Confessions: The TRUTH behind High School

WARNING: The following is very personal and emotional. If you cannot or don't want to read about suicide then please don't read the following. I don't mean to hurt or offend anyone with this. This is just my feelings and how my school is dealing with this tragedy. 

As most of you know, I am a high school student. I attend an over populated and most definitely crowded public high school. My high school has over 1,800 young adults that walk the halls everyday. The problem with our school, which is probably the same with most schools, is we just don't care. Everyday students belittle each other, and for what? Some juicy gossip with their friends. Our high school society is failing, and no one is doing any thing to stop it. Or are they?

   (This is what I was listening to as I was typing these thoughts up, please give it a listen as you read.)

In the past four months my high school has been slapped in the face with tragedy. With in these 4 months their have been 3 deaths that have touched our small, country town. One of these deaths was from what I was blabbering about above, just not caring. The other 2 where accidental, though still just as important. But I want to talk about the death that should not have happened.

In September a fellow high school student decided that he was done with everything and fed up with our school. He decided to take his life. The news reached the school. And it spread like wildfire. This one student had sent our school into a stand still. What shocked me was when I found out that this was not the first suicide that had breached our school halls. Three years before I started as a freshman, their was a mass suicide that took place at my school. One girl took her life and in the next few weeks three of her friends followed in her path. And as I looked more and more into this I found out that there are even more lost lives that I haven't heard about.

My school was on the brink of destruction, how many more students would decide to kill themselves?
We need to do something to stop this. And thats what our loving counselors and our local Zappos did for our school. They had a program come to my school and talk to us. This program was not a normal, or cheap (Thank you Zappos). It's called Rachel's Challenge. And while the main topic is not on suicide, but that of a young life that was lost to soon. This program was very emotional and had most of the school in tears at the end. A foreign exchange student that was setting next to me broke down in tears and his sobs were so loud that it drowned mine out. Next thing I know we are surrounded by out friends hugging and crying right along with us. I accepted what the program was teaching us, will you?

Rachel Scott has touched another school. My school's wounds are slowly healing. Many of my friends have joined the new club at our school that developed from Rachel's Challenge. We are just a few students that care about each other and our school. We are starting small, but we hope to change our school for a better and to stop all of the death that circles around our heads. We will never forget all of those that have lost their lives from our school. They will always stay in our hearts.

"I will not be labeled as AVERAGE." -Rachel Joy Scott. 

For more information about the program or the amazing person Rachel Scott was you can visit the Rachel's Challenge website.

Again, I am sorry if this hurt or offended anyone that was not my intention. I just need to get all of that off my chest. Suicide is a very serious matter and this was not in anyway 'bashing' the subject.  Please do not take my words the wrong way. I pray for anyone that is having the same issue, I know how hard it is and I hope things get better for you.