Submission #3: Podcast Week

As one goes through the same old experience after experience during their elementary school days, it seems as though middle school can't come soon enough. After you "graduate" from elementary school, you feel all grown up and feel as though you can tackle the world. However, after the first week or less of middle school, it isn't all fun and recess anymore. From now until you die it's strictly business. The Middle School podcast from This American Life, showcases the frustrations that some middle schoolers have to face on a day to day basis. The road and struggles have only just began for these youngsters.

As the podcast gets started, you quickly discover how little self confidence exists inside each and every one of the kids. It is not until now that you come to the tragic realization that no wonder people in high school think so low of themselves when kids are pushed from being overly protected in elementary school to being pushed into the ring of the fire and fend for yourself within the middle school walls. As you continue listening to the podcast and listen to the thoughts of tweens, you become blatantly aware of how robotic and clone-like these kids are. With no one willing to go against the flow and become someone other than everyone else, they blend together like camouflage and look over them without a second thought. Even during the dance when you're supposed to "let loose" and "live a little," everyone is sucked into the what seems to be socially acceptable and just copying what their neighbor happens to be doing. Not what their soul happens to tell them to do. 

This podcast has wide awakened my eyes in finding that the root of the lack of self confidence and originality is at our middle schools. I can't remember me ever being afraid to be myself at elementary school and doing what ever I pleased. As I continue on my adventure through high school, I yearn to go back and tell my sixth grade self that I'm not going to be as pretty as the girl next to me in class or that I will never be the next Victoria's Secret model. But because I cannot time travel, shocking I know, our society should be focusing on the young ones who are becoming teens and young adults who are much more vulnerable to falling into the "that's how I should looks- perfect" mind set. Its a long road before we can transform society. Until then, rock on awkward years.