I never thought guidance at my school was very useful. When I ask for university advice, they refer me to a standard Ontario universities webpage, and tell me non-truths such as “art schools mainly look at your report card marks” and “you can’t get into an Ivy league; your marks aren’t high enough” (my guidance counselor didn’t actually say this, but sort of shook his head while muttering when I asked him if he thought I could get into Yale. Into the arts program. When their main claim is that they don’t really look at your average as a main indicator. I porbably won’t get into Yale, but still).

Yes, guidance counselors are useless, but now I am really pissed off.

A close friend of mine failed math. Barely. Needing 50% to pass, she failed by 5% (or something like that). The only help her guidance counselor provided was telling her that the school started a day later than it actually did start. Well, I guess they told her the location of the school. Gotta give them credit for something.

It turns out there is no follow-up call for summer school. Which is unfortunate as guidance did not have the courtesy to tell her the time the school started. When the principal of the program finally called back, it was to say that the school had already started, and she had missed one more day than the cut off three days she was allowed to miss.

So really, I’m not just pissed off at guidance, but at the whole school/summer-school system.

What really gets me is the attitude displayed towards my friend. It seems that far from being accomodating, or attempting to be sympathetic, to the school system, a failing student is someone to be looked down apon and punished rather than helped out. After visiting guidance in an attempt to open up some dialogue between the school system and the summer school system, my friend was met with contempt and told bulshit such as “You know, summer school really isn’t good for your academic career.” Really. And I suppose repeating a course is.

A guidance program, in my opinion, should be for three things. First of all they have to do the basics, and make sure courses that students take allow them to have a working schedule. Secondly, they need to advise kids on their careers and futures beyond school, and, lastly they need to help those having real difficulties at school. So far, I only see evidence of the first. For universities, guidance seems to have established this method of advising where they refer students to a website/book without knowing anything themselves. For students struggling, the bare minimum is done.

Unfortunately, in the schooling system, those that need the most help get the least. If a student is struggling, or failing a course, it is vaguely seen that this student is a bad student/lazy/not worth spending time on… generally someone to treat with contempt. If a pupil has a learning disability, difficulty grasping a subject, or for some reason or other is falling behind in their work, accomidations are as few as the effort made to reach out to them.

True, there are students that are generally lazy and don’t care about their progress. Another one of my friends played video games in the back of the math classroom the entire year. What I am saying is that it is unfair to assume that all failing students are like this.

Linking this back to my friend, had the schools had a different opinion of her, they would have believed that her guidance counselor told her the wrong date, or would have attempted to make some sort of accomidation. As it is, guidance was rude to her and proceded to further screw her over.

Now, perhaps this is all just a misunderstanding. After all, both the guidance programme and the summer school principal did not break any rules, go against the constitution, or anything like that. But wouldn’t it be nice if guidance counselors actually pretended to care for the students that need them the most?

I didn’t sleep last night, and it’s that time of the year. You know. When the year is wrapping up, everything is due, and your boyfriend has locked himself in his room for the next month or so. As I was walking home I decided, in my random state of mind, that what I really wanted to do was to write a blog. Sort of arbitrary, but I love to write and I’m getting sorta excited now about all the things I could post about…. anger over American politics and society’s inability to accept anyone who deviates from a social norm, mostly.

My experience with this sort of internet writing stuff kinda runs along the lines of an art blog where I’d scan artwork in (takes forever, so about a year ago I stopped), or an advice site where I’d give people advice on various issues. Which was always fun, because of the ridiculous range of questions. One thing I kept noticing, however, was that there was always a sort of element of shame around the issue of sex that kept reappearing along side those that seemed overly promiscuous. There was a lot of “I’m fourteen and had sex am I pregnant now?” Coupled with the shame that came along with it… “you’re too young” “You should wait until you’re married, ” and a whole lot of misinformation. In some areas of the states, lessons that only preach abstinence often misinform youth, and you could see the effect on some of the advice givers (eg. “condoms are only effective something like 60% of the time, so don’t have sex.”)

I’m going to try to reply to some of the stupidity of biases and similar misinformation here, that would be professionalish, wouldn’t it?

Likely, though, I’ll probably resort to ranting about my personal life a lot, because it’s often more fun (for me).

Disclosure: I actually do sometimes paint in my underpants, but usually but everything back on really quickly within a few minutes of doing so because I’m afraid my Dad will come down, and have another “I’m an awkward, flustered man” moment. Though this isn’t a regular occurrence, I’m keeping the title because a) in my weird choice of title, I’ll maintain my individuality b) I couldn’t think of anything else and c) because the title “angry white bitch” has already been taken.

Another disclosure: I didn’t actually read the terms of agreement (or whatever they are called). Sue me.