The Bonds That Break

Christine Bruun

In the wake of Columbine High School's tragedy, a lesson in living erupts from the sadness. There is a message that should be shouted from the roof tops of junior highs and high schools across the nation.

It is the message that the high school experience has nothing to do with who you become, anymore than what you experience in kindergarten has any connection to who you are in high school.

How do I impress upon our children that there is life after high school. How to I stamp into their heads the fact that as you walk across the stage, gripping your diploma in your hand, a whole new life-path is forming that will take you to places you never dreamed of. How do I explain that the social clicks, that you thought were so important for your emotional survival during high school, have no bearing on your potential as an adult in the adult world.

How can I explain that with the availability of weapons in today's society, it is stupid to alienate, ridicule, humiliate, emotionally torture, or physically abuse other students whose emotional shells have not yet been hardened by their experiences in the adult world.

How can I impress upon those students that, in the whole scheme of things, high school only counts because it provides a way to earn your diploma that gets you to the next rung of the ladder. It is but a blip on the screen of life, yet, how they treat others during this time, can scar and wound so deeply that they can create dangerous situations for themselves and others.

And how can I impress upon parents and educators that life isn't like it was when we were growing up and so we can't treat it as such. We can't chalk these things up to "boys will be boys" or "girls will be girls". We can't tell our child to fight back. We can't ignore a child's complaints of harassment in school, leaving the bullied to work it out for themselves, for a child who feels hopeless will look for what he perceives as an equalizer.

We must intervene and work to create an environment that will nurture and enhance our children's lives, not place them in situations they should not have to endure alone.

I look back on my own life in high school and I do understand. There were six of us who hung out together. We lived in the same neighborhood, went to the same church and banded together during high school because it was better than being alone. We had something in common due to church, and where we lived.

We did not pick each other because we were soul mates. It was a matter of emotional survival--not having to be alone. Once high school was over we went our separate ways, not looking back--because looking back, the view was filled with cruel snickers, isolation, and the humiliation endured because I was fat.

One day I had this urge to find all my old high school friends and rekindle the friendships. I was going through a tough time in my life and It seemed natural to reach out for that bond that had seen me through before. Boy, was I disappointed.

None of my high school "friends" wanted to rekindle that friendship. They still saw me as the same person I was when I was in high school and evidently they weren't that fond of me then. However, during high school I thought we were tight as a drum.

I was hurt by this until I had a chance to analyze it better. It was as if we never really knew each other. Perhaps they just wanted to forget that part of their lives--who knows. However, it made me realize that perhaps we gather our friends around us as a barrier from our real feelings of inadequacies, and in order to hide those inner conflicts, we gain some respite from our own inner torments by tormenting others.

I never indulged in ridiculing or teasing because I knew the pain from my own experience. Others, in order to not be ridiculed themselves, joined clicks and participated in the cruelty--better someone else besides themselves? If the group's harassment was focused on someone outside the group, the members could breath a little easier for it.

In talking to others over the years, there seems to be a common theme. There are very few adults today who have maintained their high school friendships. Perhaps we form clicks to ward off unwanted reminders of our self doubt and fears. Then, when we no longer need the protection, we discard those fleeting friendships, which are still a painful reminder of the lingering fears and doubts that follow us into our adult lives--graduation is a fitting end to those fleeting attachments.

High schools are a place of learning, not just facts and figures, but the art of dealing with people, and people are everywhere. Each person you pass on the busy street, each person you pass in the supermarket, each person you meet at the local gym or at the hamburger stand, or in the workplace, came through the same excruciating gauntlet of pain and fear during their teenage years. They carry with them the scars, some hidden, some worn like a badge of courage. But we are all the walking wounded.

That computer geek in high school might just become the next Bill Gates of the world, and you may be coming to him or her for a job that will feed your family. That science nerd you teased in chemistry class might become the next Einstein and be instrumental in saving the life of your child with his/her ground breaking discovery. And speaking for myself, that fat girl you sat next to in choir just might become the CEO of a corporation.

I ran across an old junior high school acquaintance while my children were young. I had moved after junior high and attended a different high school, but I still remembered this gentleman because he was in that group that I looked up to. We were bowling next to each other. He had gone back to his reunion and related the changes in the people we had known.

The girl who had been on the swim team, could do one handed push ups, and who had all the boys panting, now weighed in at three-hundred unhappy pounds. No one was who we thought they would be. My acquaintance had a normal, average job, and I was a mousy, frumpy, housewife raising four children in a bad marriage. High school had been as much of an illusion as Alice's' looking glass world. It had no bearing on who we were or who we would yet become.

Some of us are late bloomers. I did not achieve in the business world until the age of 44 after the demise of a marriage that lasted 22 years. I was a late bloomer and waited until my children were grown to pursue my dreams. Others bloom early, choosing careers over families, which come late in life, or not at all. One just never knows how the road of life will bend and twist.

What I want to say to young people and parents today is that the child you see in front of you today, has value. They have a calling that will make itself known in their adult life. They have a reason for being. Junior high and high school is just a pit stop on the road they will journey. We must not make it a hell hole that overshadows and derails the child before they even get a chance to begin.

School is a dangerous place in today's society and we must never forget that. There is no time of innocence. It is an "in-your-face" kind of world that can suck you in and blast you out. We must not let apathy create an environment of danger. There is so much of life left to live. We must not create a hostile environment where our children's spirits shrivel and wither before they even get a chance to spread their wings.

As a former geek, nerd, and "fat chick", let me tell you how lonely my high school days were. Let me tell you of the harassment, the humiliation, the isolation, the ridicule that made my high school days miserable. You have no idea how much a kind smile, a nod, or a simple word would have meant to me. If just one person would have seen my pain and invited me to join them in the cafeteria for lunch, who knows where my life would be today. I do know one thing, that my years in high school would not have been so painful and lonely.

I went into my adulthood thinking there was something terribly wrong with me and I spent many wasted years trying to compensate for that feeling of worthlessness. I am convinced that it contributed to my late blooming.

You have no idea how much we effect the lives of those around us. Why not for the good? What will it hurt to be nice to someone? In the recent shooting in Santana High School in California one student commented on something that I cannot ignore. This student had walked into the restroom and had been eye to eye with the shooter. He had turned and tried to flee the vicinity right in front of the student supervisor, who was shot in the back.

What he described is simple but important. He explained that both he and the shooter looked at each other for an instant. The shooter had every opportunity to shoot this student, just like he had the others. But, he didn't. When asked why he wasn't shot, (by the interviewer), he explained that he thought it was because though he didn't know the shooter very well, he would smile and acknowledge him when they passed in the hall. That simple act of kindness could very well be the thing that saved his life.

A young man named Jason Dorsey has written a book called: Can Students End School Violence? Solutions from America's Youth. He said during a recent morning news program that when he visits schools during his lectures, parents often come up and try and tell him how wonderful their school is and that nothing like that would ever happen there.

Then, as Jason explains, he walks through the halls of that school during class change, he notices that the students are gathered in small groups who keep to themselves and that the students don't talk to each other. There is no communication outside the groups. He notes that this situation is a crisis waiting to happen.

Jason further explains that the changes are just now starting to happen. More schools are realizing that they need to implement peer boards and juries along with conflict resolution teams who help to resolve the problems that are now terrorizing the student bodies of most schools. They are just now becoming aware that bullying is a problem and that until it is dealt with, this problem will grow and become out of control.

However, there is something each individual student can do to accelerate the changes. The students themselves can become responsible for their own behavior. The students can take a "no tolerance" stand and refuse to allow any student to be bullied or terrorized. The students can take back their schools simply by not condoning this behavior and by doing whatever it takes to create a safe, nurturing environment.

Part of the high school experience should be preparation to go into the adult world. Before you can go out and change the world after graduation, you must start by changing your schools. It starts there. What would it hurt to say a kind word to a student who may just feel lonely and isolated? How much effort would it take to smile at someone as you pass them in the hall, or ask them to have lunch with you? How hard is it to be kind to other students?

As we have seen from Columbine and Santana, it certainly can hurt not to be.

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