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The Paly Voice

The Student News Site of Palo Alto High School

The Paly Voice

The Student News Site of Palo Alto High School

The Paly Voice

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Froshism– when will it end?

It’s a scene that we’ve all seen too many times to count: an upperclassman giving a freshman a hard time for no other reason than for being…well, a freshman.
Ironically, the freshmeat–er, freshman is used to it. He is (forgive the pun) fresh out of Jordan or wherever, and this annual hazing resembles the one given to last year’s sixth-graders in his former haunt. Of course, just because our hero expects the treatment doesn’t mean he accepts it. Year after year, underclassmen are taunted and discriminated on based solely on the basis of their grade.

This is not to say that they don’t deserve to be knocked around a bit for unspecified and ridiculous reasons. They are freshmen, after all.

Every year, the new freshman class is taunted and mocked. In physical education classes, for instance, sophomores have been known to successfully order freshmen to roll the softball materials cart into the shed instead of doing it themselves (‘Make the freshman do it.’ ‘Hey, freshman…!’)

This prejudice is further illustrated in the activities for Spirit Week, in which classes chant degrading-but-amusing slogans at each other based on age and class. The next year, though, ‘Sophomores Rock!’ becomes ‘Sophomores Suck!’ as the vicious cycle begins anew with recently promoted power-trippin’ seniors, hungry juniors, grateful sophomores and tiny, insecure freshmen.

While they are still freshmen, ninth-graders deplore the discrimination and incessantly question why they should be judged by the date of their birth certificate. When they become sophomores, predictably, it’s suddenly A-okay to laugh at the wee freshmen. Is this because they are no longer the target of the most vicious class-based attacks (Sophomore Friday, anyone?) or just because it’s fun to torture little kiddies?

Never mind, of course, that only a few years ago, we smug tormentors were those little kiddies. The hypocrisy must stop–let’s just wait until the Class of 2006 graduates, though. I wouldn’t want to miss initiating some young whippersnappers instead of applying the most obvious solution to ageism.

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