Schooltime Nostalgia
Nostaglia And Its Effect on Students In School
Life is full of memories. There are good memories, bad memories, and memories we cannot fully reach, that we can only grasp at… sometimes we feel longing for these memories of the past, especially when in a place or situation that is similar, or with an object that is important to us. We can see this at home, at a park, or at school. School is surprisingly nostalgic, isn’t it?
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What is nostalgia, if but an idea? It is a longing, a wanting for the past, an affection of days, come to past. These feelings may be twisted with regret, or with solemn happiness, or just a calm memory coming and going with the breeze. Nostalgia is gripping at fleeting memories and feelings as they slip through your finger, a soft sand that falls back down to the slowly flowing river of time, leaving behind a feeling of something familiar, something that is melancholic in its passing, but happy in its momentary return. That is nostalgia, as an idea.
Nostalgia is constantly around us, waiting to be triggered. It’s in objects we see everyday, like a particular smell from your childhood to a light breeze in a twilight sky. You might feel it walking past a park you used to play at with your friends. It is always there, lingering. You might feel it passing by your old school, or when you look at an old school project you did with a friend. School has many nostalgic memories, doesn’t it? But what are they, and why are they?
Let’s remember some things about school. Those loud metal pencil sharpeners mounted on gray counters, monkey bars above mulch that would give you splinters if you fell. Games in elementary, running, falling, getting up again. It was a fun time, no? Think of the hallways, those lights casting a glare on the tiles before you. The feeling of wet grass, heavy with dew, brushing against your ankles as you were brought out for gym.
Now then, what did that previous paragraph make you feel? If you felt nostalgic, then it went as it was supposed to. You see, school is not always something we wish to do, and yes, the times we didn’t have to were euphoric. Have you considered, though, what memories and feelings you left there? Which ones you will notice as you look at where you were and wish for that time to return, when you see it was a happy and carefree time? Life is full of these moments of regret. We created these moments by piling our feelings in the past and letting them age, and we will keep creating them. School causes a lot of us to feel emotional, so, wouldn’t it be logical for it to have some room in your list of nostalgic things?
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To further understand this interesting effect, we had decided to interview some people from Brunswick High to get their input on the matter. From the results, we found that there are very mixed feelings on the idea of nostalgia and its effect on school. When we asked people what their favorite grade was, we expected people to talk about elementary school but in reality, everyone who we interviewed said that some grade in high school was their favorite, with the specific grade varying with everyone. However, when we asked people of their earliest memory, all the people who had answered the question said something about kindergarten and no response was terribly bad. When we asked if the student body thought school was nostalgic, we got our most interesting answers—there was a split in the student body: some people thought that school was nostalgic because of the good things of school while others said that it wasn’t and with those responses, most people didn’t give a reason.
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This difference in responses is reasonable. People can experience the same things differently. People may have had different experiences. Sometimes people don’t have much memory when it comes to their younger years. It is all explainable, and all understandable. It is universal in its differences and a part of our nature as humans. It is simply nostalgia, an idea, a thought, a reminiscence.
We all feel nostalgic sometimes. We all can understand that it is normal. It is simply a part of life, this looking back. School was also part of life, might still be for you. When we look back it will be there as well. We cannot abandon the past, but we can carry it with us as a soft and fleeting feeling that comes as soon as it leaves.
Further sources used for researching the above topic:
https://www.apa.org/news/podcasts/speaking-of-psychology/nostalgia
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