The Wavy Line at Gulf Islands Secondary School

When I drag myself out of bed on a Monday morning, I can’t help but wonder how great life would be without school.  As I eat breakfast, I imagine how awesome it would be to do anything I want, namely, eating chips on the couch, and watching T.V. with some friends. I often wish that I could do anything but participate in the monotony of education.

However, when I step off the school bus, and see the small garden in front of the faded bricks of the choir room, I ‘m reminded that I live in one of the best places in the world. Once this thought passes through my head, a feeling of calm rushes through me.

I feel grateful that pure chance led me to live in a community cherished for its originality and creativity.   I am blessed to be able to learn in a place where people can walk around with stickers and stamps on their faces without being mocked, where the dress code varies from practically nothing to Spock ears.

I remember, when a new girl to the island came to our high school, and after talking for a while, we broke down the social dynamic of our school. In her fear of loneliness and isolation, which every adolescent is bound to feel, she blurted a question rather obviously, “So, uh, what kind of groups do you have here? Any of them open and accepting?”

She meant for it to come out as a joke, but hit the most serious of melancholy chords, that I could of course identify with. Both of us came to the high school with very few acquaintances, and had the looming threat of ‘lonerdom’ hanging over our heads.

I answered by describing the various groups in our school. Although Salt Spring, in its originality, leads one to the belief that it’s a mosh pit of friendly greetings, some students do fall to stereotypes. I listed the groups off from the bottom up, according to the social ladder.

I explained that at GISS we only have one or two groups that the cruelest of my peers would classify as dorky. She, coming from a large school on the mainland, couldn’t comprehend a school without at least eight sub-classes of nerds.
 
Of course I, attending the school for almost a year now, had failed to realize the immensity of this. It was only then, with an impartial set of eyes that I remembered we were an anomaly, with our few groups paling in comparison to off-island schools. The smokers, the skaters, the German exchange students, the Asian exchange students, the music lovers, the dancers, the preppies, then the semi-populars, and finally reaching the top of the ladder, a couple mysterious grade twelves and assorted pods of ‘popular’ girls.

It certainly felt strange trying to explain this to her. I was able to explain our school’s social dynamic in less then a minute.

It made me realize just how original this school is. Sure, some kids fit into social classes, but almost every person here is unique in a way I never saw in my former school off island.  Possibly this is because people here are embraced for their differences, rather than disciplined for their non-conformity.

There is a love in our school of the quirky, the strange and the weird things in life. Students, who at other schools might be dismissed as insane, are cherished here for being philosophical and interesting.

The conversation made me feel good because I could once again grasp the way the school social order runs in a wavy line, rather than a vertical ladder.

Inevitably my aggravation caused by waking up early and rushing to school wound up again.  I felt dreary one day clomping around the school; the clouds of winter draining on my spirit, when the girl approached me again with a big smile on her face.

She had found the perfect group, placed nicely into a sub-category.  She still missed her friends from the mainland, but Salt Spring had taken her by both hands and thrown her into the wagon, trapping her in the insanity of its originality.

Once again, an air horn sounded in my head and I was reminded how much I love this little rock and how I would hate to leave.

About the author: Jacob Mulder is a grade 9 student at GISS.  He attended middle school on Vancouver Island