Almost a year ago, I started this blog because I'm one of those people with a million thoughts swirling around in my head, and once in a while one of them will shine brightly in the midst of it all and beg to be shared. Most of the time, these thoughts are sort of humming around in my brain, but once in a while, one of them will be shouting so loudly that it will make my heart race and my head pound and my fists clench because certain things in life make me angry.
Nick Stuban was on the tip of every tongue two months ago. As I wrote earlier, grieving his death must be done respectfully. However, being angry in the name of Nick is nothing but honorable.
Do you realize that Fairfax County has several high schools on the Top 100 list, we are one of the wealthiest counties in the entire country, have passing rates on AP exams that puts the national average to shame, send students off the UVA and Harvard, and that Woodson is at the top of it all, being the number one school in the county? I can deal with the tough curriculum; I can roll my eyes at the last-minute school cancellations; I can take a deep breath when my 4 AP classes seem to engulf me; I cannot hold back the anger I feel about FCPS's hypocrisy.
How can a schooling system that promises to produce upstanding citizens of society even say that when the only way administrators are insuring that is by stomping out the seemingly bad seeds? Zero tolerance: one mistake and it's all over. One mistake that a stupid teenager makes because whether or not he or she lives in the Bronx or the suburbs, there will be stupid teenagers. One mistake and the school is scared that their prestigious pedigree will be marred by an offense, shipping that student off to a different school in the county, as if that will make everything better. I thought that school was supposed to be some sort of Life Simulation: you aren't going to be coddled, but remember that life goes on. Zero tolerance is not real life. In real life, one doesn't fuck up once and life stops. Life goes on regardless of an obstacle, because obstacles are part of life, and part of learning about living is getting over these obstacles. If school is about preparing students for the real world, FCPS sure is doing a shitty job.
How can I sit in class and learn to discern between right and wrong, learn that humans make mistakes, learn about logic, when the very school system I learn from is breaking every single pillar of forgiveness, morality, and humanity that they have encouraged me to learn. Sure, it's okay when these virtues are discussed through Twain or Thoreau or Dickinson. But when it comes time to apply the curriculum, FCPS decided that it's much safer to care for the integrity of the institution, rather than the well-being of an actual human being.
What scares me is that I don't know who to blame. How can I be properly angry when I don't know who to be angry at? It's that argument that society is made up of people, and people are often ambiguous. I know the teachers at my school are as enraged as I am about the injustice of zero tolerance, but does that mean I have to start hating administrators? These people are just doing their jobs: implementing the rules. So who wrote the rules? Well, that's the part that comes right back and bites you in the ass. The rules are made by both parents and teachers and administrators, who are all part of the system that brought Nick down. Those same people are mourning his death. Hopefully they realize that they were part of it. Hopefully something like this won't ever happen again.
Not only is FCPS in huge trouble because everyone in Virginia knows about it, the whole freaking country knows about it. Not only did the Washington Post make it front page news, but TIME magazine also made zero tolerance and Nick Stuban an issue. It's a national epidemic, because society is obsessed with being perfect, and the only way to do that is follow FCPS's example and purge all imperfections.
This is my 100th post. Make this the last time I have to write about this.
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