The more they change...

So another thing that drives me crazy (and you thought we were through with the mashed up part and ready to get to the main story didn't you?) is mandatory sentencing. Set in stone punishment. Zero tolerance policies. I've written before that the greatest disservice we are doing with our kids in school is not teaching them how to think anymore. We don't teach them how to reason, how to figure things out for themselves, how to reach a conclusion. We teach them the right answer. And zero tolerance polices, mandatory sentencing and three strikes you're out all fall right in to this vein. It's standardized testing for adults. You don't have to think about what someone has done or why, you just plug it in the slot and out pops your answer.

And the flip side of this is when you get a child who has been punished under a zero tolerance policy and instead of going to the administration, the powers that be, the people who can actually change the decision; the parents run to the media. That makes me nuts as well. I get it, it was ridiculous that little Johnny was expelled for bringing a water gun to school. He's 6 and 6 year olds do dumb things. The toy should have been confiscated, put in "the drawer" and a note sent home saying we don't allow toys like this or toys at all or whatever at school. But instead of going to the principal and saying, don't you think this is ridiculous and let's work it out and teaching Little Johnny how to resolve something, you went to the media and said, My angel, my darling, my perfection! And taught Little Johnny that breaking the rules was fine if it got you on the news.

A few years ago my conservative batch of friends were up in arms about a group of kids who had been sent home for wearing "patriotic clothing", specifically flag do-rags during a Cinco de Mayo celebration at their school. It was all over my news feed. "How dare they!" "It's disrespectful!" "You can celebrate Mexican stuff but not AMERICAN!" And since this was before my "Don't just don't" phase of commenting I actually waded in to the discussion. Now me being me, I first did a few Google searches to see what the rest of the story was, if it was out there. And of course there was another side.  Seems these upstanding patriots had clashed with the Mexican/American students before. The administration, trying to head off trouble, had specifically asked them to be respectful on this day. And they responded by wearing the do-rags and taking the "America, love it or leave it!" stance by shouting at the kids during their celebration.

So when I pointed out that they were really troublemaker kids hiding behind the flag I was told how awful I was. When I also pointed out that technically it's against flag code to wear the flag as clothing in the first place so they weren't being good citizens I was told I was wrong. Um, no, I'm not. It was my grandmother's biggest pet peeve. Seeing people wear the flag as a t-shirt or the worst in her eyes, a bathing suit. The Flag Code, for those of you who still think I'm wrong. Section 8. (d). And don't even get me started on "patriotic paper plates".  But basically nobody knows that there were/are rules around the flag so they ignore them. And since the good patriot kids defending our country against other cultures fit their narrative they ran with it.

Instead of Johnny and his buddies learning the importance of appropriate time and place and respect for other people they learned that if you drape your ignorance in the flag you will get support. I see bright futures for them in talk radio.

So yes, I blame the schools for being too rigid in their rules. Zero tolerance means zero thought. But I also blame the parents for not taking a hard look at their kids and saying, "Hey, you broke the rules, face the punishment." We are raising a batch of kids who have always gotten a trophy, who have always been told they are wonderful, who know if you break the rules you can spin it in the media and come out the hero and we should all be really worried about what that means for the future. It's a subject I've ranted about before. Maybe a few times. Teach your kids to think, to work and to strive. And stop bitching about the nanny state if your first instinct is to tattle to the media if life treats little Suzi unfairly. You can't have it both ways.

Okay, so back to why all of this sticks with me. I'm a sociopath. Or psychotic. Or mentally disturbed. Or something. Now some of you just laughed, some of you nodded like you have always known (hey!) and some of you are waiting for the rest of the story...

When I was in middle school I did my first tries at writing. And one of the things I wrote was a super disturbing revenge fantasy piece of crap story. Now, I say it was a piece of crap only because I've read some of the other things I wrote around that time so I know it had to be awful. I also had stolen shamelessly been inspired by such brilliant pieces as Flowers in the Attic, Blue Lagoon and The War Between the Pitiful Teachers and the Splendid Kids. But I can't tell you exactly why it was a piece of crap or post any piece of it because I don't have it anymore. It was taken from me. 

I went to a small  private conservative Southern Baptist school from 5-8th grade. The core group of kids had known each other for years, some since kindergarten. But by 8th grade we were in rebellion. Something about our class, our group just jelled into something they hadn't ever faced before. Open dissent. Looking back I can tell you it was too much change foisted on us after years of no change at all. They hired a teacher for the 7/8 class that shouldn't have been teaching at a religious school, and honestly shouldn't have been teaching young girls at all. Now, don't get me wrong, he never did anything inappropriate, but it didn't take long to figure out we flustered him. And by flustering the teacher you could get a class to descend in chaos pretty quickly. He didn't make it through the year. 

Then they brought back a teacher we had  had before, Mrs. Cyzack. She was our second favorite teacher. How must that have made her feel? To know we loved her but she was our second favorite and we let her know it. The things you think of as an adult. Anyway our favorite teacher Mrs. Penney had moved when her husband was transferred. But we had all had her for 6th grade and had all loved her. The kids who had come after 6th heard stories about her and wished they had had her as a teacher. Two favorite Mrs. Penney stories:

Our PE teacher had a rough year our sixth grade year, I found out later when he and I talked when he wasn't my teacher anymore, anyway, he was having a particularly bad stretch and just couldn't deal with things well. So one of the things he did was get lazy about his teaching. So for PE that meant we ran. For the entire period. Fifty minutes of circles around the playground. We would come back to class just gassed. Good for nothing for a long stretch. Exhausted, thirsty, spent. So one day after a particularly warm run Mrs. Penney looked out at a sea of red faced sixth graders, excused herself,  went across the hall and laid in to Mr. Rex. She had had enough. This was never to happen again. We heard it all. I'm not saying he was scared of her but the next week we "started a new fitness chapter".

The second one was strictly personal. At the end of my 7th grade year when we passed around our autograph books I went back to Mrs. Penney and had her sign. She wrote in part, "I hope one day you start dating boys as smart as you are." This is a teacher that was paying attention. She saw who my boyfriend choices were and did not think they were the best. Instead of sitting me down and lecturing me she gave me that simple note. Now I eventually did just that. Ended up marrying one and had a kid who I realized was much smarter than I am when he was in elementary school! I wish I could tell her, or blame her, or something like that. 

Anyway, that was Mrs. Penney but she was gone. Mr. Otero was gone as well, we had chased him out. Mrs. Cyzack was back, putting our class back together when she had to quit. She had cancer and was too sick to teach anymore. It had been the reason she left in the first place. We hadn't realized that. So we lost her. And we were all devastated. So then they started the parade of teachers to come in and try and push us along. Mrs. Thompson who should have never tried to teach, let alone a group of unruly 7th and 8th graders. And finally the woman whose name I can never remember, Ortega maybe? But she was a giant of a woman. Red hair, mini skirts, too much make up. I swear we all thought she was a man dressed as a woman! And she was mean. Just flat out mean. Discipline for her meant liberal use of the paddle and extra homework assignments. Writing sentences. I will not chew gum in class 500 times by tomorrow.

Ugh.

So I wrote. It was a tiny rebellion. Putting down on paper that story. Basically in the story we all rebelled. We took over the school. We found out Mrs. Penney hadn't been transferred, they had killed her, and I believe poisoned Mrs. Cyzack and that the rest teachers were planning on killing us to make the rest of the school behave and so we struck first. We killed them all, we hid out in the school, we took care of the younger kids, and at some point in the future Larry got Debbie pregnant. I didn't write specifics about any of it, that I can remember, because I had no frame of reference. I know at least the sex part wasn't detailed. What could I have written at that point? That they kissed..WITH TONGUE!  

Anyway, it was a silly little story. But violent. And sexual (in a glossed over sort of way) and hit among my friends. It was passed around from person to person and poured over. It was contraband. We all knew it was "bad" which made it awesome! Then Tanya took it home. And she read it and then gave it to her mother to read. And that was that.

I was livid! How dare you give it to your mother! It wasn't yours to give, it was mine! And how dare she keep it, it's not hers, it's mine! And I was terrified. If her mother called the school I would get called in to the principal's office for sure. I had never been paddled in my years at Parkview but I knew Mrs. Robertson would administer the beating for sure. And what if my parents were called? I was doomed....

But that's not what happened. Tanya's mother told her it was a disgusting piece of trash and I should be ashamed for writing it and we should all be ashamed for reading it, and then she threw it away. I never got the story back.

Now fast forward that to today. To a "typical" situation now. What would have happened?

Tanya's mother would have turned the story over to the school. They would have taken one look at it and realized that I was planning on doing something horrible and called the authorities. I would have been expelled. Arrested. Questioned. Possibly committed. My parents would have gone to the media to say, "It was a story! She's creative! There was nothing real in that! And we are suing for destruction of personal property!"

What had been a silly little revenge fantasy story written strictly for the shock value and kicks of a group of kids who felt powerless in their situation would have been turned in to something much bigger. Something it didn't mean at all. And what would we have learned? Fear? Never to write anything again? That thoughts are the bad things, not deeds, but thoughts?

What did I learn instead? Well, let's see, I learned that not all fiction is for everyone. I learned not to trust Tanya with my things. I learned to back up my writing before letting anyone see it. And I learned that maybe you shouldn't write revenge fantasies using real names.

And I learned that when I read a story about some disturbed kid that I need to look to see how disturbed really. Is it they built a bomb or brought a loaded gun to school disturbed or they wrote something down that they would never do but they wrote it down anyway disturbed? Are they the next Kip Kinkel or the next Stephen King? Because there is a difference. And we need to be able to see that. 

To think.

To reason.

But I'm still a little bent she threw my story away.