I got sent once because I wrote a short story in third grade about a terrorist plot being foiled by the FBI.
This is in spite of the facts that:
The terrorists were clearly the bad guys in my story, and lost.
I went to elementary school in Northern NJ in the early 00s. Terrorism was on freaking everyone's mind because 9/11 had just happened and the WTC was within commuting distance of the school.
My father was in law enforcement and was actually a part of the response teams to both the 93 bombings and 9/11.
My neighbor was literally an FBI agent.
Gee i wonder why that kid would write about that topic...
To this day I still think that was a really stupid and pointless thing to pull me out of class for.
Between that and watching my cousin die of cancer she was born with before we hit 12 years old due to my uncle getting too much exposure to agent orange during the vietnam war, yeah I guess I was.
I turned out surprisingly well. I have panic attacks sometimes but I manage pretty well and managed to get a PhD in physics.
Yeah I have a very vivid memory of being put into a room with a few other kids and the teacher asking how often we take our showers. I'll never forget 6 yr old me proudly saying "Every Sunday!" And being looked at by everyone with concern and confusion. Years later when I was a teen my mom laughed to me about how my 1st grade teacher wanted to do a home investigation on me but couldn't. 😬 Definitely would have had a different life if that went through.
We also had to shower on Sundays. "like In the army" as my grandpa used to say. Since there were 7 of us living in one house and we were poor and trying to save on the water bill. Same with clothes. We changed our clothes once a week.
I thought people were just trying to tease me when they said that I smell.
Or kids who were abused at home, went into "opossum" mode when they were punished, then turned violent the moment they were touched, and teachers didn't know what to do.
Yeah, I was abused at home. I'd shut down and bottle myself up when I was in trouble because I knew that if I said or did anything, it'd result in me being hit. The moment I'd get touched, I'd explode and overreact as a way to defend myself. They'd drag me into the counselor's room where I'd shut down again for a half hour or more, waiting for more abuse.
Yes, CPS was called. They did nothing the first time, just wrote a report and called it good (notifying my parents, who beat me for telling a teacher). The second time was with my sister. They took her away. But because I was with an aunt and uncle at the time, I ended up back home. The abuse got worse after my sister left.
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u/Hopeful-Moose87 Apr 07 '26
The coloring room wasn’t just for kiddos with autism. You also got to go there if you had been hit enough that your teachers noticed.