I don’t remember much about how the school day started, it did definitely change my trajectory for good or ill. It was the day before the December holiday break started. It my freshman year of high school and I was in some science class. The school year was odd, I had already taken a couple regents exams, the exams that New York City high schools use in middle school. Interestingly because of that there weren’t enough periods of education for me to take. So throughout that year one of my periods had been art. Not as an art student however, but because the high school was connected to an elementary school, I was used as an unpaid teacher’s assistant. I’m not sure about the legality of that on the school’s end, I would have much preferred just to have had the free period to relax and read or something. Apparently, that is unacceptable though.
Anyway, on that day in December the science class wasn’t doing anything of note. We were freely interacting with no instruction, a relaxation before that part of the school year came to a close. As I was sitting, a peer started to throw scissors at me. I told him to cut it out. He refused. The adult that should have been in the room was off dilly dallying about. After a few throws of the scissors where the peer didn’t listen. I grabbed the scissors, chased him across the room, pushed the scissors through his shirt and held it at his neck.
A couple hours later this would end up with me getting expelled from school. During the explanation of what happened the teachers, and counselors accused me of thinking about the situation in a way that was “too black and white”. They accused me of intending to cause harm and that I should have contacted a teacher. I argued that if I had wanted to, I could have very easily caused severe injury, and that it there was responsibility to maintain order in the class room.
I was crying. I had never been suspended, let alone expelled. To be punished by a higher authority for protecting my life. I was also crying because I thought when I went home, I’d be beaten. The double injustice, to be punished for being punished. I would spend the remainder of the school year by myself, in my room, alone.
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