Gah. *hugs* I'm sorry about the RAEG tone - I got pinged hard by god knows what-the-fuck and was snarling universally for a it so yeah. @_@ Y'all did not deserve the snarly.
My high school had a peer mediator program in effect as part of its Zero Tolerance Policy (that phrase makes me lawl because it's such nonsense on all fronts), but it only really worked if the peers were YOUR peers, you know? And I guess anyone in the school technically kind of is, but if one was like me and rather nerdtastic, there was always the fear that you were going to get turned on by both people. I never made use of the service. I wnt to teachers even though one wasn't 'supposed to do that' because even before I almost lost my dodgeball from undiagnosed anxiety issues I knew it as either that or - I dunno what I thought the alternative was.
There's not much in the way of support systems available for most kids. A hole hell of a lot of the time, the person being harassed is 'The Problem'. People don't like being told their precious systems don't work. They don't like being told that the school's aura of peace and brotherhood is the thinnest possible veneer over a seething bunch of rabid tadpoles (...what the fuck was THAT metaphor XD) and that giving the stink-eye to the kids in black coats isn't the solution to the overall problem.
May I say that I loathed the damn Columbine dips because they made my life that much harder? Because they did. Suddenly I wasn't jut a noisy geek. I was a time bomb. It really didn't matter to them that the idea of death and people dying terrified me enough that I'd started to cry in classes more than one time and didn't care what people thought of me.
I don't know what the solution to the issue is. A better mediation system for one. Counselors in the school BESIDES the guidance ones (oh god stupid guidance counselors I should have ignored you and dropped calculus and algebra and taken finite math and something else). I just - BLARGH our school model was 'to love and to serve' but there wasn't much love and there was a lot of SELF-service but very little else.
It went way downhill after Ms. LeBrum the epic EPIC principal left. I always seem to come into institutions at a time when they're in a decline that's going to be rectified. I'm never there to see the results of the repair.
Eh. I left my mark on that school. The chapel window is pseudo-stained-glass and the overall placement of the holy family (kidJesus in front, parents behind) was my idea. The window was a collab effort overall but I'm still incredibly proud that my idea got in so prominently. Even if I'm no longer Catholic and the church drives me batshit insane I like the guy who's the subject of the gospels, because he was cool. XD
Word on spirituality not being a 'i'm-better-than-you' badge. It took me a while to get around to that too. I was ONE OF THOSE PAGANS. Like, you know the kind XD THOSE pagans. Thankfully I got over it speedily enough because (a) my parents were like 'it's all good, do your own thing, just open the window if you burn incense' and (b) the 'coven' flopped on account of the de-facto leader being the sort of person who used spirituality to elevate herself etc. I could not talk to her about any spiritual experience without her blowing it off or belittling me, so yeah, fuck a ton of that noise @_@
Ehn. I don't know. I apologize again for the clawing at ankles. You didn't say anything wrong. I just get hugely envious of people sometimes. D: I mean. I guess I came out ofhigh school better prepared for adult world bullshit, and oh wow I -know- my psycho bully has made things oddly easier for me out here because NO ONE HAS EVER MANAGED TO BE WORSE THAN HER - like, seriously, a nine year old trumps all you fuckers, try harder XD But yeah. I feel like a lot of people came out of shit much stabler than me and I get all 'ahrgh why can't i--' and I pissyface everywhere. So I'm sorry.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2010-03-25 01:01 pm (UTC)My high school had a peer mediator program in effect as part of its Zero Tolerance Policy (that phrase makes me lawl because it's such nonsense on all fronts), but it only really worked if the peers were YOUR peers, you know? And I guess anyone in the school technically kind of is, but if one was like me and rather nerdtastic, there was always the fear that you were going to get turned on by both people. I never made use of the service. I wnt to teachers even though one wasn't 'supposed to do that' because even before I almost lost my dodgeball from undiagnosed anxiety issues I knew it as either that or - I dunno what I thought the alternative was.
There's not much in the way of support systems available for most kids. A hole hell of a lot of the time, the person being harassed is 'The Problem'. People don't like being told their precious systems don't work. They don't like being told that the school's aura of peace and brotherhood is the thinnest possible veneer over a seething bunch of rabid tadpoles (...what the fuck was THAT metaphor XD) and that giving the stink-eye to the kids in black coats isn't the solution to the overall problem.
May I say that I loathed the damn Columbine dips because they made my life that much harder? Because they did. Suddenly I wasn't jut a noisy geek. I was a time bomb. It really didn't matter to them that the idea of death and people dying terrified me enough that I'd started to cry in classes more than one time and didn't care what people thought of me.
I don't know what the solution to the issue is. A better mediation system for one. Counselors in the school BESIDES the guidance ones (oh god stupid guidance counselors I should have ignored you and dropped calculus and algebra and taken finite math and something else). I just - BLARGH our school model was 'to love and to serve' but there wasn't much love and there was a lot of SELF-service but very little else.
It went way downhill after Ms. LeBrum the epic EPIC principal left. I always seem to come into institutions at a time when they're in a decline that's going to be rectified. I'm never there to see the results of the repair.
Eh. I left my mark on that school. The chapel window is pseudo-stained-glass and the overall placement of the holy family (kidJesus in front, parents behind) was my idea. The window was a collab effort overall but I'm still incredibly proud that my idea got in so prominently. Even if I'm no longer Catholic and the church drives me batshit insane I like the guy who's the subject of the gospels, because he was cool. XD
Word on spirituality not being a 'i'm-better-than-you' badge. It took me a while to get around to that too. I was ONE OF THOSE PAGANS. Like, you know the kind XD THOSE pagans. Thankfully I got over it speedily enough because (a) my parents were like 'it's all good, do your own thing, just open the window if you burn incense' and (b) the 'coven' flopped on account of the de-facto leader being the sort of person who used spirituality to elevate herself etc. I could not talk to her about any spiritual experience without her blowing it off or belittling me, so yeah, fuck a ton of that noise @_@
Ehn. I don't know. I apologize again for the clawing at ankles. You didn't say anything wrong. I just get hugely envious of people sometimes. D: I mean. I guess I came out ofhigh school better prepared for adult world bullshit, and oh wow I -know- my psycho bully has made things oddly easier for me out here because NO ONE HAS EVER MANAGED TO BE WORSE THAN HER - like, seriously, a nine year old trumps all you fuckers, try harder XD But yeah. I feel like a lot of people came out of shit much stabler than me and I get all 'ahrgh why can't i--' and I pissyface everywhere. So I'm sorry.