Keep Striping Away Their Identity with School Uniforms and Segregation Please

Imagine a world where we all look the same.  Guys wear the same khaki colored slacks with a blue polo.  Girls outfitted in the a khaki jean skirts that falls above the ankles and should be called a dress, but because dresses are meant for walking all these little sweethearts are thrilled to show the frill of lace around the top of their bleached white socks.  No, I am talking about more than dress code. 

I am also talking about segregation.  Boys and girls split up as our father’s and mother’s fore-people were in school back in the day.  What is this world?  This world is the one ripping away our children’s identity and critical developmental skills, but when it comes to a higher education is it worth it. 

We live in a dynamic world of change and opposition.  It is full of terrorism, drugs, war, gangs, teenage sex, murder, sexism, child abuse and neglect, and tons of individuality that screams hallelujah to the seven hells for a way to make us somehow different from every other human being we share air. 

No, I am in no way supportive of any criminal activity, if you misread how I constructed my sentence above.  I am in no way un-supportive of finding ways to help our youth exercise their brain, though I feel that many youth today are way smarter than they were ten, fifteen, fifty years ago. 

Of course, contribute this to science’s last 200-year sprint to replace God with the microorganism and prove that we are not alone in the ever-enlarging cosmos.  Add in the amazing spider-Web with massive highways full of information that will allow you to visit Uranus without ever needing to leave your $100 office chair, hand-held computers that ring the Moody Blues, and assigned algebra to a third grader’s math curriculum equals some pretty smart youth. 

There are still those kids, you know the ones who have a hard time paying attention in class and work at a slower pace.  The ones who are really just lazy, don’t get their math or language homework, or haven’t matured fast enough to be doing more homework on a weeknight than their parents 400 level college instructor assigns them.  That’s ok though, science has been good to teachers.  It invented ADHD, so some BS law could force kids to go to some doctor with a letter of assessment by a teacher. 

The letter reads in a secret coded language, “Please drug kid.  He wants to do his own thing.”  The doctor on the spot writes out a prescription for Adderal without any evaluation.  We will blame this same youth for being a drug addict in twenty years and give him the reputation that we always knew he turn out like this.  Nevertheless, whose fault is really? 

I was one of those kids back in the day before the meds and tougher laws requiring parents to conform came about.  I was slow, have never really showed enthusiasm in much, and usually figured things out before the other kids.  Don’t kid yourself, I am in school and on my way to becoming an instructor of the English language.  The subject of English and writing in school were the only two subjects that held my attention.  Sure I loved history, liked most things in science class (unless it tried to disprove that dragons, witches, monsters, gods, and the Tooth Fairy wasn’t real), but have never understood math (yes, I get 2+2=4 and 861,856+ X =138,332,984,033, but go into some Calculus or Trigonometry and I just might toss you across the room).   However, when my fifth grade teacher, Mrs. Shepherd, told me that, “the writer had the powers of God;” I have played God since.

School is a place to learn.  Moreover, learning should be not only our children’s top priority, but ours as well.  The kids are suffering from our mistakes.  We look at statistics and listen to news broadcast and see Columbines, gangs, and then see shows like the Secret Life of Teens, or whatever, and fret in the crosshairs of cultural change inside moral dilemma. 

 The truth is the statistics we usually read are skewed in making you think a certain way.  Columbine type incidents are on the rise of because of continuing over population, but school violence is nothing new.  Violence and gangs have been around since the dawn of time and the show Secret Life of the American Teenager is a drama, we are drama!

Sure, we dress the kids all the same and take away their identity, but what good is it doing us?  Fixing the dramatic problems we all worry about in the school systems must start at home.  When you see a guy in a Marilyn Manson tee and all dark cloths walking down the street don’t look at your son and say who is that freak.  That freak is a person with likes and dislikes, and probably a smart kid. 

However, don’t blame him when he blows your son’s head off because your son has for years dogged him with your biased views and stereotyped behavior. 

The same with a girl whom shows a little skin.  It does not make her a whore.  Your daughter can easily be that whore in the khaki skirt that looks like everyone else.  Of course, I am talking high school.  Yet I have seen parents to this crazy stuff.  Clothes don’t make the person.

Separate the kids you say, (at least a school in Buncombe County, NC is doing so).  Then, are we not devaluing the essence of equality then?  Of an educational experience that exceeds those anything a teacher can teach?

The communication between the two sexes is crucial at such an early age.  Only experience can teach a boy and girl to communicate and learn that they are equals.  Remember that less than ninety years ago women were not considered the equal of man in the United States.  What if this reverses in the future, and this time it is man whom loses his rights?

We must teach our children to be different.  To have their own identity, in personality and dress, as we all should have our own personal identity.   Making a better world starts with better choices of judgment of character.  Not filling the seats with techno-zombies loaded up on Adderal.  Not every boy is good at playing sports, nor is every girl made to be sweet and innocent.  We are all-different inside and show it on the exterior.  Teach our children to love one another, be a sponge, and to do their best.  What more can we really ask for?

Some clues from a drug addict to help a drug addict rid an addiction.

I have been free of an addiction for almost a year, but I dare not call myself liberated.  The demon crawls on the edge of my conscience every day.  Some days are worse than others.  But the biggest realization is that I made it through withdrawal-hell with the love of my family, my openness to proper medical staff and myself, and with the last piece of confidence left inside me. 

No one understands what it’s like to live under the gun.  That’s what you basically do each time you shoot, snort, or drink your veins filthy black, place a gun to your head and play Russian Roulette.  For a long time it feels better than anything you could ever do or accomplish, until you realize your mind is eroded with a gun to your temple and your world’s crashing.  No one seems to care about a person when the addiction takes them.

That is who I hope to respond today.  Those with a family member who way out of control.  Those addicts the world has given up on.  Those people in your family that deserves your love more-so than ever. 

It’s easy to give up on someone when you see their life spinning out of control.  I know people turned their backs as I did.  I was addicted to oxys, more than 200 mg’s a day or so, if I could obtain it.  I became hooked after I returned home from Operation Iraqi Freedom and it started out because I wanted to numb my mind from the things I witnessed.  As my addiction grew over the years, people stopped talking to me as my physical appearance changed with my behavior.  I didn’t recognize the change because I was in a hell that looked like heaven.   

My wife became dependant on my addiction to Percocet.  I could not function without them.  I grew callous, absorbed; I stopped doing things.  She should have left me is what she tells me people tell her.  And maybe, she should have.  But if it hadn’t been for her I would have been dead right now. 

Toward the end of it all, when I was seeing what the pills I snorted were doing to me, if it hadn’t been for her love of me I wouldn’t have been able to walk myself into a doctor’s office and ask for help.  I remember it was a Monday when she led me by my trembling hand. 

Sometimes, that’s all it takes.  Love, with a hand.  If a person is ready to rid the poisons out of their life they must be ready, if not, go beyond and fight for their life.  No matter if you’re hated for it.  I would rather be hated and know that someone is alive and well. 

There are a variety of clinics out there.  You must understand when someone has taken a drug or drank until their genetic code is dependent on that, then that person may have to take a pseudo-narcotic in a step off, or down, plan.  It can be expensive, but if that person is purchasing $700 a month in pills or beer, what can $700 a month hurt to help your loved one break that addiction and begin living a productive life. 

This is something that takes time and reserves of strength from not only the addict, but people around him or her.  There is going to be slip ups.  And that is ok, as long as the addict is open and honest about why they did it and knows that because they slipped it doesn’t mean they have to binge.

Heroin and pain meds seem to be out doing crack and meth on the streets by a long shot.  Suboxone and Methodone are great alternatives to combat this addiction.  I did Suboxone, which my doctor claimed was a better option because Methodone is more addicting and has a longer withdrawal rate.  I beat my addiction with Suboxone in less than six months, though I was scheduled for a year.  I wanted nothing more than to be clean. 

Since being clean, my appearance and thought process have improved greatly.  I have found ways to be high on life.  I have gotten more work done.  Remember your addict may have changed, but that is the drug masking their personality. 

I am willing to talk with anyone with an addiction or anyone who wants to help someone they love conquer an addiction.  Remember it takes love, willingness, and patience.  Going clean cannot happen without these three things.