To: The vast majority of the faculty at the elementary school, both middle schools, and the high school I attended.
Re: Those 13 years of my life.
Okay. I understand it’s public school. I understand that no public school has ever had enough money, resources, time, or anything to do all that they should. I understand that, no matter what, middle school is pretty rough on the vast majority of kids.
But what the fuck? Would it have fucking killed you to open your eyes and do your job?
In first grade you noticed two things about me: I was way the hell above a first-grade reading level, and had a serious speech impediment. We’ll ignore that my parents tried to get you to put me in speech therapy in kindergarten and you refused. Let’s focus on the reading thing. Rather than provide me with appropriate-level material, know what you did? Sent me to the library, alone, while everyone else was in reading group every day. Then I was out of the classroom for another hour some days in speech therapy. Considering that it was noted that there were concerns about my “social adaptation”, that was a great move, wasn’t it?
Second grade, you decided that I couldn’t have that special treatment anymore, then punished me for complaining that I was bored during reading group. No wonder my grades started to go down. Then you decided I didn’t need any more speech therapy, over the protestations of my parents. And the school’s speech therapist. And the speech therapist I saw outside of school. It wasn’t that they were cutting the budget or anything, you just decided it wasn’t needed, because obviously, an elementary school principal is the best authority on the issue.
Third through sixth grade? It’s best summed up in two tales. In fourth grade we learned long division. I had trouble with it. I sat down with my teacher, one-on-one, and learned it. I could do it, no problem. When I froze up on a test, blanked out, started crying, and had my first-ever panic attack? I got a failing grade on the test, was told I should have studied more, and was called stupid in front of the class. Then in fifth grade, after a peer threw rocks at me with enough aim to draw blood, it was dismissed as “childhood bullying, nothing to worry about.” There was never any cause to worry. I was acing the standardized tests every year but never getting more than a C on my report card, but that was no reason to worry. I seemed to be withdrawing from my friends, but that was no reason to worry. I always seemed so anxious, but there was nothing to worry about.
Then I went to middle school, and they fucked that up big time. She seemed awesome at the time, but, Mrs. C? If one of your students approaches you a few days into the new school year and asks if she can eat lunch in your classroom, because she has no friends to sit with in the cafeteria and has in fact been physically hit for trying to join a table? That might kind of be a warning sign that something is wrong. If a student refuses, in tears, to continue changing for gym in the locker room, that’s a sign of a problem. Making her run laps during gym class won’t solve it.
Hoping things would be better I switched to another middle school in eighth grade. If a student tells you that another student pinned her up against a wall and groped her, and now is calling her all sorts of unsavory names, hitting her, and defacing/damaging/stealing her property, there is a fucking problem you need to address. If that student says she hasn’t talked to her parents about it because she can’t, that’s another big fucking red flag. If that student finally reaches her breaking point and stands up in the middle of a class and starts beating the guy who allegedly has been harassing her, that is a big fucking problem. The solution is not to have her spend five minutes with the school psychologist and dismiss it as if nothing happened. Chances are things, at that point, are not fucking fine, regardless of what she says.
And then I made it into high school. I don’t even know what to point out about that. The guidance counselor who told me that “since you’ve never earned straight A’s, I’m really not going to spend much time with you,” maybe? I was lucky and had two teachers who did try, and did notice the big fucking problems. A hint to the administration: If a teacher comes and says that, twice now, a student has ran out of class, having panic attacks over something as minor as being called on, don’t ignore it. If the next year another teacher, who’s now had the student for two years, says “Hey, I think that this student is having problems”, don’t fucking say you’ll look into it, see she’s in honors classes, and decide she obviously can’t have any serious problems.
Should we talk about the time that I was, entirely against my will, outed as bisexual? And when a peer disrupted class calling me a “slutty dyke”, I was the one to be punished? And when I took the issue to the administration, I was told not to make it a big deal? Or how about the time when I was handed detention for the heinous crime of “sitting quietly and respectfully while the pledge of allegiance was recited”? The time a substitute teacher called me, in all seriousness, a “godless heathen”, spent the entire class period witnessing to me, and the administration refused to listen to my complaints? The time that my parents were told “We don’t think she has a problem, because she hasn’t approached any teachers or counselors for help”? (Because, obviously, a teenager with severe social anxiety is…going to go running to a random faculty member for help.)
You provided me with an education. Along the line I was lucky and had a couple outstanding teachers. Mr. C for freshman English. My Spanish teacher, for all four years of high school, did everything she possibly could to try to help. She even sat down and mediated a meeting or two between my parents and myself. The administration constantly told her, essentially, to shut up and stop making waves. Mr F, who I had for history freshman and sophomore year, was on the far opposite side of the political spectrum than I was, but took the time to sit me down and tell me that that’s OK, and don’t put up with people saying otherwise. And Mr. D, who volunteered as the faculty adviser for the Gay/Straight Alliance, who refused to tell the principal who was a member of the GSA when he was “Just wondering”.
But for the most part, I spent thirteen years of my life drowning, and I was surrounded by people who couldn’t be bothered to throw a fucking life-ring in my general direction. If I’d gone to private school I’d want my money back, but since it was public school, I’ll leave it with this: Fuck each and every one of you.
…That was…cathartic.