Best Personal Essay Ever

To my apparent acquaintances,*1

I am not like any of you. I am not rich, I care about my work, and I try my hardest not to be judgemental.*2 While I know you all view public school as some sort of awful place where education and freedom die, I hope you all realize that when you get to college with all the money your parents have, you all know nothing.*3

You all have known each other for years. This was my first year at this homeschool co op because this was the first year my family could afford to send me. For people who all profess themselves as being “accepting weirdos” it's amazing to me how little you wanted someone different from yourselves present. For people who have realized the importance of social justice through the wonders of social media, it’s interesting to look around the room and be the only one who isn’t rich or white. I don’t think that you were racist, or necessarily even classist, you just didn’t want someone there who wasn’t exactly like the rest of you. My sin was my lack of a smartphone, my dislike of consumerism and my disdain for social media. For daring to cause any kind of debate or actual learning in a room filled with one dimensional conversations, if any at all.*4

I am sitting across a table from Ned’s Mom.*5 The previous week the group had been talking about government, and Ned had been talking about how his favorite government was “Anarchy government”. Given that anarchy's definition is “absence of government and absolute freedom of the individual” I had asked Ned if he knew what anarchy was, before explaining this. Ned’s Mom is explaining to me how my actions had “hurt” Ned and the “community” by so rudely correcting what he had been saying. I am timid and she is an authority figure, so I back down and apologize. This is all happening a week after I made the comment, because I can only afford to go to the homeschool co-op once a week, not the other days available. Obviously in the intervening time they met about the horrible thing I had said, and this “radical unschooling” parent had decided to cover up her son’s lack of knowledge by having a stern talking to with someone ¼ her age over a comment made and already forgotten.*6

The co op, while also being a social area where teenagers could sit in rooms together and use their phones, is also meant to serve as a learning space. They would teach “classes”, one per semester. One of the classes was a “film class” We all would sit in a room, watch a movie, and then talk about it, any of you remember that thrilling class? The film class had a horribly random feel, no distinct curriculum or direction, and a complete lack of focus.*7 The discussion after the movies would often come down to heaping praise upon the parts everybody had liked or finding ways that movies from 50 years ago were sexist or awful. Now if I ever tried to say something negative about a well liked movie, or defend a movie that was being hated on, the entire group would turn on me in an instant. Not in a scholarly fashion, but in one where I was the clear enemy and where voices would be raised. This would often culminate in even the present adults, meant to stimulate insightful debate would attack a 14 year old for disliking a movie.*8 This would go so far as to accuse me of potentially being sexist for disliking a rom-com that had a strong female lead.

You all didn’t like me. That much was obvious, but I didn’t want it to be. There was about a dozen of you. About a dozen people who lived in houses nearly double the size of mine, were only children, and had pools in their backyard. My parents didn’t have the time to come to the co-op to hang out with the kids and make sure they didn’t do anything too crazy, like ever get off their phones. That was because my Dad had to work almost everyday to pay the bills, and my Mom had to actually teach my brothers. Meaning the other parents didn’t exactly love mine, and I could feel the animosity when they came up. When I came in every morning, nobody would really say hello, and none of you seemed to particularly want to talk with me. My family couldn’t afford to get me a smartphone, and when you all found out, you laughed. Most mornings I would spend simply sitting in the middle of an overheated room, waiting for the class to start, in which case you all would be forced to interact with me.

There were board games in the room and nearly every morning I would try to get you all to play them with me. The parents there supervising were meant to make sure it was a stimulating environment and that the kids did something like play, so in the first few weeks you all let the games be played. Issues quickly began to arise, immediately strategy games began to quickly die off as often the same person would win them. That person incidentally being me. After a few weeks though, nearly all game playing was stopped and the time spent in the trailer simply degenerated into nothing until a “class” was taught. Why was this allowed to degenerate so? Because these parents meant to foster a learning environment couldn’t handle seeing their kids lose a board game, nor could the kids handle losing. They would pout or refuse to play at the age of 14 their parents would choose to cancel all game playing at all. Just as they would shut out anything that disagreed with them or the kids there, even if that something was another kid. A kid whose only crimes were that he couldn’t afford to be there until now and was different. I am glad I didn’t change for all of you though. For now, I have left and I can see that any change to be like you would simply have been a change for the worse.*9

From,

That Weird Kid

Footnotes:

1. Oh god, what a cringy way to start.

2. I say this. Then I directly go on to be horribly judgemental and hypocritical. Ah, sweet irony.

3. Oh. I am oozing with an non judgemental tone here. Literally right after I made my brilliant point about me being ever so fair.

4. To elaborate on this point, the average hangout in this group was disgustingly boring. The room would be filled with numerous bodies so unmoving one might think they were recently dead, with their glazed eyes, slouched countenances, and still twitching thumbs.  They were not cadavers though, but living breathing children draining the life out of their bodies and directly into their iphones. For a child who didn’t even like texting, these were some of the most boring times in my life.

5. Ned was another kid who went to the co-op. He was a massive nerd and never bothered with schoolwork as far as I could tell. Although there I go being judgemental again!

6. Ugh. Even now I can’t believe this adult’s immaturity, at least I can excuse mine to age! Given that she was, by my estimates, in her late 40’s to mid 50’s she hardly has such an excuse.

7. Looking back on it now, this curriculum was not so “random” as I thought. But simply a collection of our “teacher’s” favorite movies. Ah, what a learning experience.

8. Well I guess in retrospect since it was one of her favorite movies though, it makes sense she would so vehemently defend them huh? To the point of saying that I obviously just didn’t have any idea what makes movies good, and probably just saw trashy cheap movies before then. (This in response to me saying I thought the movies musical portions were a bit forced and I didn’t think the boyfriend in the movie was “dreamy”)

9. So yeah, it was a cheesy and pretentious little ending for a letter with the same qualities. With the added bonus of being horribly judgemental to top it all off. Still there in a message in all this that’s good, albeit cliche. I was an outsider, and instead of changing who I was or just shutting up I stood up for myself (even though I didn’t stick to my guns with the whole “Ned’s Mom Situation). I had to realize what was and wasn’t important to me, and since this time I have found what is important to me in things like books and film, in pursuing knowledge. They made me realize that fitting in does not necessarily mean one is happy, and that I could be far happier by just doing what I wanted to do. Which is even cheesier than anything I wrote in the letter, so sue me.