By Rebecca Zimmerman’17

Recently a series of morning meeting presentations explored the concept of “diversity within” at Newark Academy.  The question one asks is: Are there stereotypes in students’ minds, regardless of the statistical diversity?   A recent survey conducted by the Middle School Newspaper asks Newark Academy Students to describe the average NA middle school student by answering multiple-choice questions.  The people taking the survey were instructed to check all that they thought applied to the question.  While these weren’t self-assessments, they were what the students perceived to be average.

Most of the students who took the survey said that the average Newark Academy Middle School boy is somewhere between 4’7 and 5’4 tall, yet less than one third said he was over 5’5.  Almost everyone said that he had brown eyes.  75% said he has brown hair; blonde hair and black hair were tied for second.  While 72% said the average NA middle school boy has no form of corrective eyewear, 22% said he wears contacts.  Almost ¾ said he was white, while Indian, Asian and bi-racial tied for third.  69% said he was skinny, and 31% said he was muscular. Football is supposedly the most played fall sport but it only beat soccer by 3%.  In the winter, a little more than half of the students said he plays basketball, and a third said he wrestles.  His spring sport is Lacrosse according to 50% of the people who took the quiz, quickly followed by the 47% who said he plays baseball.  50% said he plays he frequently plays video games, and 44% said he plays occasionally.  Over two thirds says his favorite music is rap, leaving behind all the other categories of music.  The average NA middle school boy wears Polo shirts and 29% said he wears Abercrombie.  Almost four fifths said he wears Nikes, and ¼ said Adidas.

The average middle school girl is somewhere between 4’7 and 5’3 according to the students who took the quiz.  She has brown eyes and brown hair.  Most said she had no form of corrective eyewear, yet about a quarter said she had contacts.  ¾ said she was white.  90% said she was skinny.  In the fall, she plays soccer according to 82% of the quiz-takers, and in the winter she plays volleyball. Her spring sport is lacrosse, but softball wasn’t close behind.  90% said her favorite type of music was pop, and 14% said rap.  To school she wears a shirt and pants said most of the students, but a few said she wore a skirt and shirt.  75% said she wears boots and 36% said sneakers.

What does this article show us?  Although most of the students who took the survey answered similarly, it didn’t reflect the actual demographic of the middle school.  Most of the students didn’t write about themselves, they wrote about their perception of the NA student body.  So, I decided to look for the average NA middle school boy and girl, and see how common these “traits” actually were.  It was difficult to find people who had all of these traits, but we did find lots of people who came within one trait of the average middle schooler. There is no “average” boy or girl.  Because Newark Academy is such a diverse environment, that there isn’t one or two people with the exact same qualities.