“Behind a Wells Fargo Bank.”

“This old abandoned factory.”

“I have no friends.”

The list above includes just a few of the eccentric responses received from students and teachers when asked where they like (or, in the case of the teachers, liked) to hang out as a high school student after school. Rest assured though, while some of the responses were indeed strange, common themes emerged: a popular response to that particular question was “Anywhere there’s food.”

WordsWorth conducted a survey on the school population, asking students and teachers a variety of questions, ranging from what their favorite subject was to what extracurricular activities they participated in, in order to see if anything had changed over the years. The teachers were also asked whether they went to a private or public school and what year they graduated. Some of the data collected was interesting; for example, nearly all the teachers who graduated from high school in the last twenty-five years attended private school themselves.

The increase of STEM programs within schools in the past few years as well as the popular fields for employment for today’s youth seem to have influenced the choice of favorite subject for students. The subject most favorited in high school by the teachers was English, followed by History and Math. However, with students, Math was in the lead, followed by Science and then English.

As far as sports go, soccer is far more popular with students than it was with the teachers, as the number of participants in the game from students to teachers has nearly doubled. Baseball has lost popularity somewhat, as has football, which saw a massive decrease, with some teachers to no students playing the sport. However, some new sports are on the rise. Fencing and Lacrosse are much more popular among students than they were with the teachers, likely due to the rising popularity of both sports in recent years. The amount of people who do not play a sport has remained relatively the same for both groups, showing that while the relative popularity of specific sports has changed over the last few decades, athleticism itself has not.

Participation in high school extracurriculars was high among both groups, although the data did show a slight drop in popularity of band, orchestra, and student government from the teacher’s time to ours.