#elementry school

“Remember planning day is next week.”

Teach little girls self defense. That's what I should've done while I could've.

There were so many boys at that school who would tug on a girls pigtails, push her down into rocks/mud, grab her by the arm and drag her, and the worst part is, the teachers watched.

They watched as an 8 yr old girl would be dragged across the turf over to a bigger group of boys who would nag and make fun of her. Watched as they would push her down, and the moment she struck back, they sent her to the office

And GOD it made me so angry.

I wish I had taken these girls to the end of the schoolyard and taught them how to punch, because primus knows that if something like this happens again, she will brush it off. It was never right, never will be. I wish I had a group of these girls with me, and I would teach them that if a boy pulls on your hair, it does not mean that he has a crush on you, it means that you can turn around and sock him in the jaw if you didn't like it. I wish I had taught these girls the best points to hit someone and run. I wish I had taught these girls all about how the teachers won't help you and that they needed a good alibi or know how to stump the teacher. I wish I had taught these girls how to defend themselves and how to use a knife.

Things I do now that I blame School for:

1 - Holding off going to the bathroom: I could be at work just doing my job, or even at home just enjoying myself, when I feel the need to pee and I hear a little voice telling me to “hold it and wait until later”.  

WHY!!!???? There be absolutely NO consequence for going to the bathroom at those times! NONE!

2 - Feeling the need to raise my hand to ask a question - When in a meeting more than once I have to stop myself from raising my hand to ask a question to the speaker.

Again...WHY!!!???? I feel so awkward afterwards even though no one knows what I was tempted to do!

I’m almost 30! I shouldn’t do this anymore and I wanna stop!!!!

My life story:

I am supposed to leave soon- By the beginning of fall I’ll be out. I’ll be in a dorm where I can put my bed wherever because it’s my bed. I can study how to become a teacher and how to make sure this doesn’t happen to other children.

Nobody can “save” me. 

I lived through it.

and it hurts, it aches and I feel guilty for my complacency.

But kid’s should never have to feel the way I felt.

Confused, hurt and scared.

That’s why I want to be a teacher. 

To help raise a generation of children who get to be children - 

they don’t have to flinch or know the feeling of iron in their mouths.

They know the colors of the sky during a sunset.

The amount of ninja turtles and all of their names.

So let me take you back to the early 2010s, back to the years I was in elementary school

Obviously, we were all obsessed with pokemon, or at least knew it. Many, many kids (including me of course) had pokemon cards. I will state this dont get your hopes up, this wasnt a huge elementary school, but it was decently sized for the rural and country area it was placed for us.

Anyways, I'm definitely going to get this wrong, so I d say this happened in 4-5 grade. It became quite popular to bring you pokemon cards to school, and a lot of kids would trade cool looking cards with their friends. Now while, I'm not kidding, some kids would bring every pokemon card they owned to school to show them off, I only brought a few, and only if someone asked to see some cards (ah yes anxiety, I do have to thank you for that. Why? Well..) you see, here was the problem

The school decided to ban pokemon cards! And now that I think about it, they had a good reason (but tis still stupid, let us be pokemon masters :/) pokemon cards cost parents money, but some kids were trading 3 ok looking cards for one awesome (because let's be honest, all we ever really cared about was how cool it looked) but also, some kids if I remember correctly were apparently having cards stolen

So they banned it

And it didnt stop us

Now, they remodeled that old school after I left, but when I was there, there was this huge field and a path around it, you know how schools have it. Kids were allowed to walk this path as well. So. Freaking. Guess. What. Happened.

Probably the reason I remember this so vividly was I remember trading cards with one of my best friends while near the back, we kept the cards in our pockets and showed them carefully, other wise they would be confiscated. This track was a path to walk for some, and a black market for pokemon cards to others

I think one day they figured it out, because we got told no one could walk the path anymore, and that's when I think the scheme ended

And no, there were never fights over wanting cards back (kids got upset, but never yelling or physical) or upset the other wouldnt make the trade, so no one got hurt. It litterly was just we wanted to trade pokemon cards and make some pretty decent pokemon friends

THE REASON IM TELLING YOU THIS IS HILARIOUS

So I get a call from my mom (btw she knows about the black market story) about half an hour ago, waking me up (noonish) and shes asking if I need anything since shes going to one last store. She likes to Black Friday shop with one of my aunts every year, so she was hanging around for a while after at their house, and learned something amazing

My two youngest cousins had gotten into pokemon cards because (most likely since the Sword and Shield games) McDonald's was giving out pokemon cards with happy meals again. This..

This was causing kids at these two's elementary school to trade. And gues what, the school banned them!

So freaking GUESS WHAT THE KIDS ARE DOING

I straight up had to have my mom stop talking for a solid 20 seconds so I could laugh. My youngest cousins! Following in my own footsteps!! So proud

Anyways, now those two want to get into pokemon card collecting (they already had about 90 I've heard) and since that part of my family never got into pokemon so they dont know it well, they ask if I, the person with 1,700+ pokemon cards, could help these two out