Mahar's Not The Typical Public School

ORANGE - Going to a public school while living in a rural community can be seriously demoralizing to students. At one time or another we’ve all felt frustration over our situations, and often times we can feel marginalized as rural students. These feelings can be compounded by constantly hearing negative stereotypes from students who have avoided Mahar in favor of private schools or homeschooling, as well as from the community at large and fellow students. It’s depressingly uncommon to hear anything positive about Mahar from anyone who isn’t personally connected to the school. With this said, it’s no surprise that Mahar’s academic culture has become overwhelmingly toxic, despite the best efforts of our administration and faculty.

It’s easy to be blinded by this negativity, even though much of it is founded on notions that are no longer accurate. I’ve heard students from other schools refer to Mahar as “redneck-y.” While it’s initially easy to buy into this dated stereotype of rural communities, in reality it couldn’t be farther from the truth. Despite being in a rural area, Mahar has successfully reached a 1:1 student to computer ratio which is no small feat for a school of our size. Additionally, students have access to two computer labs, which feature programs ranging from the Adobe Creative Cloud to software to use our school’s 3D printer, as well as digital music programs. There’s also the eSports team, which has earned Mahar national recognition due to its early adoption. This kind of technological innovation and forward thinking should be applauded, and it’s the farthest thing from “redneck-y.”

Mahar is also often looked down on academically. I’ve heard homeschool students and students from other schools comment that Mahar doesn’t offer a quality education and that the teachers are lazy. Even our own students constantly crack jokes at the schools expense, which when done around people who lack another view of the school, feeds back into the public’s negative perception of the school. If students instead talked about all of the academic innovation going on at Mahar, we could be responsible for changing the public’s perception of our school, rather than further feeding into a vicious cycle of negativity.

We have so much to be proud of academically at Mahar. In surveys conducted over the last few years, the student body has indicated that we want to see more innovative courses, and the administration has listened. Over the six years I’ve spent at Mahar, we’ve added Maker Space, TSARs, Journalism, and recently Dronebotics to an ever growing list of innovative courses that give students more control over their education. In combination with a strong AP program and VHS, Mahar is able to cater to almost any type of student, be it someone who wants to follow a more traditional path or someone who’s been left feeling disengaged and frustrated by traditional academics. We’ve even seen the implementation of Mahar X to further encourage students to pursue personal passions. All of these things should be working to create a strong academic culture at Mahar.

Yet instead we continue to see students pretend that Mahar is the stereotypical public school that we’ve been making it out as. Students refuse to engage with their classes and and then turn around and blame the administration and teachers for academic problems at Mahar. Of course there’s still room for improvement. But by and large, the school has made huge strides to improve culture, and changes continue to be made. Now it’s up to us as the student body to take advantage of the foundation the school has laid. There’s no way for this system to work when students continue to focus on their phones rather than their teachers and prioritize academics below everything else in their lives. This isn’t to say that we should be willing to prioritize school above everything else and compromise our mental health or social lives in exchange for academic success. But there’s a happy medium of being reasonably engaged in classes which will result in a far better academic culture.

There’s a serious victim complex among the student body, but we’re not victims of public school, we’re victims of our own apathy. The negative academic culture isn’t coming from the top down, whether ‘the top’ is the community at large, or the higher levels of the schools administration. It's coming from the bottom up, as students spread negativity about the school to our community, and refuse to engage with their classes. This isn’t to say that the administration, teachers, or school are perfect, nor that students should stop voicing their issues with any of them.

The conduit for the rapid innovation occurring at Mahar was likely in part due to student agitation for change, as well as a passionate group of teachers. As students we’re finally starting to get what we’ve wanted, and it’s crucial to the school’s culture that we take advantage of it while still advocating for further change, instead of refusing to acknowledge that anything is improving and continuing to complain.

Improving Mahar’s academic culture is the first step towards improving the overall school culture. As students we’re all here first and foremost to learn. When the student body loses sight of that goal, it undermines the school’s foundation. If students started taking advantage of the academic opportunities offered at Mahar that interested them, we’d see a happier, more engaged, student body. This would, in turn, help to naturally resolve problems like low school spirit and a negative overall school culture. The groundwork has been laid for us, now it’s up to each of us to make the choice to take advantage of it.