The B-Word

I am not sure if word has gotten around LA, but on September 18th, a fourteen year old Freshman at my old High School in Williamsville, NY killed himself.  Before committing this senseless, painful act, Jamey cried out to the world wide web and asked for help.  One week after his death, his sister was at a homecoming event and a girl walked up to her and told her she was glad that Jamey was dead. This girl has since been suspended. The Internet is ablaze with finger pointing and anger; everyone wants to blame someone, but in this case and in many cases of bullying, the B-word (blame) is not so clear.

Williamsville North is a big, suburban public high school.  When my sister went in the early 80's there was a courtyard where all the "rats" went to smoke.  By the time I got there, it was incredible to think that would be allowed on campus, but the stigma of being a rat remained.  There was certainly a class divide between those students who lived in section 8 housing and those of us that were fortunate enough to live in places like Forest Heights - the "Beverly Hills" of Williamsville North.  Don't get the wrong idea, it wasn't just economics that separated us.  I may have lived in Forest Heights, but I was certainly no where near the top of the food chain at that school, and I left after my Freshman year because of several reasons - one of them being bullying/harassment.  A glaring difference between myself and Jamey is that I didn't tell anyone about my abuse.  Who was going to do anything about me getting physically harassed in English class when there were 38 other kids in the class and the guidance counselor didn't even know my name or anything about me?  I was just a number, and since I didn't make trouble and got decent grades, I was an invisible, imaginary number.  What would my experience be if I had the soothing, anonymous womb of the Internet to turn to?  How much greater would my harassment been if the popular kids could have written something nasty on my FaceBook page instead of just pulling the chair out from under me in the cafeteria? One of the reasons I became a teacher was to be the person that saw invisible numbers and gave them a face, a name and place in the community.  Seeing the varied reactions to Jamey's death brings it all back to the forefront, and being out of the high school setting for the first time in over ten years makes it clear to me how much damage can be done during those four torturous years.

There is a beautiful video on the Facing History and Ourselves website, (an organization I am proud to have been a part of,) where an eighth grade girl tells the story of her small private school.  They all came from the same socio-economic and religious background yet they felt an urgent need to create an other and ostracize each other.  At one point, she was brought in by the alpha click to throw one of her fellow misfits under the bus and she acquiesced. It felt good to be in the power position for once.  She was ashamed of her weakness at that moment, but at least she recognized it and began to correct it; not an easy thing to do at fourteen years old.

As adults, it doesn't get any easier.  High school shenanigans continue to haunt each of us as we try to navigate our way through the perils of friendship and keeping up with supposed societal norms.  These things are all in our head as adults, we can walk away - be the bigger person or learn to stand up for ourselves and fortunately if things escalate, we have the law on our sides.  For children, and teenagers are still children, the rules are smeared on the wall of expectations.  Are parents hovering too close with their codling and fighting of their childrens' battles? Are schools too afraid to inflame the ire of litigious parents? Are teachers too concerned about the fallible governmental educational policies to be able to take the time to address what is going on all around them?  Are kids today too desensitized by video games and the numbing anonymity of online life?  While I may not have answers to these questions, I feel it is time to start asking them and get the conversation going.

I am an idealist when it comes to teaching and kids.  I believe that every kid has the ability to succeed with the right amount of support.  Sometimes that is why teaching is such a difficult task, as teachers all over this country give of themselves every day to try to fill the gaps and be a bridge of strength to one child after the next.  Our system is broken folks - B-roken and we are the only ones who can change it.  It starts here.  Let's make the B-Words that we think of the most be beautiful and bountiful, bibliophile and buoyant.  I hope that those kids, parents, teachers and administrators at Williamsville North take this opportunity to heal and grow and finally hold a mirror up to themselves to make an honest change.

Thanks for staying with me on this most personal post - I look forward to reading your comments.