"I am the odd girl out.
It begins around third grade, the differentiation between "popular" and "unpopular", "cool" and "uncool". Up until then you're allowed to be whatever you want to be and do whatever you want to do. But in third grade, it starts.
If you're privileged enough to be one of the cool kids, you don't notice the changes because for you there aren't any changes. Suddenly there's someone new to be mean to, maybe, if you're so inclined. That's all. But the outcasts and the oddballs are in a perfect position to observe the social tide. And you'd better believe we notived the difference. All of our friends may have turned against us, unless we had none to begin with.
I was one of the uncool kids, in third grade, and my friends were quite emphatically not. They drifted away slowly, and I don't think I really noticed it until I approached one of them one day, and one of the girls I had always classified as "nasty" asked me smarmily, "Who said you could come here?" And it was all over."(I made the lines I really liked bigger and bolder...)
This is very profound and very true. It covers numbers 2, 3, and 4 of the constitution. Number 2, which is "Include, Don't Exclude" works here because the people who became "popular" pushed aside the unpopular people and, well, completely excluded and isolated them. Number 3, "Accept others for who they are" works in basically the same way. Young children don't understand people who aren't like them, so they'll have a harder time with this one, but if they could learn it at a younger age, everything would be so much less chaotic by the time they become real, vicious teenagers. Number 4, "Build Mutual Trust and Respect" doesn't work quite as well as the other two, but it still makes sense. These little kids only trust other people who are popular like themselves, and they sure as hell aren't going to respect some 'freak' who acts differently than themselves. Learning to cooperate with others is the first thing a person needs to accomplish in life- without teamwork, we wouldn't be where we are today. If ancient peoples had worked separately to build their own individual fires, they'd have all died out long ago, because it takes several people to discover something, and back then, they weren't the sharpest tools in the shed.
I have to say, I kind of feel obligated to comment here, and I do have a couple of points to make.
ReplyDeleteFor one: "Young children don't understand people who aren't like them, so they'll have a harder time with this one, but if they could learn it at a younger age, everything would be so much less chaotic by the time they become real, vicious teenagers." In my experience, young children are much more accepting than older children. For example, my eight-year-old brother doesn't really differentiate between different types of people (apart from "mean" and "not mean", because there's always one mean kid), and is pretty much friends with everyone.
For two: "These little kids only trust other people who are popular like themselves..." I would just like to say that since most third graders are eight and nine, I personally would not consider them little kids anymore, but that's one of those linguistic/terminology debates that need not take place here.
And stop making me look insightful, dangit.
Haha, Constance... I read your comment and I was like, "Yep. Thats's Constance alright. :D"
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