Girl suspended from school for Sandy Hook Poem

They wanna hold me back
I run but still they still attack
My innocence, I won't get back
I used to smile
They took my kindness for weakness
The silence the world will never get
I understand the killing in Conecticut
I know why he pulled the trigger
The government is a shame
Society never wants to take the blame
Society puts these thoughts in our head
Misery loves company
If I can't be loved no one can

www.dailymail.co.uk...




It was found, turned in and she got canned. This is wild!! You think a guidance counsellor, would be aware of this and speak with the lady in private how she feels.

I don't see any alarm bells here for violence, but maybe bullying.

I understand the concern of the school, but also agree, maybe just maybe this should have
been handled a little differently.

Exactly. This isn't a threat. This is a cry for help from a kid that's being bullied and severely mistreated.

People wonder why we have issues with kids snapping. It's crap like this. Instead of getting the kid the kind of help with the issue that she clearly needs, they effectively labeled a serial killer.

We;ve only got one side of the story here.
There could very well be more going on that we dont know about.

Courtni attends Connecticut's Life Learning Academy, a 60-pupil vocational school that prides itself on being able to help students who have not been able to settle at other establishments.

Cant judge the situation based on a tabloid "sympathy" piece, and the word of her mother.


Edit - the Dailymail piece is material sourced from the Examiner.
The Examiner sourced its material from a video on the Today Show...

The Today Show only got one side of the story.

reply to post by CALGARIAN
Thanks for sharing this. It's a real statement of the times, isn't it? When I grew up the 'buzz phrase' was so often repeated and drilled into everyone that I remember it to this day when anything like this comes up.

"Feelings are not right or wrong, they just are."

Of course, as an adult, I know that's not technically true. There are lines beyond the sea of gray that almost all feelings fall into. The intent of saying it and basing policy on that concept was simply to avoid pushing kids to turn feelings inward and to dark places ...if those are the feelings involved. Far better, I believe the logic went, that a child or teen express them in the open where they can be discussed if need be.

This was an awfully loud message to kids today. Feelings DO have a very hard right/wrong definition and woe be the child who doesn't understand not only that fact but where the lines are.

Great catch on the story.

reply to post by AnIntellectualRedneck

Exactly. This isn't a threat. This is a cry for help from a kid that's being bullied and severely mistreated.

People wonder why we have issues with kids snapping. It's crap like this. Instead of getting the kid the kind of help with the issue that she clearly needs, they effectively labeled a serial killer.

Agreed!



She needs parents who can listen to her and share their time with her! I am also concerned that instead of the parental guidance she needs, she most likely will end up with a prescription..................sigh.....

Every time I read about something like this I find myself thanking my lucky stars that I am 47 years old and don't have to deal with being a kid again. Given today's standards I would have been locked up and the key thrown away before I had a chance to get to high school.

Kids have it rough these days.
They actually get criminal charges for being kids. Sadly these kids grow up often with single working parents and are pissed off, scared and feeling little hope for the future. No wonder they are doing things that are simply unimaginable to most of us.

Good luck youngsters, it is a scary nasty world and getting scarier.

As far back as when I was in school (mid '50s) teachers have been afraid of taking initiative in "teachable moments." Some did, I have to say; and those were the ones I remember as "good teachers."

But now, even more than then, they're afraid of administrators; they're afraid of parents; they're afraid of government; they're afraid to the point of paralysis to do the right thing. We don't expect any more than that anymore. And we sure as hell don't get it....

Definitely an over reaction on the schools part. If the girl had a history of violence, than I could understand the schools concern. Schools sometimes feel like they have to show the public their protecting students, except sometimes they don't use common sense and they end up making it a bigger issue than what it needs to be.

This young girl should have been called into the counselor's office and the poem should have been discussed. Maybe even call the parents in so they're made aware of it. Her teachers should have been called in and asked their opinion of her observed classroom demeanor. Her teachers could have than monitored her behavior for the next few weeks.

I see poetry....where are you getting danger signals from....dang .....I see innocence, literary ability in school one should write poetry when given the notion and spare time. No one posted that aspect but I will.

Originally posted by Wrabbit2000
"Feelings are not right or wrong, they just are."

Of course, as an adult, I know that's not technically true.

Oddly I've learnt the opposite. I've learnt it's the one truth that sets you free. Feelings are not right or wrong. How you react to them, how you engage with them.. that is what is seen as right or wrong.

If nothing else, it shows how misunderstood the mind is. That it varies from person to person just how simple things can be used or ignored.

I remember back when port arthur happened and I was on the streets of perth at the time, I remember some of the other street kids who were completely under societies radar, the homeless unwanted youth, squatters who found a home in derelect buildings and stole sandwiches to survive.

There were twins around at the time, Seth and Josh, and one of them scared me sane at the time, saying he agreed with everything bryant did.

It's not new that society caters to the well to do and otherwise stable people, and lets the chaff fall to the side to be ignored and forgotten. It's not new at all. It's been happening since kings sat on thrones eating entire pigs while peasants scraped beans out of mud.

It is a sign that humans simply care more about their self interests first and foremost. Survival of the self.

And all we really are, are animals with the ability to consider outcomes. We weigh in so many factors in our daily lives, we are easily able to ignore the forgotten people. We might nudge them along, throw them a banana, and pause while they catch up... but ultimately, they perish at the neglect that others impose on them by sheer chance of birth.

If humans were machines and easily oiled and put back in use, the failure rate of us would be cause for scrapping the entire model and starting with something better.

how weary it would be to constantly try to justify and explain ourselves to ourselves.. we simply ignore it, and when bad things happen, put it down to 'them'..

I dunno, madness and genius are often considered the same... it's only when violence and death is included that people get involved.

There are lines beyond the sea of gray that almost all feelings fall into. The intent of saying it and basing policy on that concept was simply to avoid pushing kids to turn feelings inward and to dark places ...if those are the feelings involved. Far better, I believe the logic went, that a child or teen express them in the open where they can be discussed if need be.

This was an awfully loud message to kids today. Feelings DO have a very hard right/wrong definition and woe be the child who doesn't understand not only that fact but where the lines are.

Great catch on the story.

Feelings are nothing more than the result of your brain telling you a story. How you as a listener take that story, affects the outcome of those feelings.

If you fall into the "I must not have bad feelings and I must only ever have good feelings" trap, then you're doomed to suffer... Feelings are neither good or bad.. how you react to them, can be.

And so the circle continues!

As students become aware that a cry for help remains unanswered,

As students become aware that deep emotions have terrible repercussions.

As students are taught by example that they must remain silent.

Then the circle continues.

The deep emotions never to have an outlet.

The deep emotions fester and feed on themselves.

Then SNAP, another tragedy.

And the masses wail, WHY?

For children and adults alike, feeling unloved and unneeded has terrible consequences for the spirit.

When greed and money trumps love and caring, the spirit withers.

In one moment of utter anguish, the spirit snaps, it may be an individual suicide, it may be worse, much worse.

Yet, society watches and does nothing.

Let us put guards at our schools, we can shoot the unloved dead, before they damage our ideal society.

Yea, that will do it, that is the answer!

As you sow, so shall you reap!

P

I mean this with the utmost respect for those connected with the Sandy Hook nightmare...

But I'm just waiting for the first "official" to say: "It's a post Sandy Hook world".

reply to post by winofiend

Oddly I've learnt the opposite. I've learnt it's the one truth that sets you free. Feelings are not right or wrong. How you react to them, how you engage with them.. that is what is seen as right or wrong.

I disagree here...but the way you frame your argument makes the nature of a reply ...challenging.

It's not new that society caters to the well to do and otherwise stable people, and lets the chaff fall to the side to be ignored and forgotten. It's not new at all. It's been happening since kings sat on thrones eating entire pigs while peasants scraped beans out of mud.

Primarily because there is no arguing that logic. A turn of fate, as you say and luck of who gave birth, at what class in life determines so much before most in the world ever understand the concept of limitation or pre-determined outcome. Not every nation to the same degree ... but all to some level. Indeed.

I dunno, madness and genius are often considered the same... it's only when violence and death is included that people get involved.

You're a very complex person...and I love the reply here because it makes me really have to stop and think. Here too, you speak the truth, IMO. Genius and Madness are interestingly similar, aren't they? It's almost a double edged sword to have true genius I suppose (and I'm not even playing at claiming I do..lol). After all, the human mind is an incredible thing which can justify or rationalize almost anything ... under the proper circumstances, need and intelligence to get from A to B on the logic. As you also note, unless violence and/or harm to others enter into that whole issue...it's a 'conflict' rarely considered. Perhaps it needs to be a bit more.

If you fall into the "I must not have bad feelings and I must only ever have good feelings" trap, then you're doomed to suffer... Feelings are neither good or bad.. how you react to them, can be.

Getting back to how I started my reply, I do disagree here. Though I'll hold entirely to the need to never punish or make light of feelings from anyone, especially children. The most obvious example for context to use here is Hate. Hate is a feeling, of course, and when we talk about true, deep and active hate as an emotion and not simply a mental concept ... I think it is wrong. It's one feeling that actually generates harm within the person given into to it. For that reason, it is one of a very few feelings that do cross into the area of wrong ...but again, not to punish. I'd say the very few which fall into that are why encouraging all feelings to be openly shared is so important. Guidance.....understanding...and helping someone who expresses they have such self-destructive feelings is productive. We'd agree entirely, it seems, making anyone feel they need to bury such feelings only compounds the problem and makes an explosive release of that emotion more likely.

Great reply to get my mental wheels spinning a bit.

The stupidest thing about this is if the school thinks she's a threat suspending her would only push her further away.

Seems like an appropriate time for this prophetic musical interlude about a boy writing poems in school.

So much crap on ATS gets discussed, but something like this, that is so critical to society, does not.

It is almost as if society cannot own the truth!

P

If I found that poem in the possession of one of my students, I would TALK to her. Why don't people understand that writing is therapeutic? That by putting words and thoughts on paper, you are actually getting rid of some of their poison?

I would talk to her, maybe to her parents, but this is not the poem of a student ready to pull off a massacre.

I know. In my day I've written some rough stuff. Just check the short stories forum. Doesn't mean I plan to act on anything.

Sometimes, I lose hope in our world.

Originally posted by smyleegrl

(snip)

Sometimes, I lose hope in our world.

I already have! When the cries of children are lost and unanswered then the future is lost as well.!

P

That is totally lunatic and a joke regarding the 1st amendment and a joke regarding the constitution.

Why don't they suspend students who are writing software for violent video games? Is that coming next?

There is a difference between expression in arts or literature and dangerous threats.

That society is run by the stupid for the stupid. However, those individuals who are brave enough to think in their own ways and to express their own feelings are being banned and executed as they are representing a threat for the government.
Orwell, 1984.

This got attention because Mom complained to the media, but it has been happening at least since 2001. My brother, who has been an amazing (if dark) writer since he could hold a pen, was suspended for writing a poem about death. The school administrators told us that it was a violation of the zero tolerance policy. I was always told that words were powerful weapons, but I didn't think it was meant to be taken literally