High School Lobbyists

Yesterday, I ate an orange at school. It was a rather small orange, like a clementine and I could peel it with my fingers. The orange had the look of being recently plucked from a tree, not the varnished finish of a store-bought fruit, which made me think it was probably home grown.

This is a pretty dull story, I know. The only thing that makes the story noteworthy was the orange's source. It, along with a few dozen like it, were left in the teacher's lounge of my middle school by a representative from a local high school.

This isn't the first time something like this has happened. A week or two ago, someone from another high school left a packet of grape juice on my desk. The item is still in my fridge if anyone wants it...

I've been told these are lobbying efforts, where representatives from high schools try and bribe we middle school teachers into sending kids to their school. I've yet to figure out how exactly the system works... for one thing it seems as though the students ultimately decide their high school choice, not the teachers.

Furthermore, the gifts are so small it's hard to imagine one convincing a teacher to prod students in one direction or another. In fact, when I asked my co-teacher Hee Jin if the gifts ever affected her recommendations to students looking at high schools, she laughed.

I don't get it, but I don't mind either. It was a very good orange.