I remember being 13 and being in Junior High School and I remember feeling comfort with other students when we would fantasize about "going out in style". We never wanted to fulfill any of these actions because between us, we weren't killers. School Systems had a way with me and a few of my friends growing up, saying that we're lost causes, can never adapt and will never achieve in life. Luckily, I was stubborn and dedicated my life to proving them wrong. We were good kids. Geeks, never got involved with questionable people or drugs, but just because we were quirky, had our own problems, didn't want to face another day of Teachers and Students who had nothing but hopelessness and resent for us. We weren't given any hope, not any that was significant enough anyways. I was absolutely shocked when I found out what one of my teachers said about me to my former class after I had been transfered to alternative education. He said that he would be 75 dollars Richer today if he had accepted a bet from another teacher about my educational fate, since I had been transferd to alternative education.
Sometimes you can feel very trapped in life and also very hopeless about it too when you face the kind of things we did. You don't want to goto school because you don't want to hear about how crappy your life is going to turn out, and you don't want to be ill-treated by students that do not tolerate you for the individual you are. Yet, if you didn't go, you were threatened with jailtime by district attorneys. As if the academic and life prophecies of what happends to Alternative Ed students by various Faculty Staff wasn't bad enough, going to Juvi would also inevitably make you into an even lower kind of failure at life. Such things can drive someone with a developing mind bonkers. I've found myself in Psychwards and Residential Treatment facilities in times when I should have been in High School.
Sorry if this post sounds a bit irrational or melodramatic, but, this is how I remember being 13 in a context that fits this topic.
A Message To Administrative Staff:
The well being of your students is much more important than making them fearful of failure. Encourage your students to come to your school by making school into a place of hope for those who need it, as well as a place of discipline and knowledge. Make your students feel as though they are going towards future, not painful reality.
There are places of Alternative Education for a reason. They have a different cirriculum that is meant for the troubled youth. Don't make Alternative Education out to seem like training grounds for professional failures. They are totally the opposite, I got much more from those teachers than I ever did from any other place. The students were also much more accepting than the ones I went to school with previously.
Funny how an under priveledged under funded school of miscreant students and teachers who are even more underpayed than the others put Education and the Students Well Being before anything else.
So what if you loose a few dollars because you loose a student to Alternative Education. This isn't about money and making your school have more reasons to earn funding. Your LCD Flat Screens and Score Boards mean nothing.
GarzaUK said:
I just think it is stupid to own guns in the house. Why can't you just keep your guns in a locker in a gun club or shooting range?
Because when there is a natural disaster like Hurricane Katrina or a Riot like Rodney King in LA, the Cops aren't going to protect you. Have a nice time getting to the gun club or shooting range safely and then finding your weapons if they haven't already been confiscated by either the authorities or someone else.
