KiNdAfaBuLous

Public School

I’ve been meaning to write this post for a very long time, but I haven’t done so out of fear that my words would be gravely, critically misinterpreted; or that my words would come off as offensive and elitist to some people; and I don’t like offending people! At the same time, I have to tell it like it is, so in the spirit of being 100% truthful and honest-I’ve decided to embrace my inner-Ja’mie King and share my horrible experience at PUBLIC SCHOOL with all of you.

When I was 9 years old, my family (virtually) lost all of our money, and we had to move out of our big, expensive home, and I had to leave my very “private,” expensive private school for something cheaper. Since we had narrowly missed the registration for the local Catholic School (my father’s master plan was always to send me to a Catholic School [of course]) by a few weeks, my father decided to enroll me in the local public school in Hancock Park-Third Street School (on Third Street and June-two blocks up from where I grew up) for one year until we could get me into the Catholic School of his choice.

To this day-I still shudder and cringe-thinking about the multitude of horrific, deeply embarrassing, self-esteem shattering moments I endured at Third Street Elementary School-as there were many (upon many). Rather than go through them all-I will highlight some painfully tragic, but hilarious (but select) experiences I endured at good old Third Street Public School, and I will splice these moments with my inner-Jamie King reactions:

1. I got called “F*gg*t almost daily by this girl named Diane whose brother was in a gang. I say that very casually because there were several people in my public elementary school whose brothers were in gangs (or aspiring to be so). To juxtapose this against my experience at private school, I didn’t even know what a “f*gg*t” was until that very same year, nor had I ever encountered anyone who was in a gang, or “gang affiliated.”

It was all quite interesting and eye-opening in a horrible, let’s “throw the poor little rich boy into a hostile environment” sort of way. Although I was scared of Diane, I sometimes found the inner-strength to stand up for myself and tell her what I really thought of her.

2. My best friend, who had been diagnosed with major, major A.D.H.D. and severe emotional/behavioral problems (he was ultimately expelled from public school) decided to turn on me and pretend that he hated me during day time hours at public school. I can’t really blame him for that-everyone else hated me, so why shouldn’t he join the pack, right? One day at public school, he told everyone in his class that I gave him a hand job.

Again, to juxtapose this with my experience at private school-not only did I not know what a hand job was, neither did any of my friends at private school. Since we were only 9-10, our thoughts were occupied with different sorts of things other than hand jobs, while kids at public school seemed very sexually active in 5th grade. It was a very hypersexualized environment for such a young, adolescent age.

3. Since I went to private school, and I don’t say this in a braggy tone-I was pretty far ahead of everyone in terms of what we learned that year in fifth grade. Literally, I had already learned everything we were being taught in 5th grade the prior year (in 4th grade)-so public school was a cool breeze for me (academically). Often, I looked outside the window and daydreamed about the day when I could leave Third Street School and its negativity behind, and I clung to those thoughts as my outlet to sanity.

One day, in geometry class, I noticed that my 70+year old eccentric teacher started behaving strangely. On any given day, this teacher would say something inappropriately crass, or she would walk around the classroom and steal food from our lunches, so the scale of normal versus “strange” was appropriately shifted. While I naturally found all of her “normal behavior” very disturbing, I just accepted this as “normal public school behavior”-and there wasn’t much I could do about it. As class progressed-I noticed my teacher becoming increasingly confused and disoriented and nonsensical, and I found myself suddenly very concerned for her well-being.

Later that day-I saw her being wheeled out of her classroom strapped down to a gurney, because she had snapped and undergone some psychotic breakdown in the middle of class and was being taken away to a mental hospital for observation. Of course, I trained myself to be desensitized to this because I had been treated terribly every day, and I didn’t know what to expect on any given day at public school. Nothing was normal, and I just accepted my geometry teacher’s psychotic breakdown as commonplace or something.

And that’s it everyone. I’m not saying that there aren’t some fabulous, amazing public schools around the country/in L.A. And I’m not discounting anyone’s amazing experience at public school-glad you had that! I hope more people have amazing experiences at public schools around the country. Unfortunately, the above mock narrative (emphasis on MOCK, but truthful) was simply my experience during the one year I spent at public school.

Clearly, I didn’t fit in, so I was very, very happy and elated when I transferred to my Catholic Middle School in Beverly Hills the following year (I fit in much better there). Anyway, I understand that some of you may not like this post, or some of you may be like, “Gosh, Edward is such an elitist, snobby, socially awkward bitch, and I hate him and I’m not going to follow him anymore, and to that I say-GOOD, and I’m glad you GET ME.”