Eliana Steinberg

Life Editor

I’m not the only kid here in slippers. Underclassmen also enter their classes in outfits more suitable for sleepovers than for AP Chem.

But it’s more than what we choose to wear to school; it’s our overall attitude towards this institution. It’s campus-wide apathy, a general feeling of “meh” that has permeated the culture of Milken.

While I sit in the library during one of my 25 free periods, I notice a group of boys watching House on their computer screens. I look around. Oh, everyone in here is watching a television show. Oh. A table of sophomores nod approvingly at the student in the front jocularly fighting with Mr. Tyler. Only the girl who mistakenly forgets to pay the ten cents per photocopy shows remorse when reprimanded.

We know that in some aspects, we are at fault. We have consciences. We don’t mean to text during town meeting. It’s just that our phones are… right… there. However, I feel that this apathy is in a way engrained into our school culture. As we attempt to skip Oneg, a teacher commiserates: “I’m sorry, but you really have to go upstairs.” When instructed to attend Minyan or Lev Mentorship, there is a certain nuance in our teachers’ commands, a hint of sympathy. It seems that they know that this whole thing is a little ridiculous, that it’s a little hokey to break for cookies and challah in the gym at eleven in the morning.

There are few things that a teenager will do willingly, and sitting through a Senior Sermon, unfortunately, isn’t one of them. Despite the incessant “shh”-ing, the bleachers will always be a sea of antsy students braiding each other’s hair.

I think it’s true that when you sense detachment and disinterest from others you can’t help but subconsciously pick up on it. In a classroom of yawning students, insightful conversation and learning consequently becomes stagnant. Maybe we need a spritz of water on our faces or a shot of espresso before class. Or we can just make the communal decision to take things more seriously.

Our iPhones are expensive, but so is our tuition. We need to break away from the constant tug of technology and reflect on what we want to get out of our education here.  We don’t participate in Color Wars solely to mobile upload a picture of our classmate on the floor of the amphitheater in an uncompromising position. I know that we like to poke fun at all of Milken’s idiosyncrasies: Our fruit cart, clock-less clock tower and our own twitter handle. But we can’t function on a campus that we don’t respect.

This apathy has become contagious and is detrimental to not only Milken’s current students and teachers, but also to the identity and future of our school. So maybe we should tone down this campus-wide nonchalance, because even though we don’t care, underneath it all, we kind of, sort of, actually do.