The scene starts and the flawless main character stands at their locker with best friends on either side, spacious locker eccentrically decorated, and dressed in the latest fashion; this is not what real high school is like.
At NAHS, hallways are overcrowded, the lockers are cramped, students seriously look their age, the ugly duckling is not actually the ugly duckling, there is no spontaneous song and dance, students are dressed down 75% of the time—for the exception of the girls that love to dress up everyday, kudos to them—and the student body as a whole is a melting pot.
In TV shows, such as Saved by the Bell and Lizzie McGuire, the hallways are consistently spacious. The protagonist is always socializing at their locker, conveniently placed next to their best friend’s locker, with decorations suffocating their lockers, with hardly any books or binders actually in their locker or backpack. At NAHS, the reality hits you hard, literally. Just about everyday, I run into somebody in the hallway. The people that do congregate by their lockers get thestink eye from most students because they’re taking up room in the hallway. Some students walk too slow, or just stop right in front of you to talk to their boyfriend or best friend they haven’t seen in two whole periods. Others speed past, bump into you from behind as they worry about getting to their next class on time.
Also, the lockers never seem to have enough space for your things, and nor does your backpack. Decorating your locker? I guess you have time to put up a few pictures of you and your friends, but with the five minute passing period and classes scattered to the opposite side of the school, well, have fun trying to find the time.
In other TV shows, like Gossip Girl and Pretty Little Liars, the characters are played by twenty-year old actors and actresses, and dress up in nice clothing every day. In high school, 14 year olds look like 14 year olds, 16 year olds like 16 year olds, and so on. Majority of the students don’t care, therefore dress down almost everyday with the occasional dress up day. Also, there is not one student in the school labeled “the hottest girl in school” or “the most popular boy in school”. Everybody has their own unique looks, and with over 2,000 students, you’re going to have over 2,000 opinions on what they think is attractive or not. At NAHS, the looks and cultures of students are so diverse that it extinguishes the spark of normality. The people here, and in many other schools, are so unique that unique has become the normal.
Sadly, however, nobody in high school busts out into spontaneous song and dance. In High School Musical, and Glee, the student body breaks out into song and dance quite frequently. Not everybody is going to be able to sing the same, perfectly sung made up song, and expertly dance the same choreographed dance. Although, I do have to admit I wouldn’t mind this feature, it would make school more tolerable.
Lastly, schools may have their jocks, drama club, band geeks, orchestra nerds, and everybody else in between, but the student body does not separate itself into these categories. Yes, generally you have your friends that all have the same interests, but you don’t walk into school and see the cheerleaders dressed in the two-pieced uniforms, blonde hair in curls, bright red lipstick, and laughing all flirty like as the hottest boy on the football team passes by wearing his football attire while also carrying a football.
At school, students have a wide variety of friends. They don’t just exclusively stay with one group of people through all four years of high school. Friends will come and go, just like the four years you spend in high school. If school was ever like the way it is on TV, I don’t think I would be able to survive. Everything bad that can happen seems to happen, the teachers are either super cool, or extremely crazy, and the drama would be more than I could handle. There may be some perks to the TV high school standards, but I think I will stick with NAHS.