Sofia, High School Student, CA

Sofia is a high school student at Palo Alto High School in CA.  She was interviewed by her peer for the RE-ENVISIONED collective visioning project at Paly in Spring 2017. Check out other #SchoolSpotlight interviews for Paly by searching for #PeopleofPaly.

“I think when I feel most empowered in school is when teachers treat students like, not like equals, but adults and not like little kids that are just there because they have to be and they have to babysit them.”

 

What are your hopes for your life?  What would make a “good” successful life?  

I think that it’s more important to live a happy life than to care more about wealth and or privileges or anything like that and I think that being happy depends on who you surround yourself with like getting married to someone you actually like or having kids and caring about that type of thing instead of trying to get the next level in your job

 

Is there anything you worry about getting in the way of achieving a good life?  Anything that keeps you up at night?  

There isn’t anything in particular that I worry  about, but I think that… money shouldn't be what makes you happy, but if money is something that holds you back in life then it can be.

 

Ideally, what role do you think schooling, high school or specifically PALY, should play in achieving that ideal good life?

I think that our school system should work more on improving students interpersonal relationships, rather than focusing on academics like it does right now.

 

Do you think school, or more specifically PALY,  plays the role it should for you?

For me, I like the way our education system is run for the most part. So I don’t there's anything we need to change specifically besides what I mentioned earlier.

 

Do you think people (your friends, parents, teachers)  agree with you on each of those levels?

Most people agree that money isn’t the source of happiness and you have to surround yourself with happy people in order to be happy. I think a lot of people also think that our school does a good job of maintaining student stress and being aware of the problems that we have but they still are other things we should work on.

 

What have been some of your most empowering educational experiences?

I think when I feel most empowered in school is when teachers treat students like, not like equals, but adults and not like little kids that are just there because they have to be and they have to babysit them.

 

Tell me about your favorite teacher? Why are they your favorite?

My favorite type of teacher is a teacher who is really nice but also works hard to teach his/her students the content that they need to get in order to do well.