Dear students, you are not a problem for being different in school. It seems that no one understands you the way you want them to; then they judge you as if you are a criminal.
One way to think of this is that you are crammed into a tight space with multiple people and expected to do the same as everyone else, but you don’t and because of this you get backlashed by the people around you.
You never asked for this. It’s not your fault that you’re the “you” that’s in this situation; how you think, how you learn and how you talk, things happen in life that you don’t have control over. Though if anyone says it is your fault, then I would compare them to someone who also thought like that, Adolf Hitler, and (according to the history books I read) he thought that the “impure” (from his definition) should be eliminated.
When school wasn’t working for me, it felt like I didn’t matter at all and, as a result, I just wanted to run.
Before the final alarm went off, I would try to disappear, and whenever I did I felt like no one gave a damn that I left. Another problem I faced was that my old school Carriage Crest forced me to go to the assemblies and I just wanted to get out because loud voices hurt my ears to no end.
My counselor said that since I was left out of group activities for being odd, that a part of my life was denied. However, after sixth grade I transferred to Academy Schools (a small private school in Tukwila) and they somewhat follow the school system.
But how they handle the school part is different from my previous school, and because of that I had a gargantuan improvement in my failing areas. Even though it isn’t perfect, I consider it better in a lot of other areas, such as the learning environment was respectable, the class size was manageable and the work load, even though it’s a lot, was still manageable. Carriage Crest handled those same areas like they weren’t important enough to fix.
One of my strengths is my listening skills, even though this has caused me pain it does help me understand what someone is saying. Another strength of mine is my ability to learn fast. For example, I play a game by the name of DOTA 2. This game is not “casual gamer friendly” — and I learned the mechanics, picked up how to do things effectively and I find a special degree of enjoyment from it because of the difficulty spike it has. I have an overactive imagination and because of that I have big ideas that I try to expand on.
What are your strengths? Maybe it’s the ability to think on your feet. How about being creative, thinking in ways that no one thought about it before? What if you’re good at speaking? Talented in writing? An expert in geography? Talented in science? Whatever your strength is, do not take it for granted.
What I think is the problem is that the system was designed for kids unlike us and from a different time. And in that time there weren’t as many kids who didn’t fit in the original system and could live with the consequences. Today, however, there are a significant number of kids who don’t fit the system and school life is impacting those students in negative ways.
If there’s anything I can say to you is for there to be change you have to be heard and to be heard you may have to work together with others to get people’s attention. Change doesn’t happen on its own — it needs to happen by giving it a push.
Curtis Salman, Des Moines
