Sammy and Flora Deserved Better Than State Schools and Prisons
X (formerly Twitter) journalist Oli London recently shared a story out of Indiana of a young boy named Sammy Teusch. Sammy had been a victim of very targeted bullying for months. Finally, this poor 10-year-old snapped and did the unthinkable, leaving his parents without a son.
His father’s statement is heartbreaking: “I held him in my arms. I did the thing no father should ever have to do, and anytime I close my eyes, it’s all I can see.” A crushing state of affairs.
This situation is worsened by the fact that his parents reported having gone to the school more than 20 times in an attempt to get the bullying to stop. “They knew,” said his mother, that this was happening.
According to them, this bullying was intense, happened daily, and went on for months and months. So the question must be asked: Who is to blame for what happened to poor Sammy? Not the school district: They have too many students to keep track of. Not the bullies: They’re “just kids”! And certainly not the sad parents. But the answer is pretty obvious to the passing observer.
Parents are responsible for what happens to their children at the end of the day. No one is going to care more about your child than you will – or are supposed to. Who knows what extenuating circumstances faced Sammy’s parents, though? Maybe they both needed to work – the economy isn’t good, after all.
But for this to continue for months on end, online, in person, and culminating in physical assault on the school bus, his parents don’t seem to have been invested in the wellbeing of their son. If this is the case for other students in the system, it’s concerning, especially with how much sexual abuse is also taking place in schools.
Looking up the details of this horrifying story, a quick visit to the Daily Mail’s website turned up yet another story, this one out of Las Vegas, of a 12-year-old girl who also committed suicide. Her mother’s request for a transfer to another school was refused by the school district, so at least her mother was trying to get her to a better school situation.
It is patently unacceptable that a bullied student would face pushback from school administrators in attempting to flee their tormentors. The message seems clear: Not only will you be bullied, there’s nothing you can do about it – sit down, shut up, and deal with it, because you’re just another cog in the machine.
Your mental health means nothing; you can take those fancy pills they’re handing out to all the kids. Your performance is irrelevant; most schools can’t even turn out kids who can read.
The only solution is parents who care enough to take their children out of school altogether, with or without the approval of the system. The only solution is parents who are prepared to homeschool, a silver lining of the pandemic era.
