Charter Vision

Never Give up — Even if Others Give up on You

Abby (TrekNorth) Originally published November 2003

At this very moment, I feel very frustrated. There is a fly buzzing around my face, my head is pulsing with pain, and I have a lot to do in very little time. If this was last year, I would have given up by now; my car would be running and I would have raced out of the icy Bemidji High School parking lot. But, as we all know, it is 2003 and I am actually in school, though a different one. And I haven’t given up.

The problem I had with my former school was the fact that it gave up on me. This wasn’t due to my failure to produce the grades needed to give the school a good name. In fact, I got straight A’s since the day I entered kindergarten. Their failure was due to my medical problems. Okay, I realize that pseudo-seizures are “weird.” Trust me, it’s strange enough to have them, not to mention having to explain to the district school district nurse that

1. no, I do not have epilepsy, and
2. yes, I still have seizures.

I was told that I was “disturbing” the other students. I was told that I “should consider alternative forms of education.” I was told that I should leave. So I did.
Because the school never gave me any answers as to where I should go, I decided to simply go home. I went home every day and worked on math or Spanish or sleeping skills. This seems like a student’s dream, but it’s not. It’s lonely and depressing. Hey made me feel that I had no purpose in the educational community.

After working this way for a couple of months, I found out that a charter school was opening. I figured that anything would be better than feeling like I was worthless, so I decided to attend. As soon as I started school, I knew it would be different this year. The teachers all wanted to teach, the hierarchy of administration was nonexistent, and the first time I had a seizure, no one told me I was disturbing them. Finally I have been accepted for what I am, what I am capable of, and what I cannot help. To put it simply, I haven’t given up at TrekNorth because no one who works here has given up on me. There is no need to hide and no need to be afraid that I might be a liability. In fact, the only reason I wrote this is because Dan McKeon thought enough of me to ask me to do it, to even guilt me into it. It’s nice to know that I am useful. That has never happened before.

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This article is from the November 2003 edition of the print incarnation of Charter Vision. It’s filed under Charter Experiences,Creative Writing