Holy crap–you have a much more jaundiced view of teenagers than I do. I fully expect most teens to look at the kid, see he’s wearing a letter jacket, shrug, figure it’s something to do with the EC sports program, and move on with their lives. If he’s getting taunted for wearing the jacket, the douchebags taunting him would be taunting him for something else as well, and it’s 100% the school’s obligation to keep him safe.
It’s been a while since I’ve walked the halls of a high school. But I don’t remember any kids with actual, real-live disabilities being harrassed or bullied. Even the bulliest bully isn’t quite THAT cruel. The kids who get targeted are the ones who don’t have a good “excuse” for acting like a “tard”.
I don’t think most varsity athletes would care about a clearly handicapped student broadcasting his unearned letter. They’d have a problem if he was a regular kid trying to pass himself off as a varsity athlete. But in this situation, where no one would ever mistake the “imposter” for the real McCoy, I really can’t see why anyone but someone who’s very insecure about his accomplishments would feel butthurt.
Furthermore, this kid isn’t a little impaired. An autistic child with Downs syndrome is not spending much time, if any, outside of a resource room, and when they are, they already have a “body guard” in the person of an aide or teacher’s assistant. I’d be shocked if they let him in the halls alone between classes–kids I know like this have to be escorted to the restroom three doors down.
In my experience, kids like this don’t get teased or mocked. They get avoided and ignored.
This is not a kid who is going to grow into the cheerful bagger at your grocery store, and live in an apartment with a roommate and have a social worker who checks in once a week. This kid is never going to be outside of institutions. It is going to be a life filled with confusion and loneliness that he can’t understand or contexualize or control. For anyone to complain that he’s getting an unfair advantage here, in his last couple years of even pretending to be a member of society, shows a profound misunderstanding of what life is like for people like this.
I find it funny how many people are saying this kid needs to learn that life isn’t fair.
Of all of us, I think he knows that the very best.
It’s a classical rhetorical device: if you want to make life more difficult for someone who’s relatively powerless, just pretend like you’re on their side and are doing them a favor. Slash welfare benefits and say that you’re going to help people break the cycle of poverty. Eliminate affirmative action and say that it’s a program that patronizes minorities. People who complain about lack of people of color in mass media? Those people are the real racists! And by all means let’s teach this kid that life’s not fair, because what will happen to the poor darling if he doesn’t learn that lesson?
I haven’t read the thread, so apologies if this has come up before:
Every high school movie teaches us that the quarterback’s girlfriend wears his varsity jacket. I think we know that must be allowed - is there any among us willing to impugn the venerable high school movie genre?
So some kid who’s on a varsity team and is not a total dickhead would probably be happy to give the kid his (or her) varsity jacket and letter, to make all the adults who won’t let him wear his own stupid jacket feel like shit heads.
Plus - bonus! - we’ll get a high school movie based on the events. Probably just a made-for-tv, but I’ll take it.
Actually I think it is his mother.
Regards,
Shodan
What leaps to my mind is a yellow six-pointed star.
Eh–that’s not fair.
Interesting dichotomy -
Position a: In the larger scheme of things an athletic letter is no big deal IMO and the kid has the mind of small child so why make a big deal about it? Let him wear it.
Position b: An athletic letter has a lot of significance and importance to the kids who wear it. Treating it like a meaningless affectation is wrong. It’s understood the kid is mentally impaired, but that does not mean the privilege to wear the letter does not need to be respected.
That’s gross.
I think people are upset over a perceived threat to the social order. In most schools, the jocks rule and everybody else has to pander to their precious egos. So the jocks have to tolerate having someone else wear the Sacred Symbol of Specialness. Boo fucking hoo. I’m sure the special needs kid would trade the letter for no longer being disabled in a heartbeat.
That’s teenagers.
Teenagers can be very cruel to anyone they perceive as different or weak. In my high school, granted this was decades ago, they were always easy victims. Furthermore, in a cash-strapped high school where a lot of programs are being scrapped, there can be a great deal of resentment toward special ed. programs that can’t legally be gutted.
I dunno–teenagers engage in taunting, but to viscously taunt a kid? That’s kind of slimy.
:rolleyes: Godwin much?
Besides, it seems it’s already the case here.
It’s incredibly unlikely that there were any kids so severely disabled in your high school “decades” ago. If they were there, they were entirely self-contained.
It’s more than slimy, but it does happen. I wonder if this kids mother considered the possibility that she was basically putting a target on her son’s back. There’s a reason a lot of people enjoy Stephen King’s Carrie, especially the Sy-Fy channels version where she doesn’t die in the end.
Because high school is cliquish enough without having to institutionally separate the haves from the have nots. IMO, it should be agnostic to one’s social standing.
I think you missed the whoosh. If not, you’re playing it very straight.