Growing, Uncomfortably: My Changing Political & Social Views
Emma Flannery
From first grade all the way up to my eighth-grade graduation, I went to a small private school in Chicago, Illinois. I was very lucky to have gone to that school - I was given one of the best educations I could have asked for, I was surrounded by love and was taught values of kindness, compassion, and generosity. I made amazing friends and absolutely loved it there. My elementary school was extremely left-leaning, politically speaking. We had numerous political discussions in various classes, where we would really only discuss issues from a liberal point of view. I was shaped by this, and by the end of my eighth-grade year, I was extremely progressive. Although there’s nothing inherently wrong with this, I was uninformed. I did not know about centrist or right-leaning politics and had never discussed these issues taking other points of view into account.
Then, I went to a Catholic school.
The first day I walked into those hallowed halls, I was immediately hit with huge culture shock. While all of my old friends were from the city, the students at my new school hailed from every suburb in Illinois. The teachers were stern and old-fashioned. The rules were strict. Although my old school didn’t even have a dress code, in Catholic school, it was collared shirts and khakis every day. We went to Mass, prayed in every class, and studied religion regularly. I hadn’t gone to church in years, and now I was learning about the Book of Job and the Gospels every day. It was a hard transition, and I made very little friends. I was so dreadfully shy that I would start shaking whenever I was called on in class.
The biggest transition for me, however, was the political landscape. Catholic school was much more conservative than my grade school. In the beginning, I hated it. I laughed at the rules, the ideology, the monthly mass. I wanted to transfer to another school, one much more similar to my grade school. But something changed. Don’t ask me what - trust me, I’ve asked myself the same question to no avail. But whatever it was, it made me start to like school. I opened my mind to new opportunities, new people, and new experiences. I started to change.
Once I started to open myself up, I met people completely different than myself with completely different opinions. I allowed myself to experience a different point of view for the first time in my life. As a result, I became a much more holistic human being. My politics became much more moderate - to the point where I still held my liberal ideas but was much more informed and was able to take all points of view into consideration. I continued to develop my passions for politics, writing, and reading. Now that I have diversified my point of view, these passions turned into talents, all three of which I plan to pursue in college. I learned about empathy - to understand another person’s struggle, even if I have nothing in common with them. I reignited my faith, developing a great interest in learning and debating religion. High school made me more creative: I developed an insatiable thirst to talk, debate, and continue to diversify my interests. At this point in my life, I’m not thinking about leaving my school. Instead, I’m asking who I would be without it.
I’m not trying to say that Catholic school is for everyone. It’s not. This is about opening yourself up to new and unique experiences you wouldn’t have otherwise gone through, and the benefits that come with that.
I did not expect to find myself in Catholic school. But, that’s the human experience, isn’t it? We never grow when we expect to - it always takes us by surprise. I look back on these last three years and find myself so thankful for what I’ve gone through, knowing that I would be completely different without those experiences. I think all of this speaks to the power of change, and that we should embrace it. We all go through transitions, and we all feel a little uncomfortable with them. We need to learn to embrace it because, like me, you never know what type of person it will help you become.