My school system has a very high suicide rate, but it also has a high rate of students who go on to higher education. What's up with that?
My friend thinks that it's because they systematically exclude, bully, and harass everyone who doesn't fit their idea of a perfect student until they either drop out or kill themselves. I wasn't sure whether or not I believed her hypothesis until I went in to take part of my GED and found myself face-to-face with seven people, six of whom I recognized as having mysteriously vanished from school months or years previously. And I didn't just remember them from across the cafeteria, these were people who I'd seen being screamed at in the halls by teachers while I tried to look away and not stare because I'd been there and I knew how horrible it was when people stared. People who no longer wanted to speak in class, like me, and who tried not to look a teacher in the face, like me. I think I was probably the only one who routinely received death threats, but that's probably to be expected when you've got such a prominent Achilles heel.
I think my friend might be right, and I kind of hope she is. Because I've read other blogs and it looks like I'm unique in the sheer volume of shit I had to tolerate over my malfunctioning immune system. And I've read news articles where they arrested kids for doing once what my classmates did on a daily basis. And if that's the reality then I must have either deserved what happened because no one wanted to stop it, or no one wanted to stop it because these aren't nice people and it's in no way my fault.
Although the fact that I had no less than five teachers who blatantly waved peanuts around just to see what I would do makes me lean towards the "it's not my fault" line of reasoning.
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