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The School Survival Forums are permanently retired. If you need help with quitting school, unsupportive parents or anything else, there is a list of resources on the Help Page.

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To everyone who joined these forums at some point, and got discouraged by the negativity and left after a while (or even got literally scared off): I'm sorry.

I wasn't good enough at encouraging people to be kinder, and removing people who refuse to be kind. Encouraging people is hard, and removing people creates conflict, and I hate conflict... so that's why I wasn't better at it.

I was a very, very sensitive teen. The atmosphere of this forum as it is now, if it had existed in 1996, would probably have upset me far more than it would have helped.

I can handle quite a lot of negativity and even abuse now, but that isn't the point. I want to help people. I want to help the people who need it the most, and I want to help people like the 1996 version of me.

I'm still figuring out the best way to do that, but as it is now, these forums are doing more harm than good, and I can't keep running them.

Thank you to the few people who have tried to understand my point of view so far. I really, really appreciate you guys. You are beautiful people.

Everyone else: If after everything I've said so far, you still don't understand my motivations, I think it's unlikely that you will. We're just too different. Maybe someday in the future it might make sense, but until then, there's no point in arguing about it. I don't have the time or the energy for arguing anymore. I will focus my time and energy on people who support me, and those who need help.

-SoulRiser

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"Principles for reclaiming public education" - a site I found
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Trar Away
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Post: #1
"Principles for reclaiming public education" - a site I found

http://www.reclaimpublicednow.org/

From what I can tell this is a movement of educators, admins, parents and students who want to turn public education into a more localized, student-centric institution free of corporate influence and onerous top-down standardized testing with enough funding to actually teach a variety of subjects.

It looks like a step in the right direction to me, but I'm not sure how much this will affect the students' overall lot. Will public education actually become more relevant and less mind-numbing? I remember someone saying something in another thread I made about how these sort of movements, while good overall, are not exactly student-centric. If we're going to actually do anything as a group, we should probably add our voice to an effort like this to start.
12-07-2013 04:28 PM
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"Principles for reclaiming public education" - a site I found

I like the idea of this.

Hmm, I also wonder if the School Survival community could get involved in this. I'm wondering whether we can join this "Reclaim Public Education" and try to get some small goals done, like abolishing zero tolerance policies and getting rid of security cameras and police force at schools. I'd say these people may definitely support such goals.

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Stop jerking off to porn and whining and do something about it

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12-07-2013 04:50 PM
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"Principles for reclaiming public education" - a site I found

Those sound like perfectly reasonable goals that both parties can agree on. I think what with the general ambiance of this community and some of the people we attract (anti-social types, political fringe types, and a mess of malcontent students) we might have a bit of an image problem, but I don't think this will prove to be that big of an issue.

The real issue will be in fighting the interests that pushed for zero tolerance and school militarization in the first place. And if there's one thing I've learned since I left school, it's the corporate interests that stand to profit from a school-to-prison pipeline that puts otherwise innocent kids in prison for things that in our parents' day would result in a trip to the principals' office and/or a detention. I'm sure most of us have heard of students being held for these sorts of things, or even talked about the phenomenon.

And I'm pretty sure these corporate interests comprise the prison industry and the security industry, not to mention the rich who are at the top and their lobbyists/resources. It's the same sort of reason the GOP and the rich people who control (at least most of) them are so opposed to Obamacare despite the fact that it is not actually destroying America: it raises taxes on the sort of money they 'earn' by having a lot of corporate stock and what have you by 3.8%. Believe me when I say that self-interested rich people have a lot of resources and a lot of ways to use them against opposing organizations.

And I don't consider it out of the question to believe that there are a number of authority figures who would oppose our changes out of ignorance, fear of change or simple power-grubbing (fear of losing their power).

If we're going to join forces and push for our schools to be this much less shitty, we may inevitably receive blowback from these forces. And I believe that while it'll be hard, it won't be impossible to succeed anyhow. Yeah, it sounds outlandish, but this sort of populist victory is becoming increasingly common in (American) politics (from my POV at least) and supported by average folks.

Basically yes, but we may be in for a fight.
12-07-2013 05:06 PM
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"Principles for reclaiming public education" - a site I found

Revolutions aren't pretty, nor are they quick. The modern youth rights movement has only been around since the 1990s.

I agree, baby steps, first. Zero tolerance policies are already being laughed at and criticized massively. I'd say that maybe the ACLU could help us as well, since they directly oppose the "school-to-prison" pipeline which has been all too true in recent years.

RIP GWEDIN
RIP URITIYOGI
RIP NIGHT
RIP VONUNOV
RIP WES/THEWAKE
RIP USERNAME

[Image: Nas-One-Love.jpg]

Stop jerking off to porn and whining and do something about it

Make School Survival Great Again - MSSGA

Hidden stuff:

[Image: BallsofSteel2.png]
[Image: mg_michelle_2020.png]
12-07-2013 05:51 PM
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