Think, for a moment, about our educational ladder.
We've strengthened the steps lifting students from elementary school to junior high, and those from junior high to high school.
But, that critical step taking students from high school into adulthood is badly broken. And it can no longer support the weight it must bear.
I wrote a lot of poetry in the last two years of high school, all about the same girl I was in love with. That was pretty awful. Did you know that in poetry, every line does not need to rhyme?
I was president of the schools in junior high and high school, got a scholarship to New York University, played a little basketball, and was a celebrity.
I went to really good New York City public schools that had arts programs. So in junior high, I got into the drama department. From there, I went to a performing arts high school in New York City called Laguardia and I just kind of fell into the professional side by happenstance.
[Larry Laurenzano] gave me a junior high school saxophone to take to high school, because I was always taking one of our school horns home to practice and I couldn't afford to buy one. He gave my friend, Tyrone, a tuba and he gave me a junior high saxophone for each of us to use at Performing Arts High School with. My audition piece was selections from Rocky. We were not sophisticated. But we had some spirit about it. We enjoyed it, and it was a way out.
Harkening back to a story about my grandfather, I was lucky to attend a great high school in New York, Bronx High School of Science, which has produced more Nobel prize winners than any other high school in America.
I acted in junior high in the junior high school group, and then when I got into senior high I was, you know, the main actor of the senior high school.
The high point of my entire junior high school career was going backstage to meet George Harrison. I was simply awestruck.
I grew up in the West Village and went to the New York City Lab School for junior high.
My way of dealing with not really fitting in at my very crappy New England high school and junior high was to write sketch comedy and satirical takedowns of the social hierarchies. At the same time, I was developing a love for movies at the height of the '90s New York indie movie explosion: everything from 'Rushmore' to Nicole Holofcener movies.
My earliest thought, long before I was in high school, was just to go away, get out of my house, get out of my city. I went to Medford High School, but even in grade school and junior high, I fantasized about leaving.
I discovered that I wanted to be an actor back when I did my first play in junior high. I've been doing theater in junior high and high school, and I just kept feeding the fire, kept wanting to pursue acting full-on.
I've loved football since I was in the marching band of junior high and high school and was the water girl for my high school's team.
I never wrote. I also never really thought about being an actor. But when it was time to go to high school, we couldn't afford private school, so I tried out for all the special schools in New York.
Junior high is so much worse than high school because at least in high school different is more accepted, celebrated actually: all the girls with blue hair and gothic Hello Kitty backpacks.
I've carried my chip with me my entire career. I've had to fight and claw for every position I've had. I sat on the bench as a junior in high school, I had to compete my senior year in high school to get the job. I competed again at Vanderbilt before having success.