Story Time

In practice, the gifted track in most high schools – most North American high schools, at any rate – has the same problem as any other educational program: the need to adhere to published metrics. These programs exist for the benefit of students only insofar as those benefits can empirically be measured, which leads to several common outcomes:

Students on the gifted track being afforded fewer choices regarding elective classes – often to the extent of having no choices at all – in order to stream the highest-performing students into the subjects that are most valuable in terms of boosting institutional metrics.

Students on the gifted tracking receiving restricted access to educational resources such as tutoring because it's perceived as a waste of funding. In many cases, gifted students are not only denied access to tutoring, but expected to serve as volunteer tutors and teaching assistants themselves, effectively becoming a source of unpaid educational labour for the schools they attend.

Students on the gifted track being assigned considerably more homework, often literally doubling their workload in an environment where homework loads are already routinely high enough that kids have difficulty finding time to eat and sleep, simply because you get more measurable academic performance data that way.

The upshot is that the gifted track is often less about fun perks and constant praise, and more about receiving less freedom, fewer resources, and heavier workloads than one's peers, getting strong-armed into providing unpaid labour to the school on top of it, and constantly being told one should be grateful for it – and that's without touching on the fact that the unspoken secondary purpose of many gifted programs is to serve as a quarantine for all the neurodivergent kids the school couldn't find an excuse to institutionalise or expel.

Like, shit, there's a reason kids on the gifted track exhibit elevated rates of alcoholism and substance abuse compared to general student populations. That doesn't arise in a vacuum!

Sure, in schools where performance on the gifted track is used to determine eligibility for certain types of scholarships, the curriculum being deliberately designed to produce a high burnout rate in order to weed out the "unworthy" is definitely a thing that's known to happen.

I can't remember my actual age, but it was in the range of 10 to 13 I think. my parents had dragged me to a Pride festival, and walked across the street from the main event, across where the lines were drawn, to where a sea of people in red shirts that read "god has a better way" tried to drown out the celebration with speakers blasting christian music, and shouting and loud praying.

the leaders pulled all us kids to the side and gave us the spiel. they told us how the rainbow had been stolen from us, and that these people were tricked by the devil and just needed prayer, but that if we didn't save them, they were going to hell.

I rolled my eyes because I already didn't believe in god, and although I barely knew what being gay was, I knew my parents were usually on the Wrong side of things, and I shouldn't be siding with them.

"We aren't allowed over there if we're wearing the red shirts," the leaders told us, "so we're sending people over in secret without them so you can pass out tracts and pray for people. they won't talk to us, but they'll talk to the kids. does anyone want to volunteer?"

the people in red shirts disgusted me. the people on the other side of the line were cheering and having fun. I raised my hand.

we were supposed to go in groups with young adults, to make sure we were doing what we were supposed to be. I wandered off the minute I could and stood nervously at the edge of a crowd, watching on as people went by, happy and unbothered by the protests across the street. I felt a little pride myself in tricking the protestors into giving up a witness spot to me, when I was going to smile on and think profanities at god instead.

there was an older woman standing outside the crowd too. she asked if I was here with anyone, a girlfriend maybe? I said no, my parents were across the street. she nodded, and said she was here with her kid. a daughter, that she came to support, but couldn't keep up with in the crowd.

I almost cried. I told her how amazing that was, because I couldn't imagine my mother showing support like that to me over anything, much less something as serious as Being Gay. I imagined if I was gay, and at a pride event just like now, but this time because I Belong.

I knew automatically that my mother, without a doubt, would still be in the same place, across the street.

I got hungry after a bit, and tried to find a good food truck. I had a little money and I was unused to being on my own like this, but I didn't want to go back to the Other Side. I knew now without a shadow of a doubt, this was the Good side and that was the Bad side.

as I was eating the gyro I got, there was a stream of red shirted protestors trickling through; I had reached the end of the boundaries, and the protestors were allowed in here. I backed up a little, spotting my dad among them. I didn't want him to tell me to go back.

there was a line of women closing ranks around the Pride attendees, separating them from the protesters as they walked through. they spread their arms out and told every person the protesters spoke to that they were not obligated to respond, they could walk away and not engage.

my dad spotted me back, and made a beeline over. he couldn't cross over because a butch lesbian stood between us. I didn't know what those words meant, but I never forgot the buttons she was wearing.

he tried to tell me that it was time to go. "you're not obligated to speak to him," the butch said, cutting him off and edging further between us. I smiled at her, a little in wonderment. no one had ever told me that I didn't have to speak to my parents, or do anything other than blindly obey them. I watched my dad get held behind a line by a woman half his height, with no intention on letting him get to me, and I smiled and walked away.

I didn't have a clue who I was then, and I wouldn't for a good few years to come. but I never forgot the supportive mother, who symbolized to me everything a mother should be, that mine, for all her religious self righteousness, would never hold a candle to. I never forgot that she was the person I wanted to be, and my mother was the person I did not want to be.

I never forgot the butch who stood between me and my dad, and for the first time ever, put the idea in my head that I was ALLOWED to make my own choices in my beliefs, and made me feel protected in a way I hadn't known I needed.

the image of her standing between me and my dad, being a physical barrier to protect me against any potential threat, that inspired the image of who I admired and wanted to become. it inspired the version of me who could stand up to my dad - to the point that I could hold my ground and educate him enough that over a decade later, he walked side by side with me at a pride festival, with no intent of witnessing to or condemning anybody.

ilya rozanov asks shane to be his boyfriend, attempt 2: might fuck around later and marry a woman lol. yeah i have one in mind. she's really hot :) her dad was a goalie :)

Yuna: ok, so you've been "seeing" each other for 9 years... And when did you confess your real feelings and decided to be together?

Shane:

Ilya:

Yuna:

David:

Shane:

ilya as woodstock

You ask when this started and Mister Dickhead makes sure Shane is accurate about when they started this. How dare you stave off half a year of us, Shane?

You ask if they talked to Scott Hunter and Ra Ra Rasputin says that he, famous asshole extraordinaire went to talk to Patron Saint of Hockey Gays to offer him congratulations.

You ask if he has no loyalty to Boston and Mr Fucking Fuck San Francisco is like. Nyet