Today's discussion about class differences in high school made me think back to my personal experiences in high school. I was reminded of a friend that I met during my junior year of high school. I myself come from a lower-middle class family. Most of my friends were in the same status as me. This friend of mine was friendly and nice to me. She never said anything condescending, nor did she ever give me the impression that she was better than me. Therefore, I assumed that she was in the same class as me. Late in the fall semester, we were working on a project for our probability and statistics class, and I was going to her house to work on the project. She had given me directions to her house, and I remember as we turned on her road and came to her house, I told my brother to keep driving because "she's not that rich," so I assumed that the nice, large house that we saw was not hers. I read through her directions again, and sure enough, the large, beautiful house was hers. My friend would be in the upper middle class, but I had no idea that her family was as well off as they in fact were. This event made me have a greater respect for my friend. She was from a wealthy family, but she did not act any better than anyone else, and she was friends with a lower-middle class girl. My friendship with her helped me deconstruct some of my stereotypes about wealthier families. I think we should all try our best to present ourselves as my friend here, and hopefully by how we act, we will help others to deconstruct some stereotypes as well.

I had a very similar experience in High School. I had a weight lifting class my sophmore year and was paired up with a guy that was my same age but was unfamiliar to me because we went to different elementary schools. We were friends after the first day and shared many things in common. I always figured his family to be in the middle class because of the way he dressed, the car he drove and his overall pleasant disposition that he extented towards everyone. I found out he lived on Beech Mountain, so we decided to go snowboarding after school one day. When we were done riding he invited me to his house, which was right on the slope. I was amazed, his house had to be at least a couple million dollars. Like you said, if people presented themselves in an overall pleasant and unjudgemental manner like our friends, I think many stereotypes would be deconstructed and as a result students could focus more on learning instead of constantly judging each other.

Like I have said before I came from a wealthier part of town, although my family wasn't as wealthy as many of the other students at my high school. I had the smallest house of all my friends, I drove the oldest and ugliest car and I didn't have the designer clothes. Looking back on high school I can distinguish between the classes but at the time, I don't remember thinking about it. I don't remember wondering if someone wouldn't like me because I didn't have enough money or drove an old car. Maybe it's because of where I grew up. My house is in downtown Bethesda, Maryland which is a suburb of DC. The property is worth a lot but the house is old and falling apart. Maybe because I was able to say I'm from Bethesda people just assumed I was rich. But my point is that I did not have a distinct class segregation at my school which I think is very good. On the other hand maybe everyone just assumed everyone else was rich because of the part of town.