Well, it'll be fascinating to see if any cliques/hierarchies evolve in this school:
Ashley Werner does not mince words when describing her experience as a lesbian at Milwaukee's Pulaski High School. Ashley Werner, 17, a junior at Pulaski High School, talks to friend J. Botsford, a Marquette University student. Werner says she is often teased and ridiculed at school because she is a lesbian "If you are even remotely different, (the students) harass and make fun of you," Werner said. The 17-year-old junior said she is teased, called names and singled out almost every day...Werner hopes her situation will improve next year. She plans to attend the Alliance School, a charter high school that will focus on students who feel discriminated against or bullied. That might be a Goth student, a painfully shy student or a gay one. All three have enrolled in the school, which plans to open in August. The school will be the first of its kind in the state, and possibly the nation, its founders say.
Fascinating (though it's similar to Harvey Milk in NYC). Thoughts that spring to mind:
(1) Doesn't anyone feel weird that it's the kids who were bullied who are having to change schools? Isn't this a safety valve that keeps the schools with bullies from having to improve their situation?
(2) Isn't it possible that some of the misfits might not approve of the other misfits? For one thing, I can see where a kid who is extremely religious might not approve of a lesbian, but both might feel enough outside the mainstream to attend this school.
(3) Isn't it possible that the small size of the school - only 100 students - in and of itself will create a less harassing atmosphere, rather than the fact that all 100 students consider themselves misfits?
(4) Mightn't this create a slippery slope towards "separate but equal," and a future where anyone who is different can just be told that they'll go to a school "for their kind?"
Bear in mind I'm speaking as someone who was very conscious of being a misfit in school, although the overt harassment had stopped by the time I entered high school. An alternative school might have done me worlds of good, though who's to say that my high-school peers (who were forced to treat me civilly) didn't benefit more from my sticking around?
This seems like a related topic.
And, for the record, "goth" should not be capitalized unless you're referring to the Sicilians during the Middle Ages.
Posted by kswygert at March 7, 2005 03:00 PM