Post by Gig♠ntick on Jun 17, 2011 15:55:05 GMT -10
This is very likely unrelated to anything and everything ever. It's no excuse for being cranky or being gone for a while, but I felt I needed someone to know my struggles. So here it is:
As you may or may not be aware, I am in college. Ball State University. Go Cards. Chirp chirp. And thank whatever deity decided to claim me that I made it there alive.
I used to be a very involved person when it came to school. While I still finished out school by being on the speech team, debate team, art academic team, and history academic team, while being in the marching band, concert band, and pep band, I hardly left the school uninvloved. But what I speak of is the politics of school. I was very, very involved.
Now, the school system I was in was very, very messed up from my early years. In four years of middle school, I had eight principals. When I was in 5th, grade, I was in the middle school. When I went to sixth grade, 5th grade got moved back to elementary. When I was in 7th grade, one of the other middle schools in our system got shut down, and had to crowd into our classes, moving class sizes to illegal proportions.
When I went to high school and suffered a radical schedule overhaul and another new principal, I decided to be one of those types that stands up and speaks for the kids in the school system. No one wanted to hear what a skinny little girl had to say, apparently.
It wasn't until my Junior and Senior years, though, that I was put to the test. The school board announced halfway through my Junior year that there would be serious teacher cuts. Most students protested by standing outside the school's doors, and only managed to get hauled back in. I went to the school board directly to voice my concerns: Class sizes, as overfull as they already are, are going to make learning impossible. That whole jazz. What did they tell me? They gave me a five minute speech about how clever and brave I am for speaking, but I should probably fuck off. Essentially. No quotes.
The end of my Junior year: We have to wear uniforms next year. I stood to speak again, a well-composed and even more well-communicated speech about how uniforms cannot solve discipline problems and only give more cause for trouble, how I did not intend to spend 300 dollars on clothes for a single year of school, How most people in our inner-city school couldn't even afford it, and how stupid a notion it really was. One more big verbal finger, and I was sent off.
Before my senior year started, We got more news concerning the one thing us Seniors had to look forward to: the chance to escape red chicken patties, watery hamburgers, cold soggy baked fries, and sour milk. Senior lunch, when the seniors could leave school for half an our to eat out on the town. It had been stripped away, and without a word of cause. If the senior class wasn't in an uproar yet, it was now. Two weeks was all the notice we had gotten that our School board wanted to Fuck our class in the ass again.
Throughout the year, I and the student government (I held no position, but they looked to me for my public speaking prowess) met with the superintendent, the principal, and the school board, proposing systems in which seniors could be allowed out based on grades, academic progress, and discipline. Every single one of them said they didn't have the power to change it, and pointed at the other.
A month into our last semester, the school board throws shit into the face of our more academic, advanced, and well-behaved of our class. In eighth grade, we were allowed the option to take a high school credit Algebra 1 class. Those that did went on to take extra core classes to make themselves more marketable to colleges with their "Honor's diplomas." Suddenly, the decision was made that this class no longer counted as a high school credit, even to those that had taken it as such. In their last semester of their last year of high school, our brilliant, advanced, academic students were one necessary credit short of their honors diplomas. They scrambled to fill credit-recovery classes, already full to bursting with student more interested in the arts of foul language and paper spheres.
For all our high school career, the school had been a generally pleasant place to be. Every Friday, music was playing in the halls. Every spirit week, kids would arrive in outrageous costumes. Every night before a game, our lunch ladies would parade the cafeteria in their Marion Giant best. No more. No more music was allowed in the halls. Our spirit days were "untucked shirt day" and "flip flop day"and "white polo day" and the coveted "jeans day." Our staff were allowed no more fun romps around the cafeteria. Hell, I got in trouble because the top button of my polo was undone, and the discipline report filed went right on top of one describing how a child had spoke foully to a teacher and left the class. What should have been a year I remember in sepia tones with smiling faces more resembles a scene from Schindler's List.
I, also in line for an Honors diploma, had not taken the disputed algebra class, but filled my honors diploma requirements during my high school career. When I failed my last semester of Physics, I was told it was fine. my counselor told me to simply take another science class. While I was sitting in my robe awaiting my name to be called, I decided to leaf through the program. Hm, I wonder why all of these names have stars next to them. Oh, it means they earned an honor's diploma. Well, I guess I have one too. No, no I don't have one. It later dawned on me that I had been cheated. Lied to. I needed the physics credit after all, and that know-nothing of a counselor stole my diploma. I almost couldn't attend my own graduation party that night for crying. This was the day I became a bitter person: The day I should have looked back on my life with smiles and laughter feeling joy and a slight sorrow for leaving it behind, instead hating it with a furious passion, feeling cheated and hated and spat upon and never wanting to think on it again. It was the day I decided to keep my own council, deciding that any power over me was going to have it's way with me no matter how I kicked and fought. I and my friends had been royally fucked for 12 years, and it was over now.
Or so I thought.
I was finally comfortable in college. This was my place: mature people who were passionate about their studies, and still knew how to have a good, clean, fun time. Then the word trickled over Facebook: Senior lunch was back. With stipulations that oddly resembled those the student government and I had proposed, even. Alright, good for you all, wish I could have. Then Someone makes mention of their favorite song playing in the hallway, and the rest of the great music every Friday. Oh. Okay, I'm jealous, you kids have a great time. sounds like you're getting the senior year I deserved, ha ha.
But today was the final straw. I see this from a sophomore at the school: "Oh, and Erin, you know how our Alg 1 we took in 8th grade didn't count towards our diploma? They're just now allowing it to count if you take it in the 8th grade."
I read the school board meeting minutes for myself.
It's all there.
I watched my friends cry salty, helpless tears as they felt they had lost their grip in school and life and education in the most impossible of moments to recover, when classes were already scheduled and sealed for their final semesters of their final year, and now you JACK ASSES waltz back in and shrug that little rule away?
The Class of 2010 deserves compensation, if not a big, fat, fucking "sorry for being idiotic ASSHOLES and screwing you kids over for your entire education."
I thought I had left that place, and here it is, still haunting me through the smiling, redeemed faces of my younger schoolmates.
This is why I am. This is why I am a bitter person, convinced completely that if I expect the worst, I can't be disappointed. Apparently, I haven't been expecting bad enough. Life likes to smack me with Heaven's massive fish of irony again and again and again, and here I am once more, stinging.
So Yeah. I'll try not to let this effect me. I can't say the same if I happen to go back to my hometown on a school board meeting day, though. Here's to hoping someone can bail me out of jail.
As you may or may not be aware, I am in college. Ball State University. Go Cards. Chirp chirp. And thank whatever deity decided to claim me that I made it there alive.
I used to be a very involved person when it came to school. While I still finished out school by being on the speech team, debate team, art academic team, and history academic team, while being in the marching band, concert band, and pep band, I hardly left the school uninvloved. But what I speak of is the politics of school. I was very, very involved.
Now, the school system I was in was very, very messed up from my early years. In four years of middle school, I had eight principals. When I was in 5th, grade, I was in the middle school. When I went to sixth grade, 5th grade got moved back to elementary. When I was in 7th grade, one of the other middle schools in our system got shut down, and had to crowd into our classes, moving class sizes to illegal proportions.
When I went to high school and suffered a radical schedule overhaul and another new principal, I decided to be one of those types that stands up and speaks for the kids in the school system. No one wanted to hear what a skinny little girl had to say, apparently.
It wasn't until my Junior and Senior years, though, that I was put to the test. The school board announced halfway through my Junior year that there would be serious teacher cuts. Most students protested by standing outside the school's doors, and only managed to get hauled back in. I went to the school board directly to voice my concerns: Class sizes, as overfull as they already are, are going to make learning impossible. That whole jazz. What did they tell me? They gave me a five minute speech about how clever and brave I am for speaking, but I should probably fuck off. Essentially. No quotes.
The end of my Junior year: We have to wear uniforms next year. I stood to speak again, a well-composed and even more well-communicated speech about how uniforms cannot solve discipline problems and only give more cause for trouble, how I did not intend to spend 300 dollars on clothes for a single year of school, How most people in our inner-city school couldn't even afford it, and how stupid a notion it really was. One more big verbal finger, and I was sent off.
Before my senior year started, We got more news concerning the one thing us Seniors had to look forward to: the chance to escape red chicken patties, watery hamburgers, cold soggy baked fries, and sour milk. Senior lunch, when the seniors could leave school for half an our to eat out on the town. It had been stripped away, and without a word of cause. If the senior class wasn't in an uproar yet, it was now. Two weeks was all the notice we had gotten that our School board wanted to Fuck our class in the ass again.
Throughout the year, I and the student government (I held no position, but they looked to me for my public speaking prowess) met with the superintendent, the principal, and the school board, proposing systems in which seniors could be allowed out based on grades, academic progress, and discipline. Every single one of them said they didn't have the power to change it, and pointed at the other.
A month into our last semester, the school board throws shit into the face of our more academic, advanced, and well-behaved of our class. In eighth grade, we were allowed the option to take a high school credit Algebra 1 class. Those that did went on to take extra core classes to make themselves more marketable to colleges with their "Honor's diplomas." Suddenly, the decision was made that this class no longer counted as a high school credit, even to those that had taken it as such. In their last semester of their last year of high school, our brilliant, advanced, academic students were one necessary credit short of their honors diplomas. They scrambled to fill credit-recovery classes, already full to bursting with student more interested in the arts of foul language and paper spheres.
For all our high school career, the school had been a generally pleasant place to be. Every Friday, music was playing in the halls. Every spirit week, kids would arrive in outrageous costumes. Every night before a game, our lunch ladies would parade the cafeteria in their Marion Giant best. No more. No more music was allowed in the halls. Our spirit days were "untucked shirt day" and "flip flop day"and "white polo day" and the coveted "jeans day." Our staff were allowed no more fun romps around the cafeteria. Hell, I got in trouble because the top button of my polo was undone, and the discipline report filed went right on top of one describing how a child had spoke foully to a teacher and left the class. What should have been a year I remember in sepia tones with smiling faces more resembles a scene from Schindler's List.
I, also in line for an Honors diploma, had not taken the disputed algebra class, but filled my honors diploma requirements during my high school career. When I failed my last semester of Physics, I was told it was fine. my counselor told me to simply take another science class. While I was sitting in my robe awaiting my name to be called, I decided to leaf through the program. Hm, I wonder why all of these names have stars next to them. Oh, it means they earned an honor's diploma. Well, I guess I have one too. No, no I don't have one. It later dawned on me that I had been cheated. Lied to. I needed the physics credit after all, and that know-nothing of a counselor stole my diploma. I almost couldn't attend my own graduation party that night for crying. This was the day I became a bitter person: The day I should have looked back on my life with smiles and laughter feeling joy and a slight sorrow for leaving it behind, instead hating it with a furious passion, feeling cheated and hated and spat upon and never wanting to think on it again. It was the day I decided to keep my own council, deciding that any power over me was going to have it's way with me no matter how I kicked and fought. I and my friends had been royally fucked for 12 years, and it was over now.
Or so I thought.
I was finally comfortable in college. This was my place: mature people who were passionate about their studies, and still knew how to have a good, clean, fun time. Then the word trickled over Facebook: Senior lunch was back. With stipulations that oddly resembled those the student government and I had proposed, even. Alright, good for you all, wish I could have. Then Someone makes mention of their favorite song playing in the hallway, and the rest of the great music every Friday. Oh. Okay, I'm jealous, you kids have a great time. sounds like you're getting the senior year I deserved, ha ha.
But today was the final straw. I see this from a sophomore at the school: "Oh, and Erin, you know how our Alg 1 we took in 8th grade didn't count towards our diploma? They're just now allowing it to count if you take it in the 8th grade."
I read the school board meeting minutes for myself.
It's all there.
I watched my friends cry salty, helpless tears as they felt they had lost their grip in school and life and education in the most impossible of moments to recover, when classes were already scheduled and sealed for their final semesters of their final year, and now you JACK ASSES waltz back in and shrug that little rule away?
The Class of 2010 deserves compensation, if not a big, fat, fucking "sorry for being idiotic ASSHOLES and screwing you kids over for your entire education."
I thought I had left that place, and here it is, still haunting me through the smiling, redeemed faces of my younger schoolmates.
This is why I am. This is why I am a bitter person, convinced completely that if I expect the worst, I can't be disappointed. Apparently, I haven't been expecting bad enough. Life likes to smack me with Heaven's massive fish of irony again and again and again, and here I am once more, stinging.
So Yeah. I'll try not to let this effect me. I can't say the same if I happen to go back to my hometown on a school board meeting day, though. Here's to hoping someone can bail me out of jail.
