Imagine Bullying a Child.

 The administration at my school was full of cowards. 

Truly spineless, selfish, cowards. 

That being said, not everybody in my school district were like that. A handful (literally I can only think of maybe 5 teachers) were incredibly supportive and kind. I really believe that they are the golden standard of what teachers should be. What all school administrators should be. 

Sadly, most of my school was crooked, and easily influenced. 

When I was in the second grade, a boy put his hand down the back of my pants at lunch. The lunch lady saw it, I got publicly humiliated by her bird-like cawing at the top of her lungs about it, and then parents were called. Guess who got in trouble for it? Me. Did I have any idea what was happening when it happened? No, but hey, the other kid couldn't get in trouble and I was already labeled a "bad kid" so why not blame this on me. 

Flash forward years, it doesn't matter how many because it was every day of every year, this kid is still harassing anybody he wants and not getting in trouble for it.  One of my readers (and friend) wrote me after she read my last blog, saying that he tormented her to the point where she was dressing in long sleeve, heavy clothes so he couldn't make fun of her body. She was tormented to the point where she was dressing, physically uncomfortably to avoid being harassed by this kid. She told me that she too had reported it, only to be informed that making this kid face consequences, or the school upholding their "no tolerance" policy, would result in the school being sued. 

Why? Because this kid was the only ethnically diverse kid in our school, and the mom had come into the office and informed our principle, and I'm sure the rest of the office, that if her kid got in trouble, it would be racist. This boy got away with everything and anything. He even left welts on my arms, in front of a teacher, and I got yelled at. Does that sound like a "zero tolerance" policy to you? How would you feel if it was your kid being tortured by this one student, that the school WOULDN'T touch, because they were more worried for themselves than they were for taking care of their students. 

Moving along, lets talk about the administration pushing kids out of the way so that their choice of kids can excel, and the other kids can struggle and drown. There was a teacher that I had that routinely lost kids papers, and would just give kids the grade she figured they would earn. There were many rumors about this particular teacher, but it was pretty much a fact that she lost students papers frequently. Imagine being the kid who had a bad streak in her class, and then you studied really hard for a test or whatever, and she lost it. So she looked at your past grades and gave you an F, but your classmate whos paper she also lost, just so happens to be another teachers kid so she gets an A, even if she totally tanked the test, or didn't even turn it in and this teacher just assumed she lost it. hmm.

I don't feel very encouraged to try my best. Would you? It felt like the school was actively working against me. Like running on a treadmill when I thought I was running on pavement. I could try as hard as I wanted, but I really wasn't going anywhere. 

Another example of my school pushing kids out of the way so somebody else can shine, this story also came from a reader. We will refer to her as Mary.

Our state has a huge sports opportunity, at the end of the basketball season, the best players in the state are selected to be on an "All Stars" team. They spend a weekend playing basketball games, in front of a bunch of college recruits. The state pics the players based on their stats from the season, as well as grades and school accolades. Well Mary won that opportunity, but her coach decided not to tell her until it was over, because the coach wanted another girl to go, we can call this girl Ann, and she didn't get it. So to avoid the coach getting in trouble by Ann's mom, he just decided to let Mary miss out on this huge scholarship opportunity so there would be "no hard feelings" 

Imagine being the parent of Mary. Your kid works so hard all year, getting great grades (Mary was also supposed to be the valedictorian, but once again, Ann's parents got involved so my school had four, or five valedictorians) working her butt off in basketball, and the coach decides for your kid that they don't get to go, because Ann's mom works for the school and Ann shouldn't have to miss out on this opportunity while your Mary get to reap the benefits of her hard work. 

I'm getting upset even just writing about it! Once again I ask, when will this be too much? When will we, as parents, as students, as co-workers, when will we make this stop?? Its truly up to us! Our kids deserve better! 

According to the US National Library of Medicine,  20% of high school students are reporting that they are depressed, and 30%-50% of depression cases go undiagnosed. The numbers climb yearly. What are we ACTUALLY doing about it?? Will we continue to let spineless cowards who bend to the will of selfish parents, be the ones in charge of our children's education? 

My last blog post got a reaction I was not expecting, at all. Even today I was receiving feedback, and its a week later! I really quick just wanted to say thank you! Some of you came forward with your own experiences, even from the same school I go to. I encourage all of you to not let your story go unheard. There is a serious problem in schools. We the people have to be the ones to address it. We employ the teachers, we get a say in what they teach our students, and how they treat our kids. Schools run on tax-payers dollars, its time to stop letting the tail wag the dog. 

UNFILTERED.

So I was going to write a mini blog series about all the things I went through in school. I was going to tell you all about the abuse and neglect I received not only from my peers, but from my advisors as well. However, I have decided not to release that series. Maybe ever, maybe I will someday. I was thinking about it, and why I wanted to post my story, and  I realized that the details weren't really relevant. It's WHY that is relevant.

 I started my blog because I felt like I had no voice. I felt incredibly small, and my blog was a way for me to put my voice out there. It was pretty much no risk, because my mom and a few of her friends are really the only ones that ever read it.

 Today, I am hoping that will change. I feel like for the first time, I am addressing you as a woman, not just a little girl who's trying to get her voice out there. I had it rough in school, but I am not alone. I felt like in my mini series, I sounded so weak, scared, and hopeless. The truth is, that is exactly how I felt while writing it. I have a strong message to convey though, and I do not want to stutter in my delivery. I am sick and tired of seeing these heartbreaking stories on the news about suicide, and everybody looking around wondering why. I'm tired of hearing about violence's at school and everybody blaming the weapon. There is a serious lack of accountability in our school systems today.

 I was harassed daily. I was tortured. My grades were awful. Teachers saw it. I asked for help. I wrote letters, desperate for somebody to hear my plea. Yet all my attempts to get my head above water were ignored, or worse. I was blamed. I had a label that read "problem student" in big fat letters, stamped all over my body. If something happened to me, it had to have been my fault. I asked for it. Do those words sound familiar to you? She asked for it. Hmmm. 

My story is old news, but there are thousands and thousands of stories similar to mine that are occurring right now. Bullying doesn't even feel like an appropriate word to use to describe what is going on. Bullying feels like such a childish word. This is mental torture, isolation, harassment, abuse. It was a phycological war of terror and I was just out there, trying to survive.  What are our schools doing to stop it? They claim to have a "zero tolerance" policy, yet they still pick favorites?

 I did what they told me to. They said to report things when kids get hurt, so I reported when things got bad and I got hurt, yet somehow the story was twisted and I was the one inflicting the pain. They said "shake your arms and say 'stop bullying me'" and all it did was attract more bullies. So tell me, schools. What ARE you doing? When kids report sexual harassment, when kids are dragged into your office almost DAILY, being accused of something. What are you doing about it? The school system I was in told me to sit down and shut up. Those are our star athletes you're accusing. Even the teachers were in on it. Even the adults in my life were fine with attacking and bullying a little kid! A bunch of this stuff happened to me when I was 8! But you can't fire a teacher who has tenure, right? Even for the mental safety of your students. 

What do you do when a kid doesn't feel safe at your school, so they get bad grades, and their GPA brings down your school's overall GPA. Oh, that kid makes you look bad. Right? So you have to banish them to a school you have been threatening them with for years. That is correct, folks. Threatening. I was told that if I went to this school, I would need the protection of the main teacher. That I wouldn't be able to get a job, that my diploma wouldn't be the same as the other kids, and that I could never go to college. Maybe you're thinking "wow I would have gotten my act together if I was threatened with that" and the truth is, I tried. I was so mentally exhausted. There was nothing left in me by the time I got home at the end of the day. I would try so hard to do my homework, to read my books, to study and do well on tests. Big shocker, I was so distracted by the race to stay alive, that I hardly had time to do homework. 

No, I wasn't scared that anybody at the school was going to kill me, except me. I know I am not alone. I hear about kids who take their lives, and my heart just breaks because I can imagine how they felt. Yet, everybody is looking around and wondering "how could this happen, why did this happen" and then maybe they hold a school assembly and build a little shrine for that kid, ignoring the blood on their own hands. Nobody sees a gun and just thinks "oh I am gonna shoot up the school today" They are pushed there. Nobody wakes up and thinks "wow. My life is so worthless it would actually be more beneficial if I was dead" our bodies have a program in them. It's against our nature to take our own lives. You have to really be feeling that with conviction. 

I wonder where those kids got the conviction. Something to think about.