Educational Fiction

We don’t need no education. We don’t need no thought control. No dark sarcasm in the classroom. Teacher, leave them kids alone. Hey! Teacher! Leave them kids alone! All in all, you’re just another brick in the wall. All in all, you’re just another brick in the wall. Sound familiar to you? It should. It was the perfect anthem for going to school and being miserable. Whether you were being bullied by the teachers, bullied by the kids, getting teenaged girls pregnant or being a pregnant teenager yourself, these separate phenomena have been and should be the subject of pretty much every educational fiction book on the library shelves. But to tell you the truth, the only educational fiction story I own is “The Perks of Being a Wallflower” and I have yet to read it. I’ve seen previews for the movie before, but I’ve yet to be properly introduced to it despite that. From what I’ve seen in the trailer, it does talk about bullying and friendship. Maybe even romance given that Emma Watson is in the movie. These may sound like inane topics when compared to world disasters, but they’re still important to talk about in some capacity. In fact, here’s a whole list of topics that all educational fiction novels should talk about:

1. Bullying. It’s been going on for way too long and despite all the deaths and heartache that has resulted from it, we’ve only been doing something about it since 2010. It should have never taken that long for us to realize that we need to treat each other with dignity and respect.
2. Friendship. This goes hand-in-hand with bullying since friends and family are your support network for when you’re going through those awful things. What also needs to be discussed is the idea of friends never seeing each other again after high school or college is over. Then again, that’s what Facebook is for. I guess.
3. Underage sex. When I went to school in the witch-hunting, Salem-esque town of Chehalis, Washington, the sex ed teachers taught us to wait until we were married to have sex after giving us a whole list of horrible STD’s to avoid by doing so. I’ve never heard so much dishonesty in my entire life. Then again, they have to have some way of keeping minors from fucking each other. Scare tactics are not the answer, though.
4. Teen pregnancy. In addition to that long list of painful-sounding diseases, another consequence of teen sex is pregnancy. Teenaged times are about having fun and being a kid. You can’t do those things whilst taking care of a baby. It’s one of the reasons I’m pro-choice. The other one being that kids can be really fucking annoying at times.
5. Drugs and alcohol. Promoting a straightedge lifestyle isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Hell, I’m straightedge myself, so I agree with drug education. But the whole “drugs are bad” approach can be downright ridiculous at times. It’s not enough to just say that drugs are bad and to use scare tactics. You have to teach these kids accountability and pride in their work.
6. Mental illness. This one hits close to home since I’m autistic, schizophrenic, and quite possibly depressed. High school is not a good place to start hearing voices in your head or to have a sad attitude all the time. It interferes with your social life, your work, and it may encourage bullies to pay you more visits. The earlier mental diseases are detected and accounted for, the better off the student will be.
7. The prom. I never got to go to the prom since I was too shy to ask anybody to come with me. I hated being told no and I still do. You want to know how much courage it took me to congratulate MMA fighter Ronda Rousey on Twitter for retaining her championship? All of it. Each and every last morsel of courage was used to post that message. If I’m that nervous around a high-profile celebrity, imagine what I’m like around regular people. Introverts like me quickly descend into our bubbles whenever danger approaches.

I’m sure there are more topics that need to be addressed, but these are the main ones that concern me the most. If you have any further suggestions, feel free to post them on the message board. Until then, I have one thing more to say. We’ve got ears, say cheers!

　

***TELEVISION QUOTE OF THE DAY***

“Sexual harassment is just bullying with a boner.”

-Daniel Tosh from “Tosh.0”-