I stood up for us finally and broke a bully’s nose at recess and the school response was to make me go through kindergarten again which separated us by a grade and left us with nobody to have our backs.
Zero tolerance policies in a nutshell. They lock you up in a place with horrible abusive people and then punish you for fighting back.
Got a few suspensions for that. Jokes on them cause my parents didnt think I did anything wrong so I just had fun time off. If I didnt start it I was allowed to finish it.
They never pulled me out and I doubt it was ever considered. The fights I was in were pretty few and far between. Plus I won the fights so my safety wasnt a concern. I was in the French immersion program, which means I was mostly in classes with rich kids, you could pay your way in or stand in line for the very few free spots. I was the last line kid around after a few years. Most switch to English cause the French immersion program is deeply classist between the limited amount of poor people who can get in, the fucking MATH work was 2 years ahead of what the standard program kids were doing, so we had harder work in general and in a language we were learning at the same time. That’s gonna be harder to deal with for a poorer family on average. However the schools that had the programs were always in the bad areas I grew up in and the rich kids got bussed in. So most of my fights were with kids who tried to fight like they were playing hockey, outside of school was where I would lose fights cause the kids in my neighborhood were waaaay tougher than the ones in my class so when rich kids came at me I was the one who could actually fight. Jr high and high school were more specifically in my neighborhood and a lot of the people knew outside of school suddenly went to the same school and preppy kids wouldnt fucking dare after that. I was never really targeted at any point either, I was a consistently middle popularity guy, I never had any long term beefs, just kids having tempers
On the one hand I envy that but on the other I am glad. It made me stronger and more resilient. There is little I fear in the coming struggle. I was born for this shit.
On the positive side I dedicated my earliest years of activism helping guide what was an actually good charter/continuation school that is now the nature academy which my little brother got to attend.
I was in one of those zero tolerance places. A kid broke my finger, but I didn’t fight back (weird notions about pacifism and I really am not a good fighter anyway) and nothing happened, but I was acutely aware if I had fought back I would’ve gotten in trouble. The principal was ready to point out that it was essentially my fault because I was bigger than him and he hurt me, though, so that’s fun.
Zero tolerance policies in a nutshell. They lock you up in a place with horrible abusive people and then punish you for fighting back.
Wait a minute…
Got a few suspensions for that. Jokes on them cause my parents didnt think I did anything wrong so I just had fun time off. If I didnt start it I was allowed to finish it.
Yeah they pulled me out of that school and I didn’t go back to a public school till high-school where I immediately got kicked out again for fighting.
Pro tip don’t start shit with a skater girl. We hurled ourselves at pavement and fought God and gravity for fun.
They never pulled me out and I doubt it was ever considered. The fights I was in were pretty few and far between. Plus I won the fights so my safety wasnt a concern. I was in the French immersion program, which means I was mostly in classes with rich kids, you could pay your way in or stand in line for the very few free spots. I was the last line kid around after a few years. Most switch to English cause the French immersion program is deeply classist between the limited amount of poor people who can get in, the fucking MATH work was 2 years ahead of what the standard program kids were doing, so we had harder work in general and in a language we were learning at the same time. That’s gonna be harder to deal with for a poorer family on average. However the schools that had the programs were always in the bad areas I grew up in and the rich kids got bussed in. So most of my fights were with kids who tried to fight like they were playing hockey, outside of school was where I would lose fights cause the kids in my neighborhood were waaaay tougher than the ones in my class so when rich kids came at me I was the one who could actually fight. Jr high and high school were more specifically in my neighborhood and a lot of the people knew outside of school suddenly went to the same school and preppy kids wouldnt fucking dare after that. I was never really targeted at any point either, I was a consistently middle popularity guy, I never had any long term beefs, just kids having tempers
On the one hand I envy that but on the other I am glad. It made me stronger and more resilient. There is little I fear in the coming struggle. I was born for this shit.
On the positive side I dedicated my earliest years of activism helping guide what was an actually good charter/continuation school that is now the nature academy which my little brother got to attend.
I was in one of those zero tolerance places. A kid broke my finger, but I didn’t fight back (weird notions about pacifism and I really am not a good fighter anyway) and nothing happened, but I was acutely aware if I had fought back I would’ve gotten in trouble. The principal was ready to point out that it was essentially my fault because I was bigger than him and he hurt me, though, so that’s fun.