When I was going there, the public schools of Los Angeles County were a hotbed of darwinian, naked-ape bullshit. And from what I hear it's only gotten worse.
I went to Junior and Senior high school in the early 80's and I can testify that it was in many ways a hellish experience. At the schools I went to it wasn't the jocks against the geeks, it was the big and/or agressive against the small/weak/passive. All of which I was. In the seventh grade (the worst) I got into 13 fights in 3 schools. The level of physical and mental threats that I experienced definately scarred me.
The teachers and admins were completely ineffectual at keeping the predatory kids off the little guys like me. I was originally a gentle, sensitive kid but just to survive I learned how to be more aggressive, even vicious (I once bit through a bully's eyelid and I once beaned some punk in the head with a rock and knocked him out). Only when I showed that I was willing to make someone bleed, would the bullying even lessen.
That is a TERRIBLE lesson for a child to learn. Even now that I'm in my mid-thirties I HATE the knowledge that I can willfully, strategically hurt someone. Only through discovering computers and art did I avoid the violent path that took so many kids to jail, gangs or worse. Even so, the rage and anger are still echoing within me.
I wrote this to throw my horror story into the mix and to also encourage you to PUBLISH AND DISTRIBUTE that book. Parents need to see it, teachers, counselors and admins need to see it. If you don't want to go the standard publishing route then compile the damn thing into a PDF and let everyone who cares print it out at home/work/Kinkos, bind it and send a copy to those they think need to see it.
Hell, I'll personally commit to 100 copies and will droplift them to libraries, schools and the local community center.
The meatgrinder that is public city schools has to stop eating our children.
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When I was going there, the public schools of Los Angeles County were a hotbed of darwinian, naked-ape bullshit. And from what I hear it's only gotten worse.
I went to Junior and Senior high school in the early 80's and I can testify that it was in many ways a hellish experience. At the schools I went to it wasn't the jocks against the geeks, it was the big and/or agressive against the small/weak/passive. All of which I was. In the seventh grade (the worst) I got into 13 fights in 3 schools. The level of physical and mental threats that I experienced definately scarred me.
The teachers and admins were completely ineffectual at keeping the predatory kids off the little guys like me. I was originally a gentle, sensitive kid but just to survive I learned how to be more aggressive, even vicious (I once bit through a bully's eyelid and I once beaned some punk in the head with a rock and knocked him out). Only when I showed that I was willing to make someone bleed, would the bullying even lessen.
That is a TERRIBLE lesson for a child to learn. Even now that I'm in my mid-thirties I HATE the knowledge that I can willfully, strategically hurt someone. Only through discovering computers and art did I avoid the violent path that took so many kids to jail, gangs or worse. Even so, the rage and anger are still echoing within me.
I wrote this to throw my horror story into the mix and to also encourage you to PUBLISH AND DISTRIBUTE that book. Parents need to see it, teachers, counselors and admins need to see it. If you don't want to go the standard publishing route then compile the damn thing into a PDF and let everyone who cares print it out at home/work/Kinkos, bind it and send a copy to those they think need to see it.
Hell, I'll personally commit to 100 copies and will droplift them to libraries, schools and the local community center.
The meatgrinder that is public city schools has to stop eating our children.