12, a year under me in school. I didn’t know him well before that night but as soon as his parents dropped him off after dinner I could tell it was going to be a bad time.

“Do you know who is always out there whistling every night?” Holden asked the moment the adults left the room.

The three of us were sitting in the den, some Disney movie playing idly on the television.

My sister and I exchanged glances. “We don’t talk about that,” I said.

“I think it’s that weirdo that lives in the big yellow house on the corner,” Holden said.

“Mr. Toles?” my sister asked. “No way, he’s really nice.”

Holden shrugged. “Must be a psycho killer, then.”

Nola tensed.

“We don’t talk about it,” I repeated. “Let’s go in my room and play Nintendo.”

We spent the next few hours playing games, eating popcorn and then watching movies.

A typical sleepover but I could see Holden was getting antsy.

After my parents had wished us a good night, locked the blinds, and gone to bed, Holden stood up from his bean bag and walked over to where Nola and I were sitting on my bed.

“Have you ever even tried looking?” he asked. “It’s nearly time.”

Like most sleepovers, we’d conveniently ignored any suggestion of a bedtime. I was shocked to see he was right; it was almost 3 a.m.

I sighed. “We don’t-”

“See, I can’t, I can’t even try to look because my dad locks the blinds every night and hides the key,” he continued, ignoring me.

“So does our dad,” said Nola.

“No,” replied Holden. “No, he doesn’t.”

“You saw him do it,” I said, a little sharper than I meant to sound.

Holden grinned. “Your dad locks the blinds, yeah, but he doesn’t hide the key. He keeps it right on his normal key chain.”

“So?” I asked, worried I already knew what he would say next. Because I had noticed that my dad didn’t bother hiding the key anymore after all of these years. Because he knew we took it seriously.

“So, after your dad locked up but before your parents went to bed, I went to the bathroom. And on my way, I may have peeked into their room, and I may have seen your dad’s key chain on his nightstand, and I may have went and borrowed that keychain to the blinds.”

Nola and I stared and his grin only grew wider.

“You’re lying,” I said.

Holden shrugged. “You can check if you want. Just open your parents’ door and look, you’ll see his keychain right there on the nightstand.”

“Stay here,” I told both of them. “Do not move a muscle.”

I hurried over to my parents’ room but hesitated at the door. If Holden wasn’t lying…my dad would be angry. Beyond angry. I was scared thinking about it. But more scared of an open window with the whistler right outside. I opened the door, barely an inch, and looked in but it was too dark to see. Taking a deep breath, I walked into the room.

Two steps into the dark I froze. The whistling started. I could hear it ever so clearly…from my parents’ room. I never realized it but they must have been able to hear it every night since we moved into the house. They never told us. I don’t think I could have slept through it.

I stood there, listening to the whistling come closer, unsure whether I should turn the lights on or call out for my dad. Soft sounds from the living room brought me back to reality.

“Nola,” I yelled, running out of my parents’ room.

Holden and Nola were standing near the front door next to a window. Holden wasn’t lying. I could see him fumbling with the lock on the blinds. I heard a click. He did have the key.

Holden let out a quick laugh. Nola stood next to him, hunched up, afraid but maybe curious. The whistling was right outside our house.

I think I made a sound, called out. I can’t remember. Time felt frozen, clock hands nailed to the face. But I found myself moving. I’m not fast, I’ve never been athletic. Somehow, though, I covered the space between me and Nola in a moment. My eyes were locked on her but I could hear Holden pull the blind all the way down so it could release. I heard the snap as it started to raise, and I heard the whistling just on the other side of the window.

But I had my arms around Nola and I turned us so she was facing away from the window. At the same time, I jammed my eyes shut. The blind whipped open.

The whistling stopped.

I felt Nola shaking in my arms.

“Don’t look, okay?” I told her. “Do not turn around.”

We were positioned so that she was facing the back towards the hallway and I was facing the window. My eyes were still closed. I felt her nod into my shoulder.

I reached out with one arm not holding Nola and tried to touch Holden. My hand brushed against his arm. He was shaking worse than Nola.

“Holden?” I asked.

Silence.

I reached past him and gingerly felt for the window, eyes still sealed shut. The glass was cold against my fingertips. Colder than it should have been for that time of year. I moved my hand up the window, searching for the string of the blinds. The glass began to get warmer the further up I reached and I heard a gentle hum feeding back into my fingertips from the window. I tried not to think about it- what might be on the other side of the window. Finally, I touched the string and yanked the blinds shut.

I opened my eyes. In the dim light leaking through the kitchen, I could make out Holden, pale and small, staring at the now closed window.

“Holden?” I asked again.

He turned towards me and he screamed.

Everything became a flurry of motion. Lights sparked to life in the halls, then the living room. My parents’ footsteps thudded across the hardwood floor. I didn’t turn to look back at them, my eyes were glued on Holden.

He was pale, he had bit his lip so hard there was a thin red line of blood running down his chin and he’d wet himself.

“What happened?” my dad asked from behind me.

I managed to swivel away from Holden and look back. “He looked.”

I’d never seen my dad scared before but I saw it that night, in that moment, an ugly terror stitched across his face.

“Just Holden?” he mouthed to me.

I nodded yes.

My dad let out a breath. He looked so relieved I nearly expected him to cheer. But then he turned to Holden and my dad’s face changed. I wondered if he felt bad for feeling good that it was only Holden who looked.

There was a knock on the door.

Thud thud.

We all froze. Holden whimpered.

“Don’t answer it,” my mom said.

She stood at the threshold of the hallway. I’d always thought she was a skeptic and just humored my dad about the windows and the whistler but that night we were all believers. I noticed that both of my parents held baseball bats they must have taken from their room.

The knock came again, this time a little louder.

Thud thud.

“Please don’t open the door,” Holden whimpered.

My dad walked over to him, hugged him close.

“We won’t,” my dad promised, still holding the bat. “Nothing is coming in here tonight.”

Thud thud thud.

This time the knocking was loud enough to rattle the door. Holden screamed again and Nola clutched her arms around my neck. My mom came over and knelt down next to us, wrapping my sister and me close. Again, the knocks came.

“Call the police,” my dad whispered.

The knocking instantly stopped. My dad looked over his shoulder at us.

“Do you think-” He was cut off by the frantic knocking that trailed off to a polite tap tap tap.

“Police,” something said from the other side of the door. The voice from outside sounded exactly like my dad, like a parrot repeating the words back to him.

“Police. Call. Police.” tap tap tap “Police.”

My mom pulled us closer.

“Police. Police. Police. Police.”

“Please stop,” I heard her whisper.

“I don’t think calling them will help,” my dad said. “How will we know when they’re the ones at the door?”

The knocking came back, but this time harder than before. The door shook. Then it stopped. After a long moment, I heard the knocking again but it was coming from the backdoor.

We all turned together towards the backdoor but the knocking immediately returned to the front. Front to back, back to front, loud to quiet to loud. Suddenly, the sound was coming from both doors at once, big, heavy blows like a sledgehammer. Something started rapping against all of the windows in the house, then the walls. It was like we were inside a drum with a dozen people trying to play at once. Or we were a turtle and something was attempting to claw us out of our shell.

“PLEASE STOP!” Holden yelled.

The knocking died.

“I won’t tell,” Holden said, staring at the door. “I promise I won’t tell anyone what I saw. Please just go away.”

We waited for nearly a minute. Then we heard it, the soft tap tap tap coming from the window Holden had looked through earlier.

Holden began to cry, sobbing like a prisoner watching gallows being built outside their cell.

My dad held him, brushed his hair but he never lied to him. My dad never said that things would be okay.

The tapping at the window went on for the rest of the night. We huddled together in the living room for I don’t even know how long. Eventually, my mom tried to take us kids into my room while my dad stayed to watch the door. But the second we moved into the bedroom, the knocking came back, so loud it was possible to ignore. I was afraid the door would break.

We went back to the living room and the knocking stopped. Only the tap tap tap on the window remained. None of us slept that night.

The tapping stopped at around 7 a.m. That’s about the time the sun comes up here. We waited another two hours before my dad opened the blinds from one window. He made us all go back to my parents’ bedroom first. I heard him open the door then come back in.

“Okay,” he told us. “It’s done.”

Holden’s parents came back around lunchtime. My mom and dad walked Holden over to his house and they went inside for a quick while. Nola and I watched from the window. She stuck to me the whole day, right at my side, sometimes even holding my hand. When my parents came back they looked grim but they wouldn’t tell us what they said to Holden’s family. It was a Sunday so we spent the day together, ordered a pizza and watched a movie.

That night everyone slept in my room, Nola and my mom in the bed with me, my dad in a chair he’d pulled up. There was no knocking that night or any night since.

We didn’t see much of Holden or his parents for the rest of the week but by Thursday there was a moving truck in their driveway. Nola and I watched them pack up that whole afternoon after school. What sticks with me the most is how tired Holden and his parents looked. All three of them had the same pallor, grim across their mouth and light-less eyes. Even from across the street I could tell that something was very wrong. Holden and his family were gone before sunset.

I remember what the original Welcoming Committee said to my parents when we moved in. Not everyone who looks for the whistler dies, but even those who continue to live get their life drained out of them and live their lives forever in misfortune. A million little tragedies.

I think Holden’s parents must have looked, either to comfort him if they didn’t believe or share the burden if they did. I watch Nola some days, happy, young and alive, and I wonder if I’d been slower, if she’d looked out the window that night…would I have looked too? To comfort her? To share the burden? I’m glad I don’t have to find out.

We still live in that house, in that neighborhood. We still hear the whistler go past every night. The blessings, the luck, the good things that are too good to leave. But we’re careful. We don’t have friends over to spend the night anymore. And my dad hides the keys to the blinds very, very well. Not that I’ve gone looking. Because, I’ve learned some things you just don’t need to go look for.

This concludes our spooky story. Thank you so much for listening. For a transcript of this episode, head to the Point of View tab on our website nhsmessenger.org and follow us on Instagram, Twitter, or Facebook @nhspointofview for updates and new episodes. I’m your host Marcus Kim and this has been Point of View.

Across the Table - Social Shifts

Jordan Anderson, Rachel Everett, Marcus Kim, Delisa Troupe

In this episode, staffers Delisa, Jordan, Marcus, and Rachel observe the shift in social interactions through the pandemic. Listen on Spotify or Apple Music!

Rachel: Hello, and welcome to Point of View, where we give students a place to listen, learn and lean in. My name is Rachel Everett.

Marcus: My name is Marcus Kim.

Delisa: I'm Delisa Troupe.

Jordan: And I'm Jordan Anderson, and this is Across the Table, where we will discuss different topics that affect our everyday lives.

In today's episode, we'll be covering how our social lives have shifted over the past year. Since March 2020, I can definitely say my social life and friendships have definitely changed. I've lost a few friends, I've made a few friends, and I kind of connected more with people over the past year, I’d say.

Rachel: I feel like my friendships dipped off. I never really hung out with people outside of school back in March. Then once COVID hit, the only person I talked to was my boyfriend at the time.

Marcus: Yeah, a lot of our, at least, going into COVID and our freshman year, all of our friendships were mainly in person, right? Like, our friends were decided by who we would sit by at lunch, who we were assigned to be seated next to in our classes. And depending on if you had classes with people or not, your friendships were like wax and wane. So once we were forced into COVID, right, into quarantine and not being able to see people face to face, it really started to challenge how you approached friendships with different people.

Delisa: I feel like rather than dipping out, most of my friendships just went virtual. It was hard not seeing them face to face, but at the same time, it helped me expand some of my other friendships. Like people who I may not have been super close with, I got close with just because we could talk to each other online all the time.

Jordan: I also have to say, especially with the friends that you only talk to in school, and you don't talk to outside of school, I definitely lost those friendships. Because we only talked in class, we would hang out in the hallway, and eat lunch together. But then when quarantine hit, I just stopped talking to them because I had no other way to talk to them, which was kind of unfortunate, but it just shows how not everyone you think is your friend is your FRIEND friend, if that makes sense.

Delisa For me, it was kind of the opposite. I've kind of found myself getting closer to some people who I consider my school friends. A lot of people who are at school, they only hang out with people who they're super close to or who are in their friend group. And I realized that when people are online, you interact with a bunch more people. Like through Instagram, you can just comment on their posts or DM them or whatever. So it was a lot easier to communicate with people who I wouldn't have hung out with outside of school.

Rachel: I think going off what Jordan said, like the whole thing of, maybe it was a test of who your true friends were. And I remember, and this might be a recent thing, but I remember it was the whole thing of- well, if they don't text you first, then it doesn't matter, or they're not your real friend. And also, I feel like that goes both ways. But it's also a test of- are these people your real hardcore friendships that could last for a while? Or are they just, you're at school, you're my friend, I want to hang out with you and I don't really have anyone else to hang out with.

Marcus: Yeah, I actually think that with these very superficial, just in-person friendly friendships that aren't too deep, I don't think that those are exactly a bad thing. I think that those, you know, superficial friendships actually have a place in our lives, right? Because not every friendship you're going to have is going to be very deep, lifelong and life-changing, you know. We've all had friends that we knew in elementary school that we don't talk to anymore and there's something about that, that helps us grow as people, right. So once quarantine hit and we were forced to truly kind of interact with the people we actually wanted to have deep friendships with, I think a lot of our social skills, right, like learning how to be able to adapt to different sorts of social situations and how to approach different people kind of started to fall off because, you know, we didn't exactly have to talk to, you know, these superficial friends.

Delisa: For me, it was lowkey kind of the opposite. Like during school, around freshman year, I found it really hard to engage in small talk. But I would say, this summer I got a job, and it’s in retail so it helped me interact with people of all different ages, races, etc and just know how to engage in small talk with them. And so I guess the pandemic, like using social media a lot, plus having a job actually helped me know how to interact with people who I wasn't super close with.

Jordan: Yeah, I feel like when it comes to, like you said Marcus, learning how to talk to people, for me, it was way harder to communicate with my friends online because normally we don't really text. I have many friends, like we're really close but we don't talk outside of school that much. Like, we'll hang out once every three months, literally. But during quarantine, when we did not see each other for eight hours, five days a week, for a minute, it was kind of awkward. When I text her I'd be like, “Hey”, and then she just says, “Hey”, and it'll be awkward, because we really don't know what to say, because we're not used to the online communication, back to back, every single day. And that goes for all of my friends too.

Rachel: The element of small talk, I think maybe Delisa was talking about it, was just like- I feel like it's so awkward to go up to someone, online, in an online aspect of just being like, “Hey, how are you?” And I feel like it's so difficult taking that first step, especially online. Maybe in a way, it's just like, I don't want to inconvenience this person, I don't want to bother them with a bunch of notifications. But when you're in person, you're able to pick up on social cues and be like, Oh, is this person busy? Oh, this person isn't interested in talking to me. And so I've kind of developed the thing where I kind of hate small talk. I mean, I get DMS from people that I know and like, this is by no means a call-out, and they’re just like, “Hey, how are you?”, and I'm like, “This is really awkward.” I don't know what to say because it'll just be like, “Hey, how are you?” and then it'll go to, “I'm good, how are you?” “I'm good.” and then the conversation will taper off.

Delisa: There were definitely a lot of times during the pandemic where not much was going on and so it felt like, even if I wanted to talk to my friends, I wouldn't have anything to talk about. Or even if I did text them, they wouldn't reply because everyone has their own thing that's going on.

Marcus: Yeah, so in AP Lang there was this very, very interesting topic we had to write about- “Is small talk relevant in today's age?” And arguments had to be made where, you know, you're kind of concealing your true intentions or you might come off as insincere, right? So oftentimes, you know, in the hall when you pass somebody, you kind of have to make a decision. Do I pretend like I don't see them? Do I try to wave? What if they don't look at me? What if I just look weird waving at someone who isn't waving back? So I think this element of small talk was completely eradicated for me in quarantine. And honestly, in a weird way, it kind of helped with my self-confidence, almost. It kind of taught me that I really don't need to, you know, pretend to be super friendly with my peers, but still maintain my friendships, right?

Jordan: Another thing when talking online, when you're in person with somebody, you can see their expressions. You can see, Oh, they're happy, they're sad or they're annoyed but online, you don't know. You can text someone, “Hey”, they can say “Hey” back, but that “Hey” can be an annoyed “Hey”, or a I really don't feel like talking “Hey”, or it can be like Oh, I'm glad you texted me “Hey”, and you really don't know. And that’s like what you were saying Rachel, how sometimes you don't want to be annoying. Because there's been times where I've texted my friends, we'll be having a conversation, I just feel like- even though they didn’t say they were, I felt like I was being annoying in some way. Like, maybe I should stop texting them and just wait until two weeks later to continue the conversation. But then at the same time, that person could get the wrong message if you stop talking to them, thinking that you're being annoying, but then they'll think, Oh, that I do something wrong? It's really confusing. It's just confusing.

Marcus: Yeah, it's kind of like when you see a message be left on read on Instagram, right? And, you know, they're different types of social medias, right? There's Instagram and Snapchat that, you know, tell you when someone has read something, or when they're typing. And then there's things like i-messages, where you have the option to show if you read something or not. And honestly, I think that the element of, you know, in social media, when it shows your status of Okay, I have seen this message, I think that adds another layer of complexity, right? So it's like, you send someone a message, and you don't see if they read it or not, that kind of gives you a peace of mind. It's kind of weird, but social media, my perspective on social media has definitely changed. Because, you know, without social views, right, without face to face, you kind of have to rely on any resource you get, right. So read recipients are basically the only type of contact anyone could ever have in online situations.

Jordan: There would be times where someone would text me and it would just be them responding to something I said, and I would leave them on read because it's not something I would respond to. But then when someone does that, to me, I’ll be thinking, Man, did I just mess up? Are they mad at me or something? So, like I said before, it's confusing. But you just have to base your knowledge on your own intuition sometimes.

Rachel: That kind of brings into the whole thing of this rising of tone indicators. Are you all familiar with that? Like a little slash? And then there's a letter? I feel like, maybe, because we've gone into quarantine and haven't had these social cues, I feel like that might have been one of the reasons why the tone indicators have increased. Like, with what Marcus was saying, with peers, with social media, and having those read receipts, is also very important.

Delisa: There's been a lot of times where someone's left me on read or ignored my messages and it has made me feel insecure or start to overthink, Oh, are they annoyed with me and stuff like Jordan was saying. But I realized that I also do that to people and usually it's not because I'm annoyed with them or anything like that. It's because, especially through the pandemic, I had a lot going on, I wasn't really focused on every single person I was talking to. Sometimes I would read a message and just forget to respond completely. So being able to see that different perspective that, Oh someone may leave me on read, they might be annoyed at me, but also realizing that- wait, I do the same thing to other people and it's usually not because of that reason. So talking to my friends about it and being like, “Hey, we haven't hung out in a while, what's going on?” And just having that sort of open communication has really helped me stay close to my friends.

Marcus: You know what? That reminds me of something, right? Remember, before quarantine, if someone would DM me and I looked at their profile, and I asked myself, Who is this? So then you kind of have to click on their profile, see their tags, and I'm like, Oh okay, I know who this person is. But after quarantine, right, when we had to, you know, shift to online and you know, we would play games with people, we would meet strangers online, I feel like I've become more comfortable with opening conversations with people I don't know. I feel like I don't need to know the context of who this person is, who their friends are, to be able to make a good conversation, right? You know, I see that we both like the same common interest, okay boom, I can make a good conversation off that. So it's definitely helped me in my, you know, communicative arts, right, I'm able to, you know, have deep conversations- or maybe not so deep, but have conversations with people that you know, I don't really know.

Delisa: And I realized that, over the pandemic, it was extremely hard for me to open up and have deep conversations with my friends, which is another reason that it was really important to have open communication with them because I know mental health struggles and school and all of that could be even more stressful when you're not seeing anyone and you're literally sitting alone in your room on your desk all day just doing work and not having anyone to hang out with or talk to. So yeah, it was really hard for me, I think I've become a lot more reserved, and a lot less willing to talk about myself, just because of the pandemic.

Rachel: I can definitely relate to that. Having that whole thing of trying to communicate with people and maybe you overthink what you're doing and the whole thing of overthinking, Am I annoying this person? I feel like that also applies with being able to communicate with people with your mental health.

Jordan: I also feel like, having to communicate, people might have brought some friendships closer, because I know one of my friends, we talk every three months, for no weird reason. But when quarantine started, we started talking more, especially freshman year, because she was in lots of my classes. And we started talking more, and it actually brought our friendship a lot closer, because now we are a lot closer than we were this time last year or two years ago, three years ago. And I definitely feel like having to talk to people online gives you better ways to communicate, like Marcus was saying, it helped with communicating and learning how to talk to people without being afraid to, because in this time period, we definitely really can talk to people.

Delisa: And one thing I've noticed is that, when I'm introduced to a friend of a friend, usually I won't get super close to them unless we have that one-on-one hangout session. And it's the same thing with online, you're talking or typically talking to someone, just one on one, and that can help you grow closer, when you're not surrounded by other people, you know.

Jordan: Without other people just watching you, it's not easy. Sometimes it can be awkward. Like, one of my friends, he introduced me to one of his friends and we were on a FaceTime call and he left the call and it was just me and his friend. And it was really awkward at first because I had no clue who he was and we were just sitting there in silence the whole entire time. But eventually, we started to get in a smooth flow of a conversation and it became less awkward. And I like how, when the other person leaves, it helps you be more comfortable because it's like having eyes watching you or, you knowing someone's listening. It's awkward because you can't really be yourself in a way.

Marcus: And also for me, when I shifted to talking with people online, you know, we've talked about how we can't see, you know, facial, you know, tone indicators and a lot of difficulties came into fruition after, you know, being online and not seeing people face to face. And you know, as Delisa said, when you get left on read, you get really self-conscious, right? Like, Oh, did I make this person mad? Did I say something wrong? And surprisingly, through quarantine, I think I've actually matured to be able to actually express those feelings, right? So after coming back to school, whenever, you know, I talk with a friend, sometimes I'll just say, “Hey, how's everything? Am I doing anything wrong? Are you happy with our friendship? Is there anything I can do to better myself?” So I think that's helped me mature as a person and not only in my friendships, right? So it definitely helped me, quarantine definitely helped me take that step forward, to be able to, you know, take the first step and try to make things right with a friendship if you think something's off with it.

Delisa: I think the transition from online to school was super impactful for me because people who I got close with over online, suddenly I could see them in person and talk to them. And it was really fun because suddenly I have all of these new friends that I would never have talked to before. So I think coming back to school and seeing everyone in person was much more enjoyable after an entire year of being online.

Rachel: But with what Marcus was saying, with the online friends and the social cues, I definitely found myself appreciating online friendships a lot more. I think I would say that I had more online friendships than in-person friendships. Of course, we weren't actually in person. The fact that I didn't have to worry about overthinking all of these social cues almost made me ignorant, but in a good, ignorant way. I was able to just enjoy the conversation and talk with all of these people and I was able to make plenty of friends because I didn't have to worry about if they'll like me or if they think I'm nice or something. I'm just able to play games with them, we can hang out and stuff.

Jordan: And another thing about online friends that I really like is that when you're meeting online, you don't know them, right? They get to know you from scratch. Because when you're meeting people from, let's say your school, let's say you're meeting a friend of a friend, they most likely know something about you that they heard from someone else, they don't really know you for how you would describe yourself. But online friends, you can start off from scratch, you can build up a relationship with them, and they can build how they perceive you as a person without having that background knowledge of, Oh, she did this so she must be like that. And I definitely feel like online friends, in a way, it's a nice way to start over.

Rachel: Absolutely. You don't have to worry about what someone might have heard or a rumor that might have happened. They'll just know you by whatever you present.

Marcus: Yeah, that's also really difficult since, you know, Northview is kind of a smaller school, right? So everybody kind of knows everybody. So, definitely over quarantine that really helped me, you know, interacting with online people that helped me become more self-confident in myself, right. I remember, before, it was really difficult, you know, people would say bad things about you and you would care a lot about what people said. But then, after quarantine, after having, you know, a lot of time with yourself and a lot of time with people who know nothing about you, I kind of learned to be able to take those things in stride, right? And of course, not everyone's going to believe everything that they hear, and actually, some of my closest friendships have actually started when, you know, they told me “Hey, I heard this thing about you, but I didn't choose to believe it and it sounds like that thing isn't true.” And that, you know, it really showed me over quarantine that, not only I, but a lot of other people have matured as well.

Jordan: Yeah. I just feel like this is one big experience that tests our maturity, how we feel about ourselves, and mainly how we feel about ourselves. Because I know a lot of people, this whole experience of being online, a lot of people kept to themselves, because you were at home and stuff like that. So it really just helps us learn more about ourselves, and just stop caring what other people say. Because at the end of the day, it really doesn't matter what other people say because they're just saying things to be saying things 90% of the time. It only matters what you think about yourself, because, at the end of the day, it’s only going to affect you, and not the people you sit next to in class or the people you bump into the hallway.

Rachel: I definitely think that, now that we've come back to school, I mean, I'm not that involved in the drama so I don't know, but I feel like I've gotten the sense that there's less drama, less rumors, everyone seems to be keeping to themselves or their small group because they realize that it just doesn't matter. You can be who you want to be and just kind of chillax. I definitely think coming back to school has been a good opportunity to understand all of these things and see how quarantine has really changed you.

Marcus: You know, it's an interesting thing, right? You know, time seemed to go by so much slower when we were younger but you know, as we got to middle school, the year started to go by quicker. So I think quarantine really gave us a good sense that, hey, a lot can happen in a year and you can change a lot as a person- not only yourself, your maturity, your social situations, a lot of things can change in a year, right? So after seeing, you know, a whole gap of a year, seeing those people you remember from freshman year, and now in junior year, at least for me, it's really cool. You know, I didn't give people enough credit, right, you know, people have matured, people have changed and I think that's probably the best thing that's changed to help my social life, right?

Jordan: Another thing, when we came back to school, it was really fun to see how people changed. When you know someone from seventh grade, how they acted then, and now you see them now, you’re just like, Whoa, that's crazy. And even though people have said that to me personally, I don't think I've changed that much. But people have definitely said, “Oh, Jordan, you've changed a little, like you're not the same not in a negative way but in a positive way. You're not the same person you used to be a year ago.” And like you said Marcus, it shows us how much things can change in a short period of time. It’s like a reality check to be honest.

Delisa: I feel like for most people, the pandemic was an opportunity to explore who we are separate from our friends and everyone else around us. So it really gave me the opportunity to, like Marcus said, and like you said, grow as a person.

Rachel: I think this whole experience of quarantine, not involving COVID just like the social aspect of it, is really going to affect us. I mean, maybe in a good way, maybe in a bad way, but it's definitely changed us in a way.

Marcus: Yeah. And who's to say, you know, it might seem weird to say but who says bad change is a bad thing, right? Maybe losing some friends might, you know, actually turn out for the good and you look at it in a future lens, right?

But yeah, thank you so much for listening. I’m Marcus.

Rachel: I'm Rachel.

Jordan: I'm Jordan.

Delisa: I'm Delisa

Marcus: And this was Point of View. Thank you for watching.