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Voices From The Hellmouth
from the Geek-Profiling dept.
The big story never seemed to quite make it to the front pages or the TV talk shows. It wasn't whether the Net is a place for hate-mongers and bomb-makers, or whether video games are turning your kids into killers. It was the spotlight the Littleton, Colorado killings has put on the fact that for so many individualistic, intelligent, and vulnerable kids, high school is a Hellmouth of exclusion, cruelty, loneliness, inverted values and rage.
From Buffy the Vampire Slayer to Todd Solondz's "Welcome To The Dollhouse," and a string of comically-bitter teen movies from Hollywood, pop culture has been trying to get this message out for years. For many kids - often the best and brightest -- school is a nightmare.
People who are different are reviled as geeks, nerds, dorks. The lucky ones are excluded, the unfortunates are harassed, humiliated, sometimes assaulted literally as well as socially. Odd values - unthinking school spirit, proms, jocks - are exalted, while the best values - free thinking, non-conformity, curiousity - are ridiculed. Maybe the one positive legacy the Trenchcoat Mafia left was to ensure that this message got heard, by a society that seems desperate not to hear it.
Minutes after the "Kids That Kill" column was posted on Slashdot Friday, and all through the weekend, I got a steady stream of e-mail from middle and high school kids all over the country -- especially from self-described oddballs. They were in trouble, or saw themselves that way to one degree or another in the hysteria sweeping the country after the shootings in Colorado.
Many of these kids saw themselves as targets of a new hunt for oddballs -- suspects in a bizarre, systematic search for the strange and the alienated. Suddenly, in this tyranny of the normal, to be different wasn't just to feel unhappy, it was to be dangerous.
Schools all over the country openly embraced Geek Profiling. One group calling itself the National School Safety Center issued a checklist of "dangerous signs" to watch for in kids: it included mood swings, a fondness for violent TV or video games, cursing, depression, anti-social behavior and attitudes. (I don't know about you, but I bat a thousand).
The panic was fueled by a ceaseless bombardment of powerful, televised images of mourning and grief in Colorado, images that stir the emotions and demand some sort of response, even when it isn't clear what the problem is.
The reliably blockheaded media response didn't help either. "Sixty Minutes" devoted a whole hour to a broadcast on screen violence and its impact on the young, heavily promoted by this tease: "Are video games turning your kids into killers?" The already embattled loners were besieged.
"This is not a rational world. Can anybody help?" asked Jamie, head of an intense Dungeons and Dragons club in Minnesota, whose private school guidance counselor gave him a choice: give up the game or face counseling, possibly suspension. Suzanne Angelica (her online handle) was told to go home and leave her black, ankle-length raincoat there.
On the Web, kids did flock to talk to each other. On Star Wars and X-Files mailing lists and websites and on AOL chat rooms and ICQ message boards, teenagers traded countless countless stories of being harassed, beaten, ostracized and ridiculed by teachers, students and administrators for dressing and thinking differently from the mainstream. Many said they had some understanding of why the killers in Littleton went over the edge.
"We want to be different," wrote one of the Colorado killers in a diary found by the police. "We want to be strange and we don't want jocks or other people putting us down." The sentiment, if not the response to it, was echoed by kids all over the country. The Littleton killings have made their lives much worse.
"It was horrible, definitely," e-mailed Bandy from New York City. "I'm a Quake freak, I play it day and night. I'm really into it. I play Doom a lot too, though not so much anymore. I'm up till 3 a.m. every night. I really love it. But after Colorado, things got horrible. People were actually talking to me like I could come in and kill them. It wasn't like they were really afraid of me - they just seemed to think it was okay to hate me even more? People asked me if I had guns at home. This is a whole new level of exclusion, another excuse for the preppies of the universe to put down and isolate people like me."
It wasn't just the popular who were suspicious of the odd and the alienated, though.
The e-mailed stories ranged from suspensions and expulsions for "anti-social behavior" to censorship of student publications to school and parental restrictions on computing, Web browsing, and especially gaming. There were unconfirmed reports that the sale of blocking software had skyrocketed. Everywhere, school administrators pandered and panicked, rushing to show they were highly sensitive to parents fears, even if they were oblivious to the needs and problems of many of their students.
In a New Jersey private school, a girl was expelled for showing classmates a pocket-knife. School administrators sent a letter home:
"In light of the recent tragedy in Littleton, Colorado, we all share a heightened sensitivity to potential threats to our children. I urge you to take this time to discuss with your children the importance of turning to adults when they have concerns about the behavior of others."
This solution was straight out of "1984." In fact, this was one of the things it's protagonist Winston was jailed for: refusing to report his friends for behavior that Big Brother deemed abnormal and disturbing.
Few of the weeks? media reports - in fact, none that I saw - pointed out that the FBI Uniform Crime reports, issued bi-annually, along with the Justice Departments reports (statistical abstracts on violence are available on the Department's website and in printed form) academic studies and some news reports have reporters for years now. Violence among the young is dropping across the country, even as computing, gaming, cable TV and other media use rises.
Unhappy, alienated, isolated kids are legion in schools, voiceless in media, education and politics. But theirs are the most important voices of all in understanding what happened and perhaps even how to keep it from happening again.
I referred some of my e-mailers to peacefire.org, a children's rights website, for help in dealing with blocking and filtering software. I sent others to freedomforum.org (the website Free!) for help with censorship and free speech issues, and to geek websites, especially some on ICQ.com where kids can talk freely.
I've chosen some e-mailers to partially reprint here. Although almost all of these correspondents were willing to be publicly identified - some demanded it - I'm only using their online names, since some of their stories would put them in peril from parents, peers or school administrators.
From Jay in the Southeast:
"I stood up in a social studies class -the teacher wanted a discussion -- and said I could never kill anyone or condone anyone who did kill anyone. But that I could, on some level, understand these kids in Colorado, the killers. Because day after day, slight after slight, exclusion after exclusion, you can learn how to hate, and that hatred grows and takes you over sometimes, especially when you come to see that you're hated only because you're smart and different, or sometimes even because you are online a lot, which is still so uncool to many kids?
After the class, I was called to the principal's office and told that I had to agree to undergo five sessions of counseling or be expelled from school, as I had expressed ?sympathy? with the killers in Colorado, and the school had to be able to explain itself if I ?acted out?. In other words, for speaking freely, and to cover their ass, I was not only branded a weird geek, but a potential killer. That will sure help deal with violence in America."
From Jason in Pennsylvania: "The hate just eats you up, like the molten metal moving up Keanu Reeve's arm in the ?The Matrix.? That's what I thought of when I saw it. You lose track of what is real and what isn't. The worst people are the happiest and do the best, the best and smartest people are the most miserable and picked upon. The cruelty is unimaginable. If Dan Rather wants to know why those guys killed those people in Littleton, Colorado, tell him for me that the kids who run the school probably drove them crazy, bit by bit?.That doesn't mean all those kids deserved to die. But a lot of kids in America know why it happened, even if the people running schools don't."
From Andrew in Alaska: "To be honest, I sympathized much more with the shooters than the shootees. I am them. They are me. This is not to say I will end the lives of my classmates in a hail of bullets, but that their former situation bears a striking resemblance to my own. For the most part, the media are clueless. They're never experienced social rejection, or chosen non-conformity'Also, I would like to postulate that the kind of measures taken by school administration have a direct effect on school violence. School is generally an oppressive place; the parallels to fascist society are tantalizing. Following a school shooting, a week or two-week crackdown ensues, where students? constitutional rights are violated with impunity, at a greater rate than previous."
From Anika78 in suburban Chicago:
"I was stopped at the door of my high school because I was wearing a trenchcoat. I don't game, but I'm a geekchick, and I'm on the Web a lot. (I love geek guys, and there aren't many of us.) I was given a choice - go home and ditch the coat, or go to the principal. I refused to go home. I have never been a member of any group or trenchcoat mob or any hate thing, online or any other, so why should they tell me what coat to wear?
Two security guards took me into an office, called the school nurse, who was a female, and they ordered me to take my coat off. The nurse asked me to undress (privately) while the guards outside the door went through every inch of my coat. I wouldn't undress, and she didn't make me (I think she felt creepy about the whole thing).
Then I was called into the principal's office and he asked me if I was a member of any hate group, or any online group, or if I had ever played Doom or Quake. He mentioned some other games, but I don't remember them. I'm not a gamer, though my boyfriends have been. I lost it then. I thought I was going to be brave and defiant, but I just fell apart. I cried and cried. I think I hated that worse than anything."
FromZBird in New Jersey:
"Yeah, I've had some fantasies about taking out some of these jerks who run the school, have parties, get on teams, are adored by teachers, have all these friends. Sure. They hate me. Day by day, it's like they take pieces out of you, like a torture, one at a time. My school has 1,500 kids. I could never make a sports team. I have never been to a party. I sit with my friends at our own corner of the cafeteria. If we tried to join the other kids, they'd throw up or leave. And by now, I'd rather die.
Sometimes, I do feel a lot of real pure rage. And I feel better when I go online. Sometimes I think the games keep me from shooting anybody, not the other way around. Cause I can get even there, and I'm pretty powerful there. But I'd never do it. Something much deeper was wrong with these kids in Colorado. To shoot all those people? Make bombs? You have to be sick, and the question they should be asking isn't what games do they play, but how come all these high-paid administrators, parents, teachers and so-called professional people, how come none of them noticed how wacked they were? I mean, in the news it said they had guns all over their houses! They were planning this for a year. Maybe the reporters ought to ask how come nobody noticed this, instead of writing all these stupid stories about video games?"
From ES in New York:
High school favors people with a certain look and attitude - the adolescent equivalent of Aryans. They are the chosen ones, and they want to get rid of anyone who doesn't look and think the way they do. One of the things which makes this so infuriating is that the system favors shallow people. Anyone who took the time to think about things would realize that things like the prom, school spirit and who won the football game are utterly insignificant in the larger scheme of things.
So anyone with depth of thought is almost automatically excluded from the main high school social structure. It's like some horribly twisted form of Social Darwinism.
I would never, ever do anything at all like what was done in Colorado. I can't understand how anyone could. But I do understand the hatred of high school life which, I guess, prompted it.
From Dan in Boise, Idaho:
"Be careful! I wrote an article for my school paper. The advisor suggested we write about ?our feelings? about Colorado. My feelings -what I wrote -- were that society is blaming the wrong things. You can't blame screwed-up kids or the Net. These people don't know what they were talking about. How bout blaming a system that takes smart or weird kids and drives them crazy? How about understanding why these kids did what they did, cause in some crazy way, I feel something for them. For their victims, too, but for them. I thought it was a different point-of-view, but important. I was making a point. I mean, I'm not going to the prom.
You know what? The article was killed, and I got sent home with a letter to my parents. It wasn't an official suspension, but I can't go back until Tuesday. And it was made pretty clear to me that if I made any noise about it, it would be a suspension or worse. So this is how they are trying to figure out what happened in Colorado, I guess. By blaming a sub-culture and not thinking about their own roles, about how fucked-up school is. Now, I think the whole thing was a set-up, cause a couple of other kids are being questioned too, about what they wrote. They pretend to want to have a 'dialogue' but kids should be warned that what they really want to know is who's dangerous to them."
From a Slashdot reader: "Your column Friday was okay, but you and a lot of the Slashdot readers don't get it. You don't have the guts to stand up and say these games are not only not evil, they are great. They are good. They are challenging and stimulating. They help millions of kids who have nowhere else to go, because the whole world is set up to take care of different kinds of kids, kids who fit in, who do what they're told, who are popular. I've made more friends online on Gamespot.com than I have in three years of high school. I think about my characters and my competitions and battles all day.
Nothing I've been taught in school interests me as much. And believe me, the gamers who (try to) kill me online all day are a lot closer to me than the kids I go to high school with. I'm in my own world, for sure, but it's my choice and it's a world I love. Without it, I wouldn't have one... Last week, my father told me he had cancelled my ISP because he had asked me not to game so much and I still was. And when he saw the Colorado thing online, he said, he told my Mom that he felt one of these kids could be me'I am a resourceful geek, and I was back online before he got to bed that night. But I have to go underground now.
My guidance counselor, who wouldn't know a computer game from Playboy Bunny poster, told me was Dad was being a good parent, and here was a chance for me to re-invent myself, be more popular, to ?mainstream.? This whole Colorado thing, it's given them an excuse to do more of what started this trouble in the first place - to make individuals and different people feel like even bigger freaks."
From Jip in New England:
"Dear Mr. Katz. I am 10. My parents took my computer away today, because of what they saw on television. They told me they just couldn't be around enough to make sure that I'm doing the right things on the Internet. My Mom and Dad told me they didn't want to be standing at my funeral some day because of things I was doing that they didn't know about. I am at my best friend's house, and am pretty bummed, because things are boring now. I hope I'll get it back."
To hell with the public education system (Score:2)
And to hell with any smarmy politican that wants to save it, or entertain fantasies that it can be reformed. The whole notion is structurally flawed. Let's finally scrap it. Let's go completely to private schools.
For the underprivileged, there's parochial schools. Yes, I'm aware that catholic schools are really messed up places, but they're still not as bad as inner city public schools. Those borderline psychotic nuns are the lesser evil.
hang in there (Score:2)
there and fight the good fight. To people like
us, high school was the worst experience of our
lives. But from there on out, it gets easier
to find your own cliche and fit in in your own way. Just don't give up because it does get
better. And remember, five years later you'll
probably be earning twice as much as the jocks while they're still living with their parents.
Lack of Tolerence (Score:2)
found most disturbing about the media coverage
of this tragedy is the lack of examination
of the environment which cause those two
disturbed individuals to feel so ostracized
while the media looks for easier scapegoats.
Only salon.com and Cokie Roberts (on 20/20)
have pointed any blame at the cruelty of the
kids in the high school.
Marilyn Manson and video games are easy target
but unfortunately these types of feelings have
been going on for a long time. Just look at
other pop culture references which have been around for a while. The Boomtown Rats song
"I don't like Mondays", Julie Brown's "The
homecoming queen has got a gun", or the movie
Heathers which all show that these feeling are
nothing new.
When one looks at where these event have been
happening, it's appear to be smaller, more
conservative towns. While some are surprised at the violence in these "safe" communities, it
seems obvious to me that the homogeneous and
rigid nature of these place is at the root of
the problem.
I went to a large diverse high school in a major
city. Like all high school kids I struggled
with fitting in versus defining my own identity.
Feeling a bit like an outsider I always found
some solace in the fact that all the exterior
scenes from Heathers were shot at my junior
high school. However, in such a diverse
environment, there are some many groups that
you could never feel actively excluded by
EVERYONE. There was such a mix ethnicities,
socio-economic groups, and individuals.
In a smaller, less tolerant situation, with
fewer options and less tolerance, I can't
imagine how oppressive it must be. Persecuting
those who already feel oppressed and removing
their ability to express their feelings at best
is only going to gloss over the situation. At
worst, it will create an ever more oppressive
environment. The only way this is going to get
better is to create a more tolerance environment,
both in high school and in the society at large.
School sucks ... this is news? (Score:2)
But there is always another choice. You can coose to withdraw and focus your attentions on the teachers that care, the few subjects that you have passion about. Those rare lines of study that you didn't test at a post high school level for in 6th grade.
On some levels I feel amazingly lucky that I was able to find a large enough group of people at Boise High school that simply accepted. That was all we really wanted so we gave it to each other.
Oh my the rewards of being outside the outsiders. The most inane comments would receive scrutiny from the counselors. It must be luck, In two years we were scrutinized not by local law enforcement, but the FBI and the Secret Service.
Big brother stepped in to make sure we knew who really was in control. Did it really matter? I gave up the prestigious college. I run into those people every once in a while, their spirit broken, happy because they have found "success" but hollow because a part of them is missing.
Never stop searching for the answers. High school sucks, but that's the point. This is life at it's worst. It only gets better from there. Get together with some people and watch all the high school angst movies.
Gee can I spin some more cliches together for a feel good speech?
Seriously the American Educational system is the embodyment of one singular goal: conformity. We mass produce people with the same grinding industrial assembly line that we use to produce cars and computer chips. We even use the same terms. Non-conforming kids are "defective" and must be "corrected". People that excel at embracing conformity and celebrated.
This is a societal issue. It's also an issue of control. It is easier to control people that have given up questioning authority and the decision making process.
This all comes back to the siren call of the Internet for many of us: Acceptance. A group of peers. We can go into thousands of chat rooms and IRC channels and gaming servers and find people like ourselves. People who want to find the truth, who don't want to give up their freedoms. People who are willing to accept other people as unique human beings. Some better, some worse, but all people, human beings.
There aren't any pat answers or sources to blame. These are fundamental societal questions. I don't know what we can or should do. I just know that we have the collective intelligence around here to do more than bitch and I hope to see that happen.
chris
chris@pugrud.net
--
p.s. for the polls I do own several guns and I have a license to carry those guns in public. I do dearly hope that those guns are never used for anything but the target practice that I so enjoy.
If you want to maintain your rights and freedoms you must exercise them.
Why do people fear us geeks? (Score:2)
I, like most other people in America, did their time in High School. In my case,I 'literally' did my time - in jail. When I was a junior in HS, I skipped school where I was 'learning' how to play basketball, and went to the local Air Force Base and learned how to hack Unisys machines... Of course, the establishment didn't see it this way, and I went to Juvenile Detention - 4 times in fact. After a year of this, I was forced to go to a group home, where many of the other people there had long histories of sexual abuse and being abusers. So, I lived there until I graduated in 1991. Here I am up in my little room banging away on my Amiga, learning how to compile a compiler... I never will forgive my mother for this (My parents were divorced) - my father, thank god he is as geeky as I am...
Back in school, I'm learning about everything that I taught myself with a good set of encyclopedias when I was a kid. I taught myself to read when I was two. Everythin that I learned that I needed to know, I taught myself. Any of you ever learn about phreaking in high school? Any of you ever learn how to set up a BBS? How to program 3D tesselations in your mathematics classes? I don't think so.
I was one of those people that all the other people that was strange. I was a complete outcast. People thought I was going to kill others, or set the school on fire, or kidnap people and hold them hostage. Why? Because I looked different? Because I got good grades? I never caused anyone any trouble. Damn school psychologist `arranged' for me to be evaluated. I wish I would know was it is they found - No one ever told me (go figure). I'm not a deviant person. I've never hurt anybody else in my life. I've never attacked anyone, or abused anyone. I remember one time when I was in that group home that I refused to take the damn medications. Three hours later I was in the back of a police car on my way to the Juvenile Detention center yet again - BTW, I was over 18 now - big lawsuit here... Life has been so crappy...
When I got out on my own, first thing I did was shrug those drugs into the toilet. And then I moved away. The moving away was the best thing I ever did. I had no money for college, let alone food sometimes, but I saved it up...
I'm now 26, and I am so much happier now. My fiancee is in many ways like me, except in her case she was ostracized because she was involved with theatre. We have both been through these things, and all I can remember is that the whole time through all these evaluations, and drugs, and therapies, no one ever bothered to stop and think that maybe I was the healthy one. When you are a smart kid, I guess that also means that you are insane and evil and all you can think about is wanting to kill, kill, kill. Not me. When I would use my computer, and other computers, and when I would read, I would begin to understand. The pieces of our world suddendly fit together. I see the possibilities where everyone else thinks "so what?"
Everything I ever needed to know about life I learned from skipping school that junior year. I learned about people and how they are scared of the smart ones because we are different. I learned to stop living day-by-day and to step back and look at the whole picture and see the world for all its possibilities, not its differences and failures. My five year reunion was a few years ago, and nobody ever even cared enough to send a notice, let alone an invitation. One of my friends went, and from what he told me I should be damn thankful I didn't - after five years, nothing had changed other than we aged a bit. Something tells me that even in twenty-five more years things will still be the same... At least I can save on plane fare...
I never went to college. I got accepted at most of the major `technology' schools in North America. I never felt like I could. I'd spent 13 years of my life (K-12) on this school thing, and I never want to go back. Everytime I go to the local university and begin to register, I see so many people that do those same high school things like they did when I was in school that it scares me off.
I did at one point try to become like them. I bought the fancy expensive clothes, and went from being the computer nerd to the computer nerd with the expensive designer clothes. Made no difference. I was still ostracized. No girlfriends in my school for me. All the personal relationships I ever had came from those who were like me and understood. My fiancee now understands, but I don't know if she really does. All those years of hurt have affected me in many ways. I am a way-over-achiever now. But, I am misunderstood. That is the problem I would like to solve. I have never really been understood. Sometimes I feel like I don't belong in this world at all, but it is here, so I have to try. Sometimes that is all I have is to try.
Someday maybe the world will understand and accept that there are more of us geeks and nerds than they care to admit. Maybe the world needs a real wake up call - in some odd way maybe the Y2K problem will be our saving grace, so to speak. We could be the only ones with power, lights, heat, telephone, computer, etc... Only because there is an unquenchable desire to know all that is knowable, and to see a better world for all of us, not just the geeks and nerds...
You know, I have a lot of knowledge, and I know that all of the
Like I said at the beginning of this post, i'm sorry if I have offended anyone. But when I saw these posts, I realized that I needed to tell someone my story. I have never in my life felt so emotional in the ten years I have been on the Net about something in either a newsgroup or later, on a website...
Something has to change... I have always prayed that the geeks would inherit the Earth... Something tells me though, that it's not going to happen in my lifetime...
Thank you for you time - and for letting me dump on you. I feel so much better now.
moriarty@americamail.com
Some Free Advice. (Score:4)
Wow, pretty contradictory, eh?
The system is all around us in our culture. It is all about rules, controls, checks and balances. This system is implemented by the powers that be to keep things running smoothly. Powers fear change, and therefore need the system to ensure that everything runs according to the plan.
As an individualist, you have probably already dismissed the plan. You have probably already recognized it's shortcomings and weaknesses, whis is why you have chosen to branch off from it, rather than try to conform to the expected norm. I feel that this is a good thing, but you must realize that, because the powers fear change, they will resist you. They will try to force you into the system. They will become frustrated, and you will become angry. You wmay be branded as an "outsider" or "troublemaker". This is not a good thing.
You cannot simply go against the system. The system is like a fast moving river, and you are stranded somewhere along it. The current tries to push you in a certain direction. If you try to fight the current, you will lose the battle, and be swept away nonetheless. What you must learn to do is work the system, the current. No one is asking you to go where the stream pushes you, but by watching how the water flows, and observing and learning it's patterns and behviours, you can use the current to take you where you want to go.
As it is in the system. If you fight the system head-on, you will fall. It's not fair, but that's the way it works. What you need to do is look at how the rules of the system work, and learn to use, manipulate, and bend these rules to get you where you want to go. Don't reject the system outright, but rather use it's power to your own advantage. Don't let it change who you are, but rather find a way to make the system work with you.
You will need patience. The system doesn't always let you move where you want to immediately. You must learn that, if you move in the right way, at the right time, you can go where you want to through the system. Attaining a harmony with the system, but not letting it control you, is the path to success. Ever see The Matrix? Kinda like that, only without having to jab a probe through your brain.
So how do you make it through the system without becoming a drone? That's where the other point comes in: fuck it. No, I don't mean literally. You must also see that, despite the power of the system within mainstream society, it is not omnipresent. You must be able to "escape" the system every now and then. By reaching out and finding a peer group of people who are "on your level" and have also learned to see the system, you let yourself exist on an intrapersonal basis in an environment free of the rules of the system. The Internet is a great forum for this, as the deliberate environment of agreed anarchy precludes the intervention of the system. A warning though, don't let it become all-consuming. Don't let the Internet take the place of real intra-personal relationship, or the real-world skills that help you navigate the system will soon begin to decay.
Once I made this realization, life suddenly became so much easier for me. I am still learning the rules, but the more I know about the system, the more I can manipulate it to my own ends as a non-conformist. You'd be suprised how often the powers can look past your individualism so long as they can't detect a threat to the system.
In summary: The system is there. You can't stop it by fighting it. Don't give up your individualism. Learn how to work and use the system, and you will rise above it. Keep a few good friends, with whom you can relax outside of the system. Be yourself.
Of course, that's just my opinion, I could be wrong.
Adam Schumacher
cybershoe@mindless.com
Fight back; correctly (Score:5)
First, as regards those who are being mistreated in school as a result of this, the admininstrators are not your friends. Accept this. When you find this isn't true in the case of one individual or group of individuals (rare, but happens), treat them accordingly, but remember that they're there to make things run smoothly. If they can lower their workload by walking all over you, most will do it without hesitation. Expect it.
So what to do? You people are supposed to be smart. God or nature may not have given you beauty or strength, but one of the premises here is that you to have brains. Use them. The letters to Katz show several lawsuits waiting to happen. Be aware that you don't have to file them (I never did). Go to the library. Read the relevant areas of the Constitution. Find some court cases that set precedents that favor your position. When Joe Administrator tries to force you into counseling for speaking your mind, lay it on him calmly, coolly, and with confidence. He will turn tail and hide.
And if this doesn't work? Pick up a pen. "The pen is mightier than the sword" is an old cliche, but it's true. If you know how to use it. When my school implemented a draconian dress code (for no real reason that anyone could ascertain; the vice principal just decided to do it) I wrote a long editorial for the school newspaper. I pointed out the flaws in the reasons given for each specific rule. I did not call names. I did not use inflammatory language. I did use humor. I did cite legal angles. When the vice principal tried to kill the article, he was unsuccessful because he couldn't point to anything that was actually wrong with it other than it kind of made him look stupid. The dress code wasn't repealed as a result of this (it ain't a perfect world), but neither was it enforced. And if he had killed the article? First I would have offered to send it to the local paper along with an explanatory letter to the editor. This will usually work. If that hadn't worked, I would have gone ahead and sent them.
The point is, you need to do what the TCM didn't. Take responsibility for your life. If you can get help from your parents or a teacher do so, but if you can't (I usually didn't) don't just roll over. There is always a way to fight back. You'll have to work harder than you should have to to find it, and you'll lose some frustrating battles, but if you're smart (and you are, right?) and careful, you'll win most. It is worth it. And you'll find that you might not have to wait until you're out of high school to laugh at the people who are putting you down.
If you are a student reading this- DAMN straight! (Score:2)
Honest to God, when you quit taking High School and the whole High School perspective seriously, it gets better. There are whole areas of human experience (slashdotters of all people should know this already!) in which the high school In Crowd will always be _losers_.
Your popularity with the football team will never help you write a line of code. In FACT, it will not help you run a business worth a damn either if all you know to do is schmooze. In other words, know yourself, learn, and DITCH the high school values as quick as you can, or you'll be somebody's half-bright employee all your fscking life! I can't overemphasize this. Far from being the golden key to life and happiness, that whole high school in crowd thing is the biggest obstacle to success and fame you could ever have! Be _grateful_ that crowd are wasting their lives by complacently acting like royalty _now_ in a protected, artificial environment with Mom and Dad paying the bills. They, not the geek crowd, will be hurting in ten years, or singin' 'Glory Days' in dingy bars wondering what the hell happened.
'Nuff said.
Thanks for writing this (Score:3)
This is exactly the kind of thing that needs to be written about the Colorado massacres. I just think it's a bit of a shame that we can't get columns like this into all the paper media.
School can be hell. I think most of us know this on some level. I didn't go to school in America, I went to school in New Zealand and every day I experienced the same thing, the nasty comments, the abuse (both verbal and physical). I remember one day when four successive people walked past me and simply spat on me for no other reason than that I wasn't a conformist, I wasn't popular. I wasn't like them and what they don't understand they fear.
The administration of my school, Riccarton High, in Christchurch, New Zealand, did nothing to stop this. What can you do when one of the people who teases you is the pricipals son and one of the people who spits on you as they walk past is the Deans son? Nothing, because you are different and they simply don't care and won't take the time to understand.
The experiences I had a school almost made me leave, there were entire mothns when I didn't show up to shcool because I couldn't bear the thought of what would happen when I got there. I ended up in deep depression and in counselling for a couple of years after that.
My only satisfaction comes from the fact that now I'm 23 years old and earning more than most of my teachers and have a hell of a lot more prospect that most of my fellow pupils, they may have been half-decent atheletes but they'll get old and slow and fat and I'll be sitting behind my terminal making their porn connection work.
To everyone out there who is getting hell at school, bear with it. Let it flow past you and get on with your life. It will be the one of the hardest things you have to do but if you get through it and don't let them break you then you will win.
We are not misfits, we are not dorks, we certainly aren't idiots. We are Morlocks and we will be the ones who make their world work when our time comes around.
Not everyone is stupid (Score:2)
Not eveyone is so stupid as to beleive that by targeting video-games and goths we will prevent further tragedies.
I watched the first ten minutes of Meet the Press on Sunday morning while waiting for a ride. The US attorney-general Janet Reno was being interviewed about her take on the mess in Colorado. The transcript of this interview is availbile from MSNBC [msnbc.com]
Here is an illustrative quote from the interview:
She also answered some questions about metal detectors in schools, parental responsiblity, etc. in a similar fashion.
So, when you are looking for a good quote to back up your argument, you might just be able to snag one from the top law-enforcement officer in the federal govronment. And that can be handy.
--
Outcast (Score:3)
We do all have something in common, but we're not all the same.
I was a High-School outcast. I've often referred to that experience as "4 years of hell". I'm 31 now, and I've come to grips with what I went through, and why it happened. I dealt with it back then by kidding myself that I was smarter than them, better than them. Truth be told, I was at the exact 50th percentile in the class. Okay, I topped out all the standardized tests, and all the counsellors and teachers had these heart-to-hearts with me telling me how bright I am, how smart and talented I am, but really, I think at least some of that was a thin attempt to get me exited and involved in a world I had no interest in. Academics. So bottom line, I wasn't the "best and brightest" of my school, and now, 14 years later, I don't have the comfort of seeing all the jocks and preps working daddy's car dealership. (some of them)
But I eventually figured out, the problem was me. For some reason, even in the professional world, I just don't fit in. I'm just not very socially - fluent(?). I don't know what it is, but at least now, I don't carry a lot of angst over it, I just deal with it as best I can. At least here, in the professional world, the people I work with are grown-up about it, and the wolf-pack mentality that kept me excluded and ostracized from everything in High-School is no longer present.
I'm not as bad off as some of you. I've read about others in the "Why Kids Kill" column, some people have had counselling, drugs, and even "extended stays" at Arkham Assylum for the Criminally Insane.
I don't know how to solve my root problem, social ineptness. I know it's a problem that feeds on itself, because the more aware of it I am, the more nervous I get around people, and the worse I am. But I do know that being online, and conversing with others online - like-minded or not, helps a lot. I don't even know if THIS problem is what causes ALL kids to be excluded and ostracized. I know there are probably other factors (economics, parental "connections", acne, physical stature, and hobbies). But I DO know one thing: If I knew then, what I know now, I would DEFINATELY done many, many things different, and perhaps, I would be in a much better position in life now.
The main thing was, I couldn't see past age 18. When I was in High-School, I was so preoccupied with my misery, that I couldn't see my future at all. All I could see what I was missing out on. I think that this is a totally critical thing for kids going through this need to understand. That their situation is temporary, that the other kids are behaving the way they do because they're just kids. Most of them will grow up and stop being assholes. You can't wallow in self-pity like I did, because I ended up totally screwing up my life. And while things are going well for me now, at least financially, things could be MUCH MUCH better. (if only I had got good grades, and finished college, and not changed my major to art. ART?! What was I thinking? I don't know.)
I think about these kids and I see that at least they had a clique to be in, though some of the other TCMs say that these two were fringe members, that may be some defensive distancing. I did try sports, and I did play some sports, but I wasn't accepted by the "jocks". There were a couple of instances where I DID actually go postal, but I was unarmed, so I didn't end up in the news. Luckily for me, I had a big brother who used to tease me and beat the crap out of me, so at least I knew how to fight. Won some, lost some, luckily, never got in trouble over it. But I didn't fit in with the intellectual geeks, I didn't fit in with the stoners, I didn't even fit in with the theater kids. I was kind of a fringe member of all those groups (except the preps, that was an economic thing, pure and simple - mommy and daddy didn't buy me a BMW to drive to school). I wasn't even accepted by the D&D players. I did dabble in Paganism, I did have a gun, I did build bombs (take the Anarchist Cookbook with a grain of salt, some of it is just plain wrong), and I read Che Gueverra. I guess I'm just lucky I never decided to end it all and take some people with me.
(although - I wasn't ignored in a class of 400. I was voted "Most likely to blow up the world")
In the end, I didn't bear a grudge against any individual. I guess I still feel anger, but you know, life is what it is, and it's the way it is. You can try to change it, but it's not likely, and bottom line, at least I'm not some poor Rwandan kid, starving in the savanna, witness to his parents being hacked up by machettes in tribal violence. Kind of puts things in perspective.
And do I feel angry at how the press handles this shooting incident? You bet I do, but face it. These TV reporters and Politicians were all popular kids when they were in High-School. They have no idea, and can't possibly understand what we went through, and what you kids are going through now. And when they begin to understand, they HAVE to close their eyes to it. Can you imagine the guilt they must feel? (I do not feel sorry for them, but this is how I rationalize it).
So I welcome this "movement", of outcast kids on the internet. It's pretty crappy that this is turning into a witch-hunt, but I think maybe we'll all be a bit smarter from this experience, and maybe we'll all see what this can lead to, and maybe, the things that I've said can help some of you (and maybe some of those "sociologists and psychologists" out there will get a freakin' clue!). Maybe this gathering on the internet is something that can finally help this situation, something that wasn't possible before (I know I certainly had zero outlet for these thoughts and feelings when I was a kid - there was no internet back then. Not like today.)
So, for the kids who are getting their internet access cut off, I say, go to the library. Stay in touch with those who are going through the same things you are. I think it's the only way y'all are going to stay sane. (and by sane, I mean SANE, not "normal" or "conformist")
And please, stay away from this Nazi crap. That's just stupid. I'm not going to bad mouth Paganism (though I don't recommend it, it didn't get me anywhere, in terms of spiritual peace), This Nazi stuff is just plain stupid. It's SO 50 years ago. . .
Well, good luck.
Wow (Score:2)
I would be interested to hear from any UK posters whether this atmosphere has developed in schools there - it certainly didn't exist when I left school (12 years ago).
The only concillation one can give to those who have a hard time at school is that, although it may seem like the whole world now, as soon as you leave you'll realise how unimportant it all was and how pathetic those children who humilitated you really were. Small concillation, I know.
Nick
Yes; but then you'll turn 35 ... (Score:2)
FWIW, I am already over the 35 hill, at 37.
Frankly, if the U.S. educational system REWARDED smart students, there would be less need to import people like me -- many of the recent college grads I've encountered working here wouldn't even make the ENTRY requirements to a good Canadian Computer Science university program (though at my alma mater we had (small) riots for this reason).
You're doing that pigeonholing thing too... (Score:2)
cheerleader girlfriends be 20 years from now?
You're doing exactly the same thing that the media is doing: shoving everybody from one, general category, into a description that really, nobody will fit (c'mon...Al Bundy?
But like another poster said, many of the so-called bubbleheads *will* fit in and be incredibly businesspeople. Life is about relationships...even those killer kiddies out in kolorado had relationships (although they were a bit "different). Nerds have a sort of underground relationship with other nerds. Unfortunately, most people out there are not nerds. Most people *can* socialize. And those are the successful sales-people, upper level managers out there. Because they *can* deal with people.
In high school, I too was not in the *in* crowd. I went for sometimes days at a time without talking to people. I walked around at lunches by myself for lack of anything better to do and nobody to do it with. However, I never felt ill-will towards anybody. As long as you try to be "nice", helpful, and generally sociable when other people approach you, you won't be ostracized.
What I'm feeling is that the general trend here is that a lot of you nerds are feeling hatred towards those who oppressed you. This is natural. However, it probably isn't the best mentality to take, as it only contributes to the already profuse hatred out there.
You and I will never be understood fully by the real world (tm). Think of it more as "differences in philosophy of life", rather than as a competition, where one is necessarily better than another. That's the only way we can positively deal with our differences.
<tim><
Damn straight... (Score:5)
This system evolved to serve a purpose; by ruthlessly punishing difference, rewarding conformity and reinforcing an immutable status quo, it creates the preconditions of a modern industrial society; a population of predictable, conditioned worker/consumer drones, people who accept their place in the great machine of society and don't make trouble. The relatively small number of murders and suicides is well within the margin of acceptable loss.
Meanwhile, when the jocks and popular kids grow up, they take their places in the leader-caste of society; and while most of them are, by then, relatively decent individuals, they do not see that there is a problem. Hence, when a bunch of black-clad angstpuppies massacre some jocks and popular kids, the solution is obvious: sue the video-game companies, restrict the Internet. and ban aspects of outsider subcultures, such as black clothing.
And so, the invisible hand increases the pressure even further.
Sure wish we had a scapegoat... (Score:3)
It is far easier to run a school like a prison than to maintain a place of independent thought. Even teachers are kept on a leash. It is also easier to fault "deviant" lifestyles, like Goths, Geeks or Gamers, than to admit the utter failure of our school systems to engender social skills in our children. Is it possible that parents need to do this themselves? Please, mom and dad are already working two full time jobs.
In a fiercely capitalistic culture in which "greed is good", one's status increases by the number of people walked on. The outcasts deserved to be abused because they make the rest of us feel uncomfortable, right?
I saw VP Gore talking about how we need to reduce the amount of violence we expose our children to. He didn't mention NATO's "relief efforts" in Kosovo as one of those harmful influences. Clearly, real violence isn't as harmful to children as Doom.
What these Colorado kids lost wasn't their minds. It was hope. It's a shame what happened in Littleton. It's worse that our country won't learn squat from it.
Is it me or does anyone else see some parallels to the movie _Heathers_?
"What's your *damage*?"
The torture of high school (Score:3)
This is a human rights issue. I know many who had to drop out of high school because it was just too dangerous to continue in school, even though we lived in a famous suburban town (known for it's involvement in the revolutionary war -- how ironic). School administrators use the threat of being outcast and regularly assaulted in order to force mental obedience. Because of my experience I will never place my children (when I do have children) in public schools. I would rather homeschool or find a good private school than potentially subject my children to that environment.
Of course what those kids did was wrong. It pains me to know that they were pushed up against the wall and mentally twisted to the point where they murdered 13 others and then committed suicide. But the very fact that they planned suicide from the very start is telling: as far as they were concerned their lives were worthless because of the regular abuse they received. So they struck back by taking the lives of their tormenters. Kids who take enjoyment from dishing out abuse should take note of this event; they may reap what they sow in lead from their targets.
And yes, nearly fifteen years after my walk through high school hell I am still angry over how I was treated and how the school administration prevented me from living in a reasonable non-violent and non-abusive environment. So, while banning trenchcoats, video games, and access to the Internet won't stop kids from going on insane murder sprees, school faculty and administrators might consider providing a safe and reasonable environment to learn without danger; that just might bring peace back to our schools.
School can indeed be hell if you're different (Score:5)
As soon as I got to first grade, around 1963, the teacher heard the way I spoke and walked me down to the retarded children's classroom, where I stayed until my parents realized that my description of my classmates was a bit odd. No IQ tests or anything, she just dumped me in there. Once my parents found out, they tested my IQ (it was high) and put me back in the regular class, but the teacher resented it - she took every opportunity to tell me, in front of other students, that I was retarded and that I didn't belong in the class. This made me the school pariah until Junior High or so.
The problem with American schools is the awful pressure on students to conform, when they simply can not do so due to the misfortune of being bright, handicapped, or in some way unusual. The pressure to conform is the same sentiment that causes racism and religious intolerance - there's simply a different group being hated this time. It is enforced by the students but it must come from the instructors and parents - where else would the students be getting it?
Anger in our schools will be a problem until we can embrace our differences rather than try to iron them out.
Bruce Perens
Wow (Score:3)
Thankfully, I'm an adult and can't have my net access taken away by mommy and daddy. =)
--
Kyle R. Rose, MIT LCS
I have a kid...I'm really dreading this... (Score:5)
I was blessed. I got to go through public elementary school in a 1-day-a-week gifted student program. Wonderful implementation. Freedom of expression was foremost. Most of those kinds of programs have dried up. I'm wondering if my child is going to have any way of expressing himself when his time to go through high school comes around. I doubt it. Parents are so quick to put on the Jackboots, and squash individuality. Supress individuality and expressiveness long enough, and it will find its own way out--in short, harmful, and explosive bursts.
As a postscript, my wife and I have raised Foster Children before (and shortly after) our son was born. For children that are truly destructive, harmful, and uncontrollable there are lots of warning signs. In practice, they differ from expressiveness and individuality as much as a shovel from a bayonet. Only when expressed in the dry, clinicians language used for describing behaviour do the differences fade. "Flat, sharp, metallic, with a handle". It's this dry description that's going to be used to hunt down the individualists.
(We had a Foster Child committed to a home for a while because of this kind of desctuctive behaviour, with good results. It's possible to tell the difference, and necessary to act on them.)
I don't think the murderers fit the profile here (Score:5)
What the people can't accept is that the massacre was utterly meaningless. You have to consider a few things:
I just think they wanted attention; they wanted to do something superlative. When life is meaningless (and most surburban youth are upset at meaninglessness of bourgeouis life), there isn't anything else left. This doesn't look like the "suffering chilld being driven over the edge" thing to me.
They were obsessed with Hitler. Hitler was definitely superlative. I guess they could have done something great, but slaughtering a crowd of helpless people is a lot easier than self sacrifice.
Hellmouth indeed (Score:3)
I REALLY hated high school.
High school, the act of getting up every
fscking morning to walk through hallways of
laughing happy people, to get shoved around
by people I didn't even know, to get called
names for the way I dressed, spoke.
I had friends, very close friends, but we
were a tight group because of the oppression
and crap that got thrown at us every day.
I remember getting slammed into lockers every
day for two years, over and over, for being
a little different. I remember teachers,
especially Mr Gunn, the coke head that stared
down girl's shirts, simply turning away, knowing
what was going on, but not caring.
In my high school, you got kicked out for
throwing a punch, so defending yourself from
physical agression lead to suspension.
I don't support what the kids in Colorado did, I
think it's repugnant, but I understand how they
were driven to what they did. The parents, guidance
counselors and adminstrators don't have the balls,
or intelligence, or compassion, to prevent this sort
of thing from happening. Unless people, that is,
teenagers in our schools, somehow start treating
each other like valuable human beings, instead of
social doormats, this sort of slaughter is going to
continue as more of the discontent snap.
Unfortunately, that does not seem to be what is
happening. It seems that, so predictably, there is
yet another backlash against the geeks, freaks,
nonconformists and kids who don't fit in. "Be normal"
they will tell you, over and over, "Try to get along",
failing to realize that it's not you, but the savages
that are stepping on you that are not being well
behaved.
To all
in high school: good luck with the next few years,
my heart goes out to you. It should get better
afterwards, it might not seem like it now, but there
will be a time after school when you can look back
and think "How did I survive that?"
My story... (Score:3)
With my 10 year high school reunion coming up, I'd been thinking a lot about my teenage years a lot. Now with the shooting, I can't think of anything else.
I was always the weird kid. I completely sucked at any sort of sports - I was on the school softball team for a while in Grade 4, but quit after it conflicted with piano lessons. I am pretty near-sighted, so I've had glasses since I was 7 or 8. The school that I attended from kindergarten to grade 8 was living hell for me, especially in the later years (actually, the school shut down one year after I left due to the number of parents pulling their kids out). By that time, I had a shattered self-image and no self esteem. I got into some fights with other students, and began bullying other kids who happened to be just a little geekier than me.
Grade 9 saw a new school for me, with the number of students at least a full order of magnitude greater than the previous school. Here again, I was ostracized and bullied. Gym class was a special sort of nightmare - eventually, I just skipped class. I took the grade 10 computer class along with a number of other grade 9 geeks, but wound up crossing paths with one of the grade 10 jerks in the class. None of the teachers knew me, or seemed to care.
Grades 10 through 12 were at a private residential school in a small town about an hour away from my home city. The total enrollment in that school was about 115 students - the teachers knew each student by name. I believe that the three years at this school is what kept me from becoming a complete sociopath. It wasn't perfect - grade 10 was a bit of a rough transition, my roommate in the dorm that year was a complete psycho, and I threatened suicide twice - but I don't even want to think what would have happened to me back at my old school. The social structure among the students wasn't very rigid - you had your jocks and geeks, but they managed to get along fairly well (I sang in the school concert choir, along with most of the members of the basketball and volleyball teams). I made a number of lasting friendships from those years (and a couple of people that I hope don't show up at the reunion).
I'd say I turned out pretty good, but I wonder what would have happened to me today? In grade 12, I grew a beard and dressed in camouflage. I read "International Combat Arms" magazine. I played computer games (Autoduel and Beyond Wolfenstein were favorites). I loved violent movies (Aliens, Predator, and Platoon were among my personal collection). I listened to heavy metal. I had an UZI water pistol. A kid like that today would be in serious counseling and/or surveillance.
Life after high school has been pretty good. Got into BBS-ing in the early 90's (under the alias "Suburban Commando"), went to university, got into the Internet and earned my B. Sc. majoring in Computer Science, married a girl that I had met in high school, and I'm now the father of a 1-year-old girl. I've got a good job as network admin for a small company (even if it is an NT network), and I'm happy with my life. I don't wear camouflage any more, but I still listen to loud music, play games like Quake and Jedi Knight, and I drive my car a little too fast sometimes. But I survived high school, and I'm happy now.
This shooting has hit me pretty hard. I can understand what the two shooters were feeling - I'm not condoning their actions, but I think I understand their motives. Revenge is a powerful drive, pain and hate are powerful emotions, and it's pretty easy to let them override common sense. To everyone who is currently in high school, I just want to say "hang in there". It'll soon be over, and then you can get on with the rest of your life.
________________________
geekgirls (Score:2)
unfortunately, when the smart girls go through school, it can be worse than the guys. when I moved to a "conservative" school in MA, people made me miserable SPECIFICALLY because I am a girl who does not fit their shallow expectations. I'm quite glad I'm in college right now and missing the witchhunt...
at least college is better. and, being an engineer like I am, there are great people around me to hang out with. (and date
I'd like to extend my sympathies to all those who are getting persecuted by their parents or school officials... it will get better. my suggestion: go to a large school (I'm at Berkeley). there are sure to be great people in such a large, diverse group, and professors or whoever don't take the trouble to persecute anyone (there are enough around that they don't really care), but some will take a positive interest in you, if you talk to them.
Lea
What about other countries, why here? (Score:5)
In elementary school (in Canada), I was picked on by the other kids pretty badly. But when I got to high school, I didn't have any real problems, even though I was high-IQ, low-brawn, into computers, etc. The high school I went to in Canada had less restrictive policies than some American universities. You were expected to go to class, and if you failed to show up for a scheduled class more than once or twice, the school would call your parents and get you in trouble. But at lunch time, or before and after school, or during a period when you hadn't scheduled a class (what American students call a "study hall" - we called it a "spare"), you pretty much did whatever you wanted: Go sit in the cafeteria or the library, walk across the street to the nearby shopping center (which had a video arcade and a food court), what have you.
After a couple years of this, I moved to the U.S. and was thrown into an American high school. I showed up the first day with a walkman, like I'd worn to school every day for the last two years; it was immediately confiscated. We were not allowed to be in the halls during class without a signed note from a teacher; we were absolutely not permitted to leave school grounds during the day (except for seniors who, only if they had their own car, were conditionally permitted to go out to lunch, no more than two days a week). If we didn't schedule a class during a period, we had to go sit at a desk in a classroom, with a teacher sitting up front but not teaching anything--and we weren't allowed to _go to the bathroom_ without asking permission first.
After about a week in this environment, I realized, not without some horror, that these people were children and that I would have to spend the next two years being treated like one of them. The coursework was almost without exception pure memorization and repetition--in my case, it involved a heavy diet of American propaganda indoctrination ("civics") because this was the only graduation requirement that I hadn't already satisfied. Happily, the school I went to had a "gifted & talented" program and I managed to find a couple courses that were actually interesting--AP physics and calculus.
I also met my first geek when I went to the computer club. Now, there are undoubtedly geeks in Canada; I'm not trying to say there aren't. But these people bought into every negative stereotype about themselves. They didn't just like playing with computers; they defined themselves by _hating_ the good-looking kids. I didn't get this at first, and almost wound up ostracized by every group at the school including the geeks. But as it turned out I was a lot better at the computer stuff than all but a couple of them, which earned me some respect.
Then there was the racial tension. In gym class, the black kids and the white kids actually played on opposite sides of the gym. This was so far beyond my comprehension that I didn't even notice, and went and played on the wrong side. They whipped me into line pretty quick--and it wasn't just the students; the gym teacher took me aside and told me what the deal was--as if it had official approval!
In short--I've never been in a more hateful, useless, divisive, nasty place than an American high school, and I can state from experience that there's no inherent reason why it has to be that way. It may sound like I'm painting Canada as some land of milk and honey--but believe me, that's not what I think at all (otherwise why would I still live in the U.S.)--and I have no way of knowing what's happened to Canadian high schools in the last 15 years. But if Canadians rarely kill each other in their schools, maybe there are good reasons why.
I think that the heart of this problem is the notion of discipline in schools. As much as Americans talk about freedom and liberty, they sure aren't comfortable with it in practice. America can be (and is) one of the most oppressive nations in the developed world. Hell, any politician who doesn't have quite as many votes as he would like can run a "get tough on crime" campaign and win an election. And what's the effective difference between "get tough on crime" laws in America, and oppressive social policy in places like China and Saudi Arabia?
The typical American on the street is strongly in favor of, to name a few, state-sponsored execution; state-sponsored political assassination (of foreigners, never of Americans--but no qualms about foreign heads of state, Geneva conventions be damned); immediate death penalties for anyone even suspected of, say, selling drugs to children; economic "starvation warfare" against civilian populations; the sale of heavy arms to essentially crazy people (ie state militias); and God knows what else--I can't even go on.
And they want to blame violence in the schools on Quake and Doom? Please.
The penchant for extreme violence and extreme social oppression is built into the American psyche. You can't get away from it. The use of language, the mass entertainment, the political scene, the reality of many neighborhoods--you can't turn around twice without being confronted by violence. Hell, America was founded on violence; up to maybe four generations ago, a fairly typical way to get land to live on was to go drive off or kill the native people who lived there. There's the old joke about an American and a Canadian talking about guns: "Guns are necessary," says the American, "because without guns we couldn't have won the West from the Indians." Replies the Canadian: "Did you ever think of making friends with them?"
But even with all the violent tendencies in the world, it's very difficult to act on them if you don't have a gun. Guns are the basic problem. Gun advocates will quote the Constitution as if it were holy writ: I say, the Constitution be damned; the provision for well-armed militias was written when the worst thing you could carry was a wheel lock musket. Stop hiding behind the Constitution and tell us exactly how free access to guns helps build communities in our cities. A note to the clue-challenged: You can't. They don't. Wake up.
-Graham
On being an outsider (Score:2)
I had (and still have) some opinions that certainly didn't make me any friends back then, and probably won't make me too many friends in this forum either, but at least back then (early 90's) everyone was kind enough to pay lip service to "respecting my opinions". A few of those opinions, which I had no qualms about expressing in class, no doubt caught some administrators attentions; I'm not sure what kept them from acting, perhaps just because mind-control wasn't quite so widely accepted in public education six years ago, perhaps because they knew I wouldn't ever "keep quiet" if they pulled any of the crap some of these kids wrote about, perhaps because they also knew that if they sent such a letter to my folks some (figurative) heads would roll for it. (One advantage of having free-thinkers for parents...)
It could be fixed... but don't hold your breath (Score:3)
Administrators at every level between guidance counselor to President Clinton are asking "what can be done?" Yet they fail to understand that they are as much to blame as the TCM's parents. They fostered the environment where anyone who is not a superficial stuck-up bimbo or a dumb masochistic macho jock is an outcast, and ridiculed.
What can be done? Provide some socially acceptable environment other than battle.net for exceptional teens. Don't penalize them for being bored by the least common denominator curriculum you dole out in uniform, non-challenging parcels. Give them some advanced curriculum that interests them. Just pay attention to them fer christsake, instead of ignoring and berating them... instead of joining along with the kids you're supposed to be leading.
These are the people we need to drag this sorry ass culture from the depths of fossil fuel addiction. These are the future researchers who will find cures for aids and cancer. These are the future entrepreneurs who will raise this economy from of the ashes of depression when our paper tiger economy burns up. Wouldn't it be wise to nurture them instead of the future Anchor Bimbos, Housewives, Lumberworkers, and Linesmen?
Maybe it would be a start if we began to place a little more value on the teachers and administrators themselves. We don't exactly attract the best people to these jobs - I can count on one hand the number of teachers that actually taught me something. I acquired an education in spite of the rest. And the administrators... well, I won't repeat cliched jokes.
But consider - when your principal and dean were in high school, which group did they belong to? It's a self-perpetuating system...
Highschool is Hell, for everybody... (Score:2)
with apologies to Matt Groenig, but High school is Hell. Mine sure was!
To make matters worse I was going from French school to English school, in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, and even as a puny, four-foot tall kid, I got into way too many fights, until some kind soul took me aside and taught me how to swear properly in English. (Oh, and I grew a foot, put on sixty pounds of muscle and stopped pulling my punches...)
Kids are cruel, conformist, slaves-to-fashion and God help anyone who doesn't fit the mold. And you're never told what the mold-of-the-week is either. High school was a hemorhoid and I often dreamed of making the evening news: ANGRY YOUTH SLAYS 330+ NO SURVIVORS!
The diference is that in Canada, guns are a real pain-in-the-ass to get a hold of so I'm not currently doing a whole bunch of consecutive life terms. (Legalized murder, sorry capital punishment, not being de rigeur there either.)
Too many guns, too many hormones, to many stupid students who fake being too bright and you end up with shools with too many dead students.
Its sad, its sick and the Weapons Manufacturers clearly share in the blame. Weapons without concience have caused multiple tens of millions of deaths in this century. Until we learn how to make them not to act without cause, we'll keep the worms fed.
-Charles-A.
Yep. I sympathize with the TCM more and more... (Score:3)
Now, I'm not saying that the members of the TCM didn't have serious problems. I certainly think the whole "Hitler's birthday" thing was very odd. But I do sympathize with the reasons they feel the way they do (just not with the way they choose to express it).
On one hand, I think that the increased exposure of this problem may help. On the other, I hope that this backlash against free-thinkers in school doesn't make things worse. It is disgusting how school administration seems to beat down anyone who feels like the TCM did. They might as well call in the thought police and eliminate crimethinkers. Sheesh.
I am surprised that I didn't explode and spray automatic fire all over the schools I went to. (Everyone expected me to.) The reason I didn't was because I was brought up by good parents who took interest in what I was doing, rather then letting me make bombs in the garage. Take away good parenting and you will have a lot more kids who kill.
But that is just me.
Taking away computers? (Score:2)
Wish I was still in High School... (Score:3)
I was the "popular loner" in high school, a term that it took me years to create, but none to recognize. I was in all the "nerd classes" and I loved them, but even more importantly so were many of the "preps, jocks (shocking, huh?), and other popular people." I got lucky, as I was held with esteem by classmates for my intelligence. But then again, I didn't have a real girlfriend until I left high school. It is a stark dichotomy, and I imagine had I written my first poem this month rather than in '92, my english teacher would have sent me for counseling.
What hasn't been written is the other "escape plans" that students have available to them. My sophomore year, I was selected to attend the "Texas Governor's Honors Program" (btw if you're a TGHPer from '93 or later, send me a line at this email [mailto]) and it was a pure joy that changed my life forever. A year later, I left for college before graduation at a program held at the same school as TGHP called the Texas Academy for Leadership in the Humanities [anapraxis.cx]. (That link goes to our reunion planning page for those of you academy kids who run across it.)
Texas has two such programs, TAMS @ UNT and the Academy @ Lamar-Beaumont. It let me leave an atmosphere that was stifling to go to a program where I was not alone in my desire for REAL EDUCATION! Unfortunately, public schools don't promote these opportunities because they would lose federal aid if they did. The government gives money for attendance, that's why these programs are hard to find. They exist, probably in abundance, but they are hush-hush.
I urge anyone who is a high school student who is a geek, nerd, dork, or "popular loner" to investigate these types of programs. Invest in your future and your pleasure. And for those older geeks with kids, help them if they don't fit in. I know I'm preaching to the choir because I imagine that parents who love learning support their children, I know mine do.
Please for the sake of everyone, do the Right Thing and give these kids what they really need, and that is not counseling, it's respect.
Mike Ford
You're right! NOT! (Score:3)
You are missing the point here. As other people have said, the media has totally latched on to the wrong thing. This wasn't the actions of the whole little group, this was the actions of a couple (maybe few) totally messed up individuals.
If a Slashdot poster goes out tomorrow and guns down 10 people and the media gets a hold of the knowledge that he's a member of slashdot, what will happen? You better believe that everyone here would be shunned by the media. Not because we are all bad, but because we had one bad apple. The media would do the whole Slashdot = EVIL, geek = dangerous, smart people= bad people. Just like they have in CO. Look at some of the discussions here! Insults abound. Some people hate Katz, some people hate Star Wars, we generally say what we feel (and sometimes it isn't very pretty at all).
In the article above, people are being shunned and mentally evaluated for saying things like we say here every day. Now that is sick. And people here with no clue just say the whole group is bad, i don't feel sorry for them... You should. Because once people start losing freedoms for wearing a trench coat or listening to MManson or playing Doom or Quake, we've started on a long slippery road.
When you stop defending other people's freedoms, where are you going to be when they start restricting yours?
You're going to be up a certained un-named creek, because there are no free people left that want to defend your freedoms.
What about other countries, why here? (Score:2)
Violence happens up here all right; it's just knifings more often than shootings, as we have a scarcity of guns (thank goodness, IMO).
I survived elementary school and high school by making friends with the teachers. Most of them were nice people. I avoided elementary school recess by going to the office and helping with filing/checking purchase orders/etc. (which I find enjoyable and relaxing, twisted soul that I am O:)).
Wow (Score:3)
I would be interested to hear from any UK posters whether this atmosphere has developed in schools there - it certainly didn't exist when I left school (12 years ago)
Maybe you were just lucky? It was certainly there to some extent when I was at High School, and I left 13 years ago. I was fortunate in escaping most of the casual humiliation (never did figure out why, to be honest, but I suspect it's because that while a nerd, I didn't diverge too far from the norm in appearance) but still had a hellish time, largely due to a value system that strongly valued athletic achievement over scholastic. So, while I was a very good student (typically in the top two or three in the year right through high school) the fact that I couldn't kick a ball to save my life made me a 2nd class citizen behind those who could.
There were a number of inconsistencies in school policy that made it worse. The school streamed heavily, which generally meant that you ended up in a class with people of similar ability. Not so games class, where everyone was thrown in together in the name of "team spirit", and folk who tripped over their own feet like myself were expected to compete against people who, in some sports, played at a national level.
Needless to say this was seen as "payback time" by some ("hey, it's kick the nerd time!"), and the teachers encouraged rather than discouraged this (in most cases, I suspect, because they'd done this themselves when they were kids - sorry, but at my school the P.E. teachers did nothing to dispel the usual stereotype). Just to make it more fun, P.E. was the only subject that was compulsory right through all six years of high school - the only way I escaped this particular torment was a nervous breakdown and suicide attempt at 16 after I couldn't take the combined taunting and verbal abuse of kids and teacher. Thereafter, while my grades stayed good, life became increasingly unpleasant as I was passed over and to some extent ostracized by the school itself - the P.E. department had a lot of influence in the running of the school, and anyone the P.E. department didn't like (I heard through a teacher that the department considered me "unstable and unsuitable for positions of responsibility" because of what happened) got ignored. Cue standard teen "school razed to ground" fantasies (although I'd like to stress that while the physical structure of the school was oft reduced to rubble in my dreams, I didn't harbour similar feelings regarding my fellow students - the worst offenders tended to drop out at 16, and the teacher who'd induced my breakdown seemed to undergo a change in attitude after realizing that his little games had caused a student to try to kill himself)
This sort of thing coloured my entire experience of high school - you'd think that a "good student" would miss leaving, but on the day I left I (quite literally) jumped for joy as I passed through the gate for the final time, and I've never had anything to do with the place again, and never will. Bitter? Twisted? You bet! In fact, it was an "I'll show them" mentality that propelled me through the last two years of high school, directing my bitterness and resentment into work to make the disparity between recognition and achievement all the clearer.
To those who're going through it now, I know it's no real compensation to know that it'll end eventually when it's hell on earth right now. All I can say is to try holding on and putting up with it as long as you can, and when you make it to the end, the reward is worth it. My experience at university couldn't have been more different, and while the smarts that were so undervalued then are of use to me daily in my work, I can safely say that my inability to kick, hit or catch a ball hasn't proved relevant in real life.
An appalling search for "solutions" that aren't. (Score:3)
Second, I'm appalled to hear that this tragic incident in Colorado has, apparently, led to more, not less, marginalizing and ostracizing of today's misfits
The bad news is that this tragedy has got the talking heads jumping on all the wrong "solutions" in the hope of appearing concerned and serious (rather than merely exploitative). Ban guns. No, make teachers wear them. Ban trench coats. Ban Quake. Run Net Nanny. Throw the misfits into counseling. Throw the misfits out of school. Throw the misfits in jail, just in case. See, if you're a misfit
The good news -- as Bill Maher pointed out [go.com] the other night -- is that high school is not the map of adult life that many believe it to be. The jocks will end up selling cars, and the geeks will end up building the systems that run the robots that make the cars. Bill Gates. Linus Torvalds. John Carmack. Thresh. There's life out there, kids.
If only all geeks, nerds, and misfits knew this simple truth: for too many people, high school is the high point of their entire lives. How sad!
Conformity is not the answer. Why join the masses in their hagiographic awe of the vapid period that is high school? But we need to work on treating depression and isolation in our young people. It would be neat if this incident led to all the halfwit jerks in high schools across our great land realizing what their harassment has done and stopping it
If only I'd known that life would get better! If only I'd known how insecure my tormentors were! If only I'd known how to build my own self-esteem through personal challenge and risk-taking! Instead, I struggled with inner pain for another twenty years. I can never get back those lost days. But maybe, maybe we can keep some other kids from ending their lives, or from becoming killers.
Littleton II: The Overreaction (Score:2)
Remember the movie _Die Hard_, where Alan Rickman has every move the authorities make plotted out to three decimal places? That's what this society is like. I'd like a volunteer from the audience: Someone who is surprised that the Littleton tragedy resulted in massive scapegoating. Hello? Anyone?
The problem is, our society loves to take the easy way out. Right-thinking is SOOOO much easier than thinking! Looking for any place to lay the blame rather than taking responsibility is so deeply engrained in American society, it makes me sick. I'm sure it's not healthy for me to have such low opinions of my fellow Americans, but I can't help it. It's all because my mom fed me homemade yogurt when I was young.
It's not that simple, of course. You can make a bunch of individually brilliant people into a committee, and that committee will come up with the most asinine ideas you ever heard of. Society is like that too, and when kids enter the equation, all rationality flies out the window. Hey, at least their heart is in the right place. But that's no excuse for throwing out the baby (and the Constitution) with the bathwater.
So this time, let's not let it be like every school shooting in the past. Let's not let society write off all the other victims, the ones who weren't shot, or even at the same school.
Jon Katz, please be our spokesman! Send your stories to every "conventional" media outlet you can and keep at the until they acknowledge in print and in prime-time that innocent kids are being victimized and violated McCarthy-style (or KKK-style, not that there's much difference) by the people who are being the most self-righteous about Littleton.
Don't let our "leaders" off the hook! Force them to recognize their own culpability, their own hypocrisy, and their responsibility. Make them change their ways!
Readers, you can do this too. Okay, the trick is to speak your mind without getting thrown in the clink (or out of school). Start with your friends. Engage them in an intellectual/philosophical discourse about how society is letting its kids down, about how innocent kids are getting hurt in the authoritarian "crossfire", and what should be done to correct matters.
Once you have a watertight argument, try it on some "adults", like your parents. If you can convince them, or at least make a case that they can't shoot holes in, then you're ready to write letters to the editor of the newspaper and TV stations, and finally, that most unreasonable body of all, the School Board!
Can I guarantee that you'll have any success? Can I assure you that you won't get kicked out of school? Of course not! Free advice is worth what you pay for it. Have I ever done anything like this myself? No! I'm a coward. Well, I have been published in letters to the editor, but never mind that. My point is, if you don't like the way things are headed, start doing something _constructive_ to change it! And that starts with making yourself heard and respected. You can gain respect by making your statements intelligent, well thought out, and well supported.
Sheesh, did I just write all that? What gives me the right to suck up your bandwidth like that? Who is this guy, anyway? Who cares? Does my message move you? I hope it does.
Probably an unpopular opinion... (Score:2)
However, I am also noticing a superior tone in some of these posts - especially Katz's. The
I understand where the mainstream is coming from - they see the 'oddballs' as dangerous, because they don't understand them, and the oddballs are usually smarter than them.
But some nerds, both here and people I meet in person, seem to see mainstream activities - especially sports - as indicators of shallowness.
I often find myself in the middle. I am a nerd, but I also play sports. I have been programming since 4th grade, and have been in accelerated classes since 1st. I have a whole group of friends that fits the "trenchcoat mafia" description. My interests fit the nerd profile too - I HATE school material, even though I do well at it, and I spend a lot of time online.
But I am also kindof a jock. I often wear a letter jacket with 12 pins on it and I have a group of friends from the wrestling team. The thing is, these two groups of friends wouldn't like each other AT ALL if they met, and I can get along fine with both. I get just as much of a rush from sports as from anything else - it's fun working out, motivating each other, getting in shape, kicking some ass on game day, or just going and yelling for your school. I'm not into the self-punishment kind of lifestyle. Why pick one when you can have it both ways?
And by the way, the killers did not really belong to that clique - just a vague association. They were not in the yearbook photo or the list of names, they did not sit at the same lunch table, and they did not wear trenchcoats, except on the day of the shooting to hide their guns- they wore nazi stuff. And they were actually austrialian dusters. The trenchcoat mafia group really got screwed by this thing. The kids that did it were loners among loners.
Basically I'm preaching a message of TOLERANCE here - from both ends. This shooting that happened five miles or so away has increased the rift between cliques in this school (and many others I imagine) by a lot.
But boy, I can definately feel for most of you guys when schools take the kinds of action they do. Grrr... it makes me SO MAD when administrators just don't get it.
Wow (Score:2)
I went to school in England, and suffered much of what I am reading about now. I loved the sciences and loved learning while most of my class-mates did not; Was I a target? Hell, I may as well have painted a bullseye on my head! I can still think back to the seven years I spent at that school and shudder.
For anybody currently going through this sort of torment, I would like to add this:
My college years were the best of my life. I met many wonderful people whom I remain in contact with to this day. I had a fantastic time learning about subjects that I found fascinating, without the hinderance of having a group of morons surrounding me trying to look cool. I have a great job, and a loving fiance.
No matter how far away the light at the end of the tunnel seems, don't give the journey up. You'll become a better and stronger person than ANY of your tormentors will ever be. Life WILL get so much better for you. It's yours for the taking.
The tyranny of the majority, a rant. (Score:5)
In high schools across the country, students are ritually ostracized, ignored and avoided by their peers, supposed mentors and potential friends, because they dress differently, they listen to different music or they have the wrong color skin. This is not news.
The Slashdot community (can I call us that?) is in a bit of an uproar, because "Hey, those guys over there in Colorado, that's us... or could be if we lost it... not saying that we'd blow people up or anything, but jesus, it'd be nice to get some revenge on these jerks who've been mercilessly picking on me since they developed muscles and I learned to code." Not that slashdotters would actually go out and do anything violent. We've got better things to do. Like watch freshmeat update. Or daytrade. But still, we can understand.
So teachers get worried. Because, after all, many of their middle school students are already more intelligent than they are. Not in all cases certainly, but after all, those who can, do, those who can't teach, right? Obviously overgeneralized, but you get the picture. When you have to send your eigth grade student over to the local college to get math tutoring, you have to worry that maybe the kid, without guidance, will be a bit of a danger. Because it's not a far jump from learning math to learning physics to learning chemistry to making bombs. Especially with such easy access to violent images in the media, not to mention the sex and violence they learn in Sunday school from the bible.
So teachers run scared of their students, who can, in many cases, out-think them, certainly outnumber them and with a bit of weaponry, could destroy them. Small wonder that that they trample students civil rights in the name of protecting themselves and other students. Small wonder that they pawn intelligent students off on psychiatrists, guidance counselors and the schools principal (Remember, the principal should be your pal... or treat him like a member of your family... an older brother...) when any student shows promise, or interest in something not specifically in the curriculum.
A fascination with war could be interpreted in two ways: if the kid is a jock, he's a West Point cadet, if he's abnormally intelligent, he's Oppenheimer, pursuing a "sweet technology" at the Trinity site.
How do you balance your fear of those who are more able than you with your duty to them as a teacher? Here's a thought: punish students who pick on other students, instead of ordering the students who get picked on to go to counseling.
You want solutions: don't turn to parents, who have turned absentee-landlord. Maybe it's time to up teachers salaries, so we can get teachers that are more able to cope with gifted and ostracized students. Perhaps looking to a President nicknamed "Bubba" is the wrong thing to do when dealing with the rights of the oppressed? Maybe it's time for corporations to send their techies out to do some one on one, or one on groups with gifted students? Show them that at the end of the tunnel is a paycheck, if not a light. Maybe it's time to stop handwringing and ask the "misfits" what it is exactly we'd like, why we hate four years of life and how we could make it better. Because you certainly won't see teachers reproaching the football team for locking the chess club in lockers and setting fire to the swim teams clothing. But you will be sent home for wearing a trenchcoat.
Because many of us can understand the hatred that wells up in the pit of the stomache when the opposite sex laughs at your advances, the media gives you no voice and your peers and mentors all view you askance because you have been cursed with intelligence, or view the world slightly differently, or have acne, or god forbid, are of a race not the majority. Those of us who have made it through the gauntlet of high school, getting marginalized, ignored and offended, could take some of these marginalized kids, and help them.
scapegoat. (Score:3)
america today is ripe with hypocrites. we have politicians who make big deals over other peoples affairs, when they've done the same themselves. we have people who under no circumstance should be allowed to raise kids raising them (or letting tv do so). after they've made a mess of their kids and the kids do something stupid, it's the media's fault. i'm so sick of people blaiming the media. GET IT THROUGH YOUR HEADS. IT'S BAD PARENTING, NOT THE MEDIA THAT IS TURNING YOUR KIDS INTO KILLERS.
I want to know how 2 sets of parents didn't notice their sons stockpiling weapons for a year. that's a dilly for you america.
so now the counsellors and school officials want to pick up the slack. great. last group you want to do that. they deal with so many kids, they cannot possibly know them all. so now were dealing with the results of their knee-jerk reaction to this all. trying to find their own trenchcoat mafiosos.
i know if any of those things in the article happened to me in school, my parents would have been at the school in 5 minutes to give the school official the third degree. they might have even brought a lawyer. that's what you're kids from the article need to do. the officials at their schools need a whack with a clue-by-four. just bring the lawyer and make it legal.
Remember: The best revenge is living well. (Score:2)
As someone else mentioned above, HIGH SCHOOL IS NOT THE REAL WORLD, DON'T TAKE IT TOO SERIOUSLY. And it's only temporary. After that, the geeks who were outcast by the average majority in high school will go on to thrive in college and beyond.
There's a saying, "the best revenge is living well". There's certainly truth to it.
Fraternities don't ALL suck... :) (Score:2)
Just wanted to comment about fraternities and sororities. I'm a brother of the Lambda Chi Alpha fraternity at The George Washington University. In my experience, a few fraternities on this campus are the conformist cliques you described. But, in this respect, the non-Greek students are worse than the Greeks are!
I'm about as individual as it gets -- I'm a typical MIS geek. Our chapter prides itself on having a diverse group of individuals. I've gained far more out of the fraternity than I ever expected: leadership opportunities, a social outlet (as a typical MIS geek, social settings never used to be my strong suit), and most importantly, long-lasting friendships. The freshmen at this school are far more judgmental than anyone in my fraternity. I quickly realized that I had little in common with them, and luckily found the friendships in my fraternity just at the right time. Also, our chapter truly has no hazing, forced drinking (I still don't drink at all), or any of your other stereotypical frat images.
We shouldn't stereotype ANY groups as being "cliqueish," because it's the same thing as stereotyping juveniles as "prone to violence." Similarly, it does us no good to blame the "jocks" for the Littleton incident. The blame should go to anyone who treated them as an outcast. To do otherwise simply increases prejudice and stereotypes against the groups we happen to dislike.
Any LCA brothers on here? Drop me a message.
In ZAX,
Ryan
My own story. A littleton response. (Score:5)
I am 22, and since the age of 4 I've been a Geek. All through grade school I was considered a thug because of the people I hung out with people who
liked to think, rationalize things, and for that I was an outcast along with them. I developed a horrible temper, and was sent to the principal on
a regular basis because I wouldn't take the insults. And this was just 4th and 5th grade.
Then came middle school, I saw the anger I had, which was the same anger my father had, was killing him, and would kill me too if I didn't
try and control it. It took months of work on my self to bring myself to a level where the insults and ridicule wouldn't trigger the rage against people who saw me as a freak because I like chemistry, math, computers, and Star Wars.
But this if ofcourse didn't stop anything. In fact, it only made it worse because now I would "take it". In the 7th grade it got to the point
where I had to switch schools. My father had divorced my mother and moved to the suburbs. I can't describe the nightmare of that year.
In a world where you had to be a jock, or cheerleader in order to not be slammed as a nerd, it was straight out of the movie "Disturbing Behavior". I was supposed to go to the local highschool after that, but I moved back with my mother in the city, where there was at least
more people who thought on my same level. I would of rather died then stayed in the suburb where I was. They threaten to take me back, I threatened
to run away, never to return, and showed them the bus ticket to prove it.
Ah yes. High school. The most patheticly egotistic and superficial institution I know of. My freshman year was just as bad as 8th grade, only at least here I had a group of fellow geeks to lean on. Nerd, Geek, Dork, you name it I was called it. That was until an honest accident in high-school.
I was mixing two chemicals to study air pressure in a contained blast, for a science project, the teacher knew about it. I forgot that the vent fan wasn't on so it was basicly a big contained
box. I blew up the chemical shield that the compound was contained in. In a full class of 40 kids, the room was cleared in 10 seconds. They refused to come back in with me in the room. I was given a suspension, and was told that if anyone wanted a bomb from me, I was to report them immediately.
After this I was never ever bothered again. The people who once thought of me as a freak, thought of me as now a dangerous people who could snap
at anytime. They left me alone, and my friends and I who knew that I wouldn't hurt anyone, laughed, and were also saddened that it took an accident and the fear of me the "Crazy bomb making psycho" to finally make the cruelty stop.
My sophmore year I met my wife, online, and she supported my "crazyness" my irrational "curiosity" and now I'm a programmer and system administrator
at the midwests largest private ISP.
What the Littleton kids did was horrible. But not surprizing. My hearts go out to the families of the people who died. But we need to look at the
social struture of our schools. They can be segregated and twisted environments, which lead to twisted individuals who no longer see the value in life. Individuals who won't control the rage, and have no support system to vent it.
And then you have Littleton.
To those in school who see this situation as their own, you have to take heart. With places like Slashdot, you have a vent. You have a culture that accepts you are on the net. Life gets much better
after high-school. Find people who you share the
same ideas with, and who you can be creative with.
Don't get isolated. Find your kind. They ARE out there. The net makes it much easier for us to find eachother. And when the Jocks the people who find our curiosity dangerous and offensive are 30 years old with beer guts, watching re-runs of "All in the Family" wondering why the NFL hasn't called, you can laugh from your leather chair in your office knowing that for all your suffering, it paid off.
School can indeed be hell if you're different (Score:2)
There are some teachers who are just as much bullies as the worst bullies in the student population. Unfortunately the teaching profession doesn't seem to have a way to screen them out.
I went through some of the same stuff; my second grade teacher seemed to resent me greatly though I'm not sure why. I was already reading at a 9th grade level, but she put me in the lowest reading group, and wouldn't allow me to work ahead. I was punished for reading independently.
In fourth grade, when I was nine, it was even worse -- we had a teacher who, two weeks into the quarter, split the classroom into a "good side" and a "bad side" and assigned us to the sides based on his perceptions of our behavior in the first couple of weeks.
One of the kids on the bad side wasn't bad at all; just quiet and artistic. He got in trouble because his handwriting (which was beautiful) was faint and light, and a bit hard to read because of it. That alone got him assigned to the bad side, and the teacher constantly kept after school, yelling at him to press harder when writing.
Other things this teacher did were just as twisted. He threw chalk at a student who couldn't get the right answer to a question, and hit him directly in the eye. He told us we couldn't have art class (he was the art teacher for all the fourth graders in the school) because we were bad kids who didn't deserve it. In December, he put me out on the porch (our class was in a portable building) for some transgression, and locked the door from the inside. I wasn't allowed to take my coat. It didn't take long before I was freezing and knocking on the door, but he wouldn't let me back in the room. I was scared to go in the main school building because I knew I would get in trouble. But finally I went to the principal's office and told them what happened, and they called my mom because I wouldn't go back to class. I think that may have been the day that my mom pulled me out of school. I stayed out of school for about three weeks until I could start at another school.
During that fall semester I was having horrible stomach pains every school day. I dreaded going to school. I would cry and scream, begging my mom not to make me go. She took me to a doctor who said "If you don't get her out of that school she will get an ulcer." I couldn't just change teachers, because all fourth-grade classes spent at least a little bit of time every day with the bad teacher.
We ended up requesting a transfer to another school. In the pre-busing days, this meant we had to have a doctor's statement, and a sponsor on the School Board. Four of us ended up transferring to various schools around town, and the teacher -- who should have at least been put on leave for the rest of the year -- continued teaching. His defense? He said he was having family problems that made him a little crazy. And he was the vice-principal, and had tons of seniority.
Anyway, when I went to the next school, the teachers were a little better but the students were far worse -- that was the school where I was beat up and otherwise abused on a regular basis. Out of the frying pan, right into the yawning pit of hellfire, as it were. But I posted about that in "Kids That Kill" the other day, and I won't go into it here.
I think that bullying teachers can be even more damaging than bullying kids -- they are the authority figures, after all. If you can't go to the teacher for help, especially at an age like 7 or 9... well... that's a really frightening place for a child.
I'd honestly like to see a no tolerance policy for school bullying. I don't know if it's possible or how it would work, but whether the bullying are students or teachers, it must be made clear that we don't accept that behavior in schools. There are far too many teachers, parents, and administrators who are willing to call the bullying a normal part of growing up and just pat the bullies on the head with a minor punishment, if any. We cannot and should not tolerate this.
What can we do about it?
Damn straight... (Score:2)
I've learned one thing from growing up, though Swedish schools are better, kid's can be cruel regardless of gender/race/nationality. And sadly many of these kids only understand naked force.
I'm not suggesting that you teach your kid to maim others. Anyone who has trained martial arts know that it's very soothing for your personality and is good for many mental activities as well.
Personally I've never been very interested in sports, martial arts is much more about "personal advancement" than most sports. Which appeals to me. If the kid is interested (perhaps he should get a little older.) then Judo or similar is a good one get into. It's really extremely defensive if you (or SO) have problems with "teaching your kid to fight". I'm no expert on the subject though. However I bet many
//Marcus Hast, Lund, Sweden
Strange Reversal (Score:2)
One interesting note about the reaction to the shootings is how few among the media seem able to understand how anybody could hate high school.
If you think about it, the reasons are pretty obvious. Your average TV reporter is likely the type of person who was popular in high school.
Many studies have been done that show that when people are applying for jobs, better looking candidates are more likely to be hired than technically superior, but not as good looking competitors. This applies to jobs where appearance is not relevant to the job in any way (back-office, techs, etc.). It applies more when customer interaction and charisma plays a part of the job (sales, reception). And of course it plays a very big role when appearance is central to the job (acting, modelling, and of course TV reporting).
So should be no big surprise if your average TV anchorperson loved high school.
It has often been the case that the popular people in high school become the leaders of society. This is not through any particular skill, other than people skills, but rather from charisma, contacts, and good looks.
An interesting supporting statistic is the average height of US presidents. On average they are giants. It isn't the only reason they're hired, but this imposing presence is something people find attractive when choosing someone to lead them.
The interesting thing is that this power structure seems to be shifting. Since the early 1990s there has been a shortage of skilled computer professionals. This is one field where looks matter less than competence. There has always been a need for technically competent people. But that hasn't always translated into power. Now, the combination of omnipresent technology, an extremely fast-moving technological environment and a communications medium to tie these people into a sense of community has started to give "geeks" true power.
It used to be that successful chief executives didn't need to really understand technology as long as someone beneath them did. These days things are changing. The CEO of IBM can't run the company like it sells typewriters anymore.
Since the very things that make someone an outcast in high school are the very things that tend to make a good geek, how long will it be before high-school changes to accomodate this new world?
Reality Check (Score:5)
If your parents abuse you, Child Protective or Social Services steps in. If your co-workers harass you at work, The Law protects you. If some stranger harasses you, there are restraining orders, and stalking laws, and such, to use as a remedy.
But if your classmates treat you in a manner that is not acceptable in _any other facet of society_, it is called "part of the growing up process," or "all part of high school." I have never again seen the callous viciousness that permeated high school.
I do not, in any way, condone or sympathize with any violent actions. I do not condone, nor understand racism (especially because I am of mixed race).
But this national search for scapegoats must end. If the Internet and violent games cause behaviour like what has surfaced in Colorado, then how do we explain the actions of Ted Bundy and Ed Gein, whose killing sprees were far, far more sinister?
Conspiracy nut? (Score:3)
people "before" they act.
About school uniforms.
My son wears uniforms to school.
His school has taken the lead in
arrests. How many of you knew
anybody that got arrested in the 7th
and 8th grade? I didn't.
If you are a student reading this (Score:5)
The talents and values which are rewarded in high school have NOTHING to do with the real world.
HIGH SCHOOL IS NOT THE REAL WORLD!
I get up every morning to go to my over-paying job GLAD that I made it through without killing myself. Eveyone I know who is happy as an adult HATED high school.
HIGH SCHOOL IS NOT THE REAL WORLD!
If you're an outcast in high school, it's probably because you have values more meaningful than sneaking beer and attending pep rallies. I'm sorry it sucks, we "adults" aren't doing a very good job making it better.
People used to tell me it gets better after you get out. They were wrong. It gets fscking GREAT after you get out.
I can't imagine why adults are fascinated with high school. Every day I put between that place and myself is an improvement.
HIGH SCHOOL IS NOT THE REAL WORLD! DON'T TAKE IT TOO SERIOUSLY!
Hope this helps.
Today, I was assaulted. (Score:3)
I'm just going to tell you a quick story about my first day back in school after my April Vacation. I dress weird, you can say I'm a freak, or just weird. This [gis.net] is what I look like just about everyday at school. Because of this, I was assaulted. For many many years since about fifth grade, i've been the object of ridicule because i'm very defenseless. I'm now a junior in high school, everyday I get made fun of or joked about. I've got the reputation in my class for the mostly likely student to bring a gun to school and kill people. This is very untrue, I wish to harm no one. In fact i'm a real peacefull guy. I just don't get treated as a human being. Since i've been through all this ridicule i've learned to ignore it. (BTW in my picture, i'd like to explain that i have a very serious "ANTI-TREND" deal going on. I hate dressing like anyone else because $50+ for a pair of pants that has the name "Tommy" on my ass just isn't worth it.)
Anyways here's what happened today. A fellow student noticed me standing in the doorway of an empty room, he began shouting at me saying stuff like "Hey! Here's that psycho kid!" and "He's in the trench coat mafia, watch out he has a gun." I know he was just messing around with me, but it was just getting ugly at that point. I told him to back off and he began to grow violent with me. It all went off when he first spat right in my face. I stood my ground and didn't flintch, I grew angry myself at that point. He then demanded that i appologize for being disrespectful to him. Just right there, that's BULLSHIT! One of the most disrespectfull thing one can do is spit in another mans face. Yet I still stood my ground.... After a few more mins of him taunting me, I was fed up and told him to "Leave me the hell alone." Being the punk he was, he quickly threw his hand to my throat and began choking me. I could tell he wasn't 100% serious about choking me to death because I was still able to breathe through my nose. After about 4 seconds of this I immediatly ripped his hand off my throat and once again told him to leave me the hell alone. I guess he grew tired of me and so he left. Before leaving the room he walked over to me and punched me in the side of my throat/neck area. I was very lucky he didn't get a HARD hit on me, or else I would have died right there from a colaspsed windpipe. He then walked out of the room. I was left in the room with saliva running down my face and finding it difficult to swallow anything.
Now let me ask you this. At what point did I do anything wrong?
BTW... this guy can be labeled "A jock."
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prm@alignment.net