For most of elementary school I attended a tiny private school, called Montessori Habitat School. While I have very strong words about my time there, I’ll say it was an “interesting” school. Academically speaking, it was complete garbage, but to start this blog post I want to talk a little about my social experience at the school. The kids there, including myself, were pretty sheltered and economically privileged. I think the status of the students there created a general lack of social awareness of certain customs that most other students would know about. Unique student dynamics formed because of this and one that I want to address is bullying, or a lack thereof. From my point of view, bullying was never a significant issue at the school and since it was such a small school I assume other students thought this as well. Of course there was joking around with your friends where they might mock or mimic you, but it was never taken seriously. Because of this, I didn’t really care about what I looked like or how I dressed. I didn’t like haircuts, so I grew out my hair. My mom picked all the clothes I wore, which were pretty questionable most of the time. I looked like a sewer rat but didn’t care because my rodent like appearance was never pointed out by classmates.

Fast forward to the start of 5th grade when I transferred to Garden Hills Elementary School. Everything was different. There were more than five kids per class, more than four minority students in the school, and I finally got to have a desk! (At Montessori we worked on small rugs…) My overall academic and social experience at public school was incredibly positive. It was however, the first time I had to deal with “bullying.” I use quotations because it really wasn’t too severe and I don’t want to compare what I went through to the experiences of people who actually have to deal with bullying. One of my earliest memories at Garden Hills was when I was sitting in the bus line and two kids pointed at my legs and started laughing. I never used lotion, so I was an ashy little kid. They spent like three minutes cooking my grey legs. I took this super personally, and can say since then I stay well moisturized (if I am ashy in public, I still get pretty embarrassed). Similar situations happened throughout my time at Garden Hills and through Franklin Middle School and Uni. The thing is, the ashy story and other examples like it were not that bad. I think my own insecurities about myself and my background at Montessori made me really internalize what people say about me, whether they’re negative or positive. It’s almost an irrational fear of standing out and looking dumb in front of people. It’s prohibited me from going out for certain opportunities and even speaking up in class. Before I go to college, I really need to get over this unhealthy mindset because I know I’ll miss out on so many important opportunities all from a dumb mental block! The moral of this blog post is to never go to Montessori Habitat School if you are an insecure person.