At 2.5 years out, the 2011 Calistoga Junior/Senior High School All-Class Reunion is gradually taking shape. I follow its progress via an alumni Facebook group and notices in the Wildcatter, an alumni newsletter.
It”s an entirely new experience for me, feeling connected to people who went to the same school as me. It”s as if I”m being given a second chance to know people that, for whatever reason, I”d been unable to relate to in school.
All throughout my school days, I felt alienated from everybody, beginning with my first day at kindergarten. To this day I don”t know what I did wrong but, by the end of the day, I”d been rejected by everyone in class.
The small student population was an insurmountable factor against me. There were only 33 people in my high school graduating class, out of a student population of 300. Which meant that everyone in school was all-too aware of who the outcasts were.
Students chose whom to reject, but some teachers contributed to a culture that said bullying was OK.
My hands-down candidate for absolute worst teacher actively promoted my ostracism by keeping a supply of combs on hand to give to children whose classmates didn”t want to hold their hands during that classroom exercise. Children next to
them could hold an end of the comb to avoid “contamination.”
This teacher”s behavior was every bit as loathsome as the teacher in Port St. Lucie, Fla., who encouraged a student”s classmates to say what they didn”t like about him and then to vote him out of class.
The physical education curriculum also conspired to expose me as a school-wide outcast. The curriculum focused exclusively upon team athletics that I fared poorly at. The popular students were allowed to choose sides to determine composition of their teams and I was chosen last every time.
Then there were the routine put-downs, the occasional physical violence and the ongoing social exclusion that were entirely the work of my schoolmates. This continued well into eighth or ninth grade.
I don”t remember an exact point at which my classmates” behavior improved but I believe some matured out of it – at least the violence and name-calling. I never stopped feeling alienated from nearly everyone else in school save one friend from youth group at church and a few acquaintances through Girl Scouts.
To be honest, I had grown used to having the mindset that I had no friends at school. I was no longer looking to forge relationships with any of my schoolmates and am not sure I would have recognized their overtures.
A couple years ago, however, that slowly began to change. Some former schoolmates contacted me and we established what, for me, were entirely new connections.
A Facebook discussion of best and worst teachers enabled me to vent my anger about that nasty business with the combs – but also to acknowledge several excellent teachers that I was privileged to know.
I found out too late about a 2008 reunion to be able to go – but now that I”ve made these connections, I anticipate being informed about further all-class activities. I enjoy reading alumni updates in the Wildcatter and intend to submit my own.
To my surprise I am looking forward to the all-class reunion. I remain in suspense about whether or not I can relate to my former schoolmates without the baggage of negative memories but feel that making a wholehearted effort will be an important stage for my maturity.
Cynthia Parkhill is the focus pages editor for the Record-Bee and the editor of the Clear Lake Observer-American. She can be reached at observeramerican@g-mail.com or 263-5636 ext. 28.
