This American Life

"I just want to remind everybody that this timeline, nor this solution, are solutions that Francis Howell would have chosen either. We're doing the best that we can. It hasn't even been two weeks ago that we've been notified. We did find out yesterday that those student scores will become our scores."

This quote said at the town hall meeting, was followed by groans of protest from the attending parents. Over and over again they got up to say how angry they were at the system for doing this to them. How could they let these kids from Normandy into their perfect schools? It absolutely baffles me that people could think like this. Here you have kids, innocent and trying to get an education, who have adults angry at them for wanting that. Angry at them for wanting the best. The parents at Francis Howell are more concerned with the self than they are with the whole.

"It was hard for Rihanna but she ended up having a good year. So good that one of Rihanna's teachers even asked her to help the girl who called her names with her math, something that Rihanna found ironic, given that the girl had called her stupid."

In my experience working with kids, and people in general, they are not born with the hate that they have. It is learned. It is learned by their parents and those around them and what they see in the world. It's only then that they start using these mean behaviors towards others. I wonder how different it would have been if all those parents at the town hall had been raised differently.