A FINAL FAREWELL

A look into nostalgia and its effects on graduating seniors.

BY ALEX BURNS ’24, KATE HAUSWIRTH ’25 AND SOPHIA WOOD ’25

Seniors have made the switch from baseball hats to graduation caps, a Golden Bear sweatshirt for a graduation gown, and a Canvas assignment due at midnight for a high school diploma. The label of “@uaschools.org” will no longer follow their name when drafting an email, and that six-digit student-ID number goes to lose its association. The years a student spends in high school contribute to many of the most valuable moments in an adolescent’s life.

According to the nonprofit organization Understood, “There are huge changes in social and emotional skills between ages 14 and 18. The emotional maturity of a high school freshman is very different from that of a graduating senior.”

The time between freshman and senior year is meant for students to explore new passions, hobbies, clubs and interests. Stu-

PHOTOBYEDILEBLANC’23

dents may find interest in fields such as business or psychology and have the ability to take those courses at UAHS. Fields such as art and creation can be put to use in classes like Designing with Materials, or Ceramics at UAHS as well.

These four short years provide an immense amount of room to grow and emerge out into one’s true self. However, as graduation approaches it provides a time for those leaving Upper Arlington to reflect on their childhoods and reminisce over memories.

Someday these alumni will look back on the nostalgia that was not just high school, but their time within the district as a whole. Reflecting on their time and experiences gives individuals the comfort and joy of feeling connected to their childhood and past, which evidently can help them step into the next chapter of their life. Yet before they leave, it is important to value the aspect of nostalgia.

Nostalgic Origins

In the 17th through 19th centuries, nostalgia was a common cause of death for young people in the army. The diagnosis of nostalgia was “a psychopathological condition affecting individuals who are uprooted, whose social contacts are fragmented, who are isolated and who feel totally frustrated and alienated” as per National Institutes of Health. It most affected people who were separated from their homes and families and had sickening obsessions with returning home. Nostalgia also referred to the moral pain from forced separation from one’s family or social environment.

The most effective cure for those diagnosed with nostalgia was to satisfy their desires and return to their homeland or the place they desired to be. However, common treatment plans included fear or inflicting pain, although neither treatment was very effective. If they couldn’t return, the symptoms, including depression, anorexia, frequent fainting and insomnia, could occur. Sometimes the episodes of symptoms were so bad they lead to death.

The term nostalgia originated in 1688 by the doctor Johannes Hofer (16691752). It comes from the Greek words nostos and alga which mean ‘homecoming’ and ‘pain’, respectively. The term is inspired by the Ger- man word Heimweh or “homesickness.” It was first classified as a disease during the late 1700s, during the Napoleonic Wars and the American Revolution. However, soon after the wars were over, it ceased to exist in the army. In the beginning of the 1800s, it was removed from the medical branch involved in the classification of diseases. From a historic point of view it is considered a “transient illness” because it was only classified as a disease for a short period of time.

Centuries later, it became the romantic notion that it is today. Nostalgia was essentially lost in history after no longer being considered a disease, but in modern times it has made a comeback as an entirely new idea.

In the word’s second life, nostalgia is described as wistful affection for the past. It is a homesickness for places you’ve never been and a longing to go back to childhood. Studies have found that rather than causing depression, modern nostalgia emphasizes the positive uses to which memory, even painful memory, may be put in the effort to confront the challenges to personal identities of such massive changes in the lives of an individual.

Current nostalgia is often triggered by the five senses. Most notably the sense of smell can cause one to feel nostalgic. This is because the nose is directly linked to the limbic system in the brain. The limbic system is responsible for processing emotions. Because of the nose’s link to the amygdala (the part of the limbic system that controls social cognition and emotional memory), it associates certain smells with memories or places.

Baked foods made up the largest category of nostalgia stimulating smells, according to a BBC report. The second largest category of nostalgic smells includes bacon, spaghetti and meatballs. Other senses like sound can also trigger nostalgia. For instance, playing songs from childhood can also play into memories.

“SINCERELY, YOU”

With such positive effects seen in nostalgia, some UAHS teachers have acknowledged the relevancy of reflection within students’ lives and careers. For over 20 years, teachers and staff members within the UA School District have conducted a certain heart-felt activity that contributes to the underlying value of growth and prosperity.

This activity of “Senior Letters” has been a sentimental tradition for over two decades and has provided hundreds of students a small window into their past.

Some students in elementary school were given the opportunity to write letters to their future selves that they would receive at the end of their senior year.

“[The letters are] mini time capsules because as you’re living day to day, there are those little pieces and parts that you remember of big events, but it’s more of those day to day things that are fun to look back on as a whole,” fourth grade teacher at Greensview Elementary School Suzanne Kotch said. “It’s far enough from fourth grade to when you’re a senior in high school for major changes to have happened also.”

The teachers that partake in the senior letter activity with their elementary schoolers then keep the letters to give to their students at the end of their senior year. This activity allows the students to see what they thought about themselves and the world as kids.

The time between fourth grade and a student’s senior year totals to over 2,922 days of growth and changes. In the meantime, the letters are divided up into the graduation year, and kept on-file in the classroom as a form of safe-keeping.

“These letters hold such sentimental value and precious information, it would be a shame if any were to be misplaced,” Kotch said.

After those long awaited eight years finally comes the day those sacred early memories replenish and restore that nostalgic feeling. Just as the celebration of graduation, the elementary schools host a Senior Day which provides seniors the opportunity to return to their old school and reminisce on that chapter of their life.

“Typically, if people come to the senior day that we host then we try and put them out just on the table so that people can find them,” Kotch explained.

Senior Day is the most common way for these seniors to receive their letters, although teachers have resorted to other ways of delivering these letters to those who do not attend Senior Day.

“We often mail them to people or their parents. Due to

COVID we are still hunting down certain people in different classes and mailing them their letter,” Kotch said. “I actually received an email from a student this summer. That’s the great thing about teachers; our emails don’t change with Upper Arlington City Schools, so they are able to find us. He had moved away and is now back in Upper Arlington and he asked if I still had the letter and I did in fact have the letter, so I sent it to him.”

Teachers like Kotch try to guide the fourth graders to write letters that their later selves will find compelling.

“We definitely brainstorm ideas of what types of things and questions to put in. A lot of times we do make sure that there are going to be things that are changing, just with your interest… a lot of times we will say ‘What is your favorite book, movie, etc’ because it’s something really current that 8 years later you look back on and go, ‘Wow, I really liked this,’” Kotch explained. “Once you kind of get them talking about their futures, a lot of times they get excited — especially when they see seniors come in on [senior] day… and they see the seniors’ reaction… and then they think, ‘Wait a minute that’s going to be me’... So that kind of inspires them.”

During the COVID-19 pandemic, several of the teachers had to readjust their approaches to different questions and ideas to put into these letters due to the changing times and situation at hand. The pandemic may have changed different areas of this activity, yet the tradition continues to be a prevalent learning op- portunity for students within the district.

While this activity is for the students themselves, teachers take away just as much or possibly even more from this activity.

“I think especially when [seniors] come back, that’s when they really enjoy it. The fun part is to see as they read the letter and they are standing next to a current friend and then the dialogue that happens…It’s so fun to see their faces light up, and we, teachers, sit back as the old people and go ‘Aw,’” Kotch said. “It’s really fun especially, so many people who lived in Arlington as a kid a lot of times come back to UA, even if they go somewhere for college, ... so we will even be in stores and run into people, which is so much fun.”

As teachers conduct these letters every year, it becomes a staple in their careers and brings several of them an immense amount of joy and excitement.

In reflection, Kotch said, “It really makes me wish that, almost at the end of every year there is a letter that you write to yourself, where they could be compiled all from kindergarten to senior year, where you’d have just one page of memories. Because when you take photos on your phone, you’re not printing them off as often, and scrapbooks aren’t really what people do anymore so to have a letter from every year K-12 would be really neat, to just have the progression and to see how you changed emotionally, such as your hopes and dreams.”

With such a technology driven generation, Kotch believes that having a physical copy of memories printed out on paper adds a much more valuable and affectionate meaning. The process itself of writing these letters is exciting to children and gives them something to look forward to.

New Beginnings

The class of 2023 will soon be freshmen again. Seniors are leaving their homes, and heading to colleges all over the country. Leaving behind their childhood homes and heading somewhere new. Upper Arlington holds a lot of memories for students. Something that will help students have that feeling of comfort and home, is bringing an item from their childhood to college.

“I think it’s a wonderful way, as their life is changing, as a senior and you are about to start a new chapter, it’s really nice to reflect and reminisce on things that were important to them and it also lets them know that it’s okay to have that change that they are currently going through, because they see how much they’ve already grown and its almost a boost of confidence,” Kotch said.

Even staying local at The Ohio State University, students have to develop an unfamiliar routine in order to succeed in the future. No parents will be around to help students with their everyday life. Instead of waking up at seven in the morning for classes everyday, students start to wake up at nine and head to their first classes at ten.

College creates a brand new opening into adulthood. Senior Isabella Mauro feels that Upper Arlington has prepared her in all the right ways for college.

“I feel excited. I feel Upper Arlington prepared me a lot for the real world, so I feel like I’m just ready to go out there,” she said.

However, seniors will forever miss their high school memories, from spending hours with sports teams, to working at the UA Rise coffee shop during lunch with new people.

“It’s inspiring… because I see what they do here over the course of the year that I get to have them intimately and I’ve seen them since kindergarten usually, so then thinking what they are going to be like and what their interests are,” Kotch said. “ It’s always fun to see the people who were always interested in our government study or the people who really gravitated towards the arts… and kind of looking and going, ‘I wonder, when they come back as a senior, what’s going to be their passion?’”

UAHS provides students with not only everlasting memories, but opportunities to express creativity and help students figure out who they truly are.

Senior Katherine Bartlett spoke about working in the UAHS Rise Coffee shop for the last two years.

“I really liked working in the coffee shop,” Bartlett said. “ I’ve done it for the past two years and definitely there’s been way more involvement in it this year and so I feel like that would count as an activity because you get really close with a bunch of different people.”

Walking the halls with friends, heading to a particular class at the end of the day, and greeting a favorite teacher is now just a memory for seniors.

“I’ll definitely miss a lot of my teachers,” Bartlett said. “ I’ve had some really good teachers.”

Walking across a stage, instead of walking up the stairs to a classroom, followed by a final summer in UA a fresh start begins in the fall, and everything from high school will be left behind. Upper Arlington has provided seniors with a rich array of moments and memories in the last four years, and now another chapter begins for the class of 2023.