Bullies
I read this story this morning, and had a profound sense of deja vu.
Like Jaheem, my elementary school days weren't the best. I was a skinny, vaguely effeminate kid with thick bifocals and a name that conveniently rhymed with "gay"; I was every bully's favorite target. On the bus to school, they'd take my homework from my backpack, tear it up, and throw it out the window. My lunch wound up in the trash about once a week, grabbed by a bully and compacted into a wad before I'd even opened it. I was never "beaten up" -- that'd be too obvious -- but getting elbowed and punched as I walked down the hall or, even easier, in gym class, was an everyday routine. And always the taunts of Gay Jay, even written on my Trapper Keeper. Gay Jay the fag.
I hated school, dreaded every day of it. My grades suffered; half the time my homework had been destroyed before I could hand it in, anyway. My parents complained to the school, and that just made things worse; now I was Gay Jay the snitch. I saw movies where kids died or ran away, and how sad people were... and that sounded like a great idea. They'd all be sorry. If I'd ever seen a movie where someone hung themselves with a belt, I'm sure that the idea would be running through my mind, just like it did for little Jaheem.
Happily, my teachers made all the difference. I had a fun hippie art teacher who saw that I actually cared about what I was making in class, and pulled me aside, giving me time away from gym to learn how to do engraving. My fifth-grade teacher, Mr Kovatch, was a genius or lunatic or both; he filled the classroom with a giant balloon and taught us about the private lives of the US Presidents, and recognized that I was a weird little kid who thought science and history were cool, so he gave me books and special science projects to work on and demonstrate for the class. Then they started pulling me out of school entirely to go to the experimental "gifted & talented" program for half the day, where me and other weird kids played chess and painted murals. Things got better.
All this is to say: Jaheem, I know exactly how you felt. Bullies ruin more childhoods than parents or teachers realize, and every once in awhile, kids give up. I wish your school had helped you the way mine did, because trust me, it gets better, eventually.
Like Jaheem, my elementary school days weren't the best. I was a skinny, vaguely effeminate kid with thick bifocals and a name that conveniently rhymed with "gay"; I was every bully's favorite target. On the bus to school, they'd take my homework from my backpack, tear it up, and throw it out the window. My lunch wound up in the trash about once a week, grabbed by a bully and compacted into a wad before I'd even opened it. I was never "beaten up" -- that'd be too obvious -- but getting elbowed and punched as I walked down the hall or, even easier, in gym class, was an everyday routine. And always the taunts of Gay Jay, even written on my Trapper Keeper. Gay Jay the fag.
I hated school, dreaded every day of it. My grades suffered; half the time my homework had been destroyed before I could hand it in, anyway. My parents complained to the school, and that just made things worse; now I was Gay Jay the snitch. I saw movies where kids died or ran away, and how sad people were... and that sounded like a great idea. They'd all be sorry. If I'd ever seen a movie where someone hung themselves with a belt, I'm sure that the idea would be running through my mind, just like it did for little Jaheem.
Happily, my teachers made all the difference. I had a fun hippie art teacher who saw that I actually cared about what I was making in class, and pulled me aside, giving me time away from gym to learn how to do engraving. My fifth-grade teacher, Mr Kovatch, was a genius or lunatic or both; he filled the classroom with a giant balloon and taught us about the private lives of the US Presidents, and recognized that I was a weird little kid who thought science and history were cool, so he gave me books and special science projects to work on and demonstrate for the class. Then they started pulling me out of school entirely to go to the experimental "gifted & talented" program for half the day, where me and other weird kids played chess and painted murals. Things got better.
All this is to say: Jaheem, I know exactly how you felt. Bullies ruin more childhoods than parents or teachers realize, and every once in awhile, kids give up. I wish your school had helped you the way mine did, because trust me, it gets better, eventually.