Chicken Soup for the Soul: Teens Talk High School
BY: Teresa Cleary
Whenever anyone has offended me, I try to raise my soul so high that the offence cannot reach it.
~René Descartes
"I'll never forgive them!" I shouted as I threw my books on my bedroom floor and hurled myself onto my bed. "Never!" My anger boiled with increasing intensity. How could people be so cruel?
It had all started innocently enough -- as a game, in fact. I'd read about slam books in a teen magazine and decided to do one with my friends. "After all, what harm could there be in a spiral notebook filled with names?" I reasoned.
So the next time my mom went to the store I asked her to buy a notebook for me. "Do you need an extra one for school?" she asked.
"Kind of," I replied. I didn't want to tell her that the notebook would be used to write good and bad things about people and that it would be open for everyone to read. She'd tell me that it was wrong to gossip, and that someone's feelings could be hurt if the wrong things were written.
To me, the idea of the slam book wasn't so bad. Everyone who wanted to be in it signed his or her name at the top of a page. Then others used the rest of the page to anonymously write whatever they wanted about whomever's name appeared at the top. If you didn't want to participate, you didn't sign your name.
"It'll be fun," I told my best friend, Jenny, as she wrote her name on the page after mine.
"We'll pass this around during school, and soon we'll know what the other kids think about us and everyone else."
By the end of the first day, I had over twenty signatures in my slam book. By the second day, the pages began to fill with comments. Soon other kids started their own slam books. You couldn't walk through the hallways without seeing someone handing out a notebook.
Each day I hurried home to read the slam book in the privacy of my room. At first, the comments were all favorable. It was as though everyone was waiting for someone else to break the ice.
But as the days went on, the messages in the book took on a new tone. People become more critical in their comments about others. Names of unpopular kids turned up in my book, and I knew that someone else had written them in. "Oh well," I said. "They'll probably never see what's been written about them anyway."
I would have gone on thinking like that if I hadn't seen Sandy's book. She handed it to me in homeroom and asked if I'd sign something on her page and pass it on to someone else. "Sure," I agreed. Sandy was one of the most popular girls in our class. I was pleased she wanted me to write in her book.
I wrote my comments about Sandy and then started flipping the pages. There were glowing testimonies about all the popular kids. About halfway through the notebook, I stopped. My name was at the top of a page, and I hadn't written it there. I read the comments, first with a smile, then dismay, and finally with increasing anger:
So stuck up she'll never get a date!
Thinks she's too good for the rest of us. Should work more on making friends instead of making honor roll.
Brown-noser. Teacher's pet.
I shut the notebook and glanced up to see Sandy looking at me. I felt my face flame with embarrassment. Did she write any of those comments? I wondered. Did she give me the book on purpose, so I'd see what had been written about me?
I opened the book again and studied my page. I examined the comments, trying to match the handwriting with signatures, but most people had disguised their writing.
During first bell, I gave the book to someone else and tried to put it out of my mind. But I found the phrases written on my page haunting me. Stuck up. Too intellectual. Teacher's pet.
At lunch, I told Jenny about Sandy's book and the comments I'd found. "I know," she said. "The popular kids really came down hard on everyone. Sandy's book wasn't even the worst one. You should read Pam's."
I couldn't believe it. Someone else's slam book actually contained worse things about me than Sandy's did? I was so hurt and angry that I couldn't finish my lunch. The rest of the day passed slowly because all I could think about was going home and having a good cry.
"I don't deserve those nasty comments," I told myself as I tossed on my bed. "I've never done anything to hurt them."
Then the thought entered my head unbidden: Those unpopular kids whose names showed up in my book didn't do anything either. How did they feel?
I didn't mean any harm, I thought as I picked up my slam book and thumbed through its pages. Yet reading it, I realized that even the design of the book lent itself to bad, rather than good, purposes. Not signing your name, disguising your handwriting, not giving the book directly back to the person who owned it -- all these things let the writer be as nasty as possible without fear of being found out.
This is one of the stupidest things I've ever done, I thought. My slam book had encouraged gossip and hurt a lot of feelings -- mine included. No more of that, I told myself. I took the notebook and stuffed it deep inside one of my desk drawers. That's the last time I take that to school.
The next step was one I knew I'd find even harder to take. First, I had to forgive the kids at school for their comments. I knew that wouldn't be as easy as closing my drawer and leaving the slam book inside, but it had to be done.
Then there was the matter of the unpopular kids whose names had turned up in my book. I need to apologize to them, I told myself. Besides learning to forgive others, I had to ask for forgiveness as well.
In the weeks to come, I realized that taking my slam book to school had taught me some unexpected lessons. The lesson of forgiveness was the one I most needed to learn.
~René Descartes
"I'll never forgive them!" I shouted as I threw my books on my bedroom floor and hurled myself onto my bed. "Never!" My anger boiled with increasing intensity. How could people be so cruel?
It had all started innocently enough -- as a game, in fact. I'd read about slam books in a teen magazine and decided to do one with my friends. "After all, what harm could there be in a spiral notebook filled with names?" I reasoned.
So the next time my mom went to the store I asked her to buy a notebook for me. "Do you need an extra one for school?" she asked.
"Kind of," I replied. I didn't want to tell her that the notebook would be used to write good and bad things about people and that it would be open for everyone to read. She'd tell me that it was wrong to gossip, and that someone's feelings could be hurt if the wrong things were written.
To me, the idea of the slam book wasn't so bad. Everyone who wanted to be in it signed his or her name at the top of a page. Then others used the rest of the page to anonymously write whatever they wanted about whomever's name appeared at the top. If you didn't want to participate, you didn't sign your name.
"It'll be fun," I told my best friend, Jenny, as she wrote her name on the page after mine.
"We'll pass this around during school, and soon we'll know what the other kids think about us and everyone else."
By the end of the first day, I had over twenty signatures in my slam book. By the second day, the pages began to fill with comments. Soon other kids started their own slam books. You couldn't walk through the hallways without seeing someone handing out a notebook.
Each day I hurried home to read the slam book in the privacy of my room. At first, the comments were all favorable. It was as though everyone was waiting for someone else to break the ice.
But as the days went on, the messages in the book took on a new tone. People become more critical in their comments about others. Names of unpopular kids turned up in my book, and I knew that someone else had written them in. "Oh well," I said. "They'll probably never see what's been written about them anyway."
I would have gone on thinking like that if I hadn't seen Sandy's book. She handed it to me in homeroom and asked if I'd sign something on her page and pass it on to someone else. "Sure," I agreed. Sandy was one of the most popular girls in our class. I was pleased she wanted me to write in her book.
I wrote my comments about Sandy and then started flipping the pages. There were glowing testimonies about all the popular kids. About halfway through the notebook, I stopped. My name was at the top of a page, and I hadn't written it there. I read the comments, first with a smile, then dismay, and finally with increasing anger:
So stuck up she'll never get a date!
Thinks she's too good for the rest of us. Should work more on making friends instead of making honor roll.
Brown-noser. Teacher's pet.
I shut the notebook and glanced up to see Sandy looking at me. I felt my face flame with embarrassment. Did she write any of those comments? I wondered. Did she give me the book on purpose, so I'd see what had been written about me?
I opened the book again and studied my page. I examined the comments, trying to match the handwriting with signatures, but most people had disguised their writing.
During first bell, I gave the book to someone else and tried to put it out of my mind. But I found the phrases written on my page haunting me. Stuck up. Too intellectual. Teacher's pet.
At lunch, I told Jenny about Sandy's book and the comments I'd found. "I know," she said. "The popular kids really came down hard on everyone. Sandy's book wasn't even the worst one. You should read Pam's."
I couldn't believe it. Someone else's slam book actually contained worse things about me than Sandy's did? I was so hurt and angry that I couldn't finish my lunch. The rest of the day passed slowly because all I could think about was going home and having a good cry.
"I don't deserve those nasty comments," I told myself as I tossed on my bed. "I've never done anything to hurt them."
Then the thought entered my head unbidden: Those unpopular kids whose names showed up in my book didn't do anything either. How did they feel?
I didn't mean any harm, I thought as I picked up my slam book and thumbed through its pages. Yet reading it, I realized that even the design of the book lent itself to bad, rather than good, purposes. Not signing your name, disguising your handwriting, not giving the book directly back to the person who owned it -- all these things let the writer be as nasty as possible without fear of being found out.
This is one of the stupidest things I've ever done, I thought. My slam book had encouraged gossip and hurt a lot of feelings -- mine included. No more of that, I told myself. I took the notebook and stuffed it deep inside one of my desk drawers. That's the last time I take that to school.
The next step was one I knew I'd find even harder to take. First, I had to forgive the kids at school for their comments. I knew that wouldn't be as easy as closing my drawer and leaving the slam book inside, but it had to be done.
Then there was the matter of the unpopular kids whose names had turned up in my book. I need to apologize to them, I told myself. Besides learning to forgive others, I had to ask for forgiveness as well.
In the weeks to come, I realized that taking my slam book to school had taught me some unexpected lessons. The lesson of forgiveness was the one I most needed to learn.
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