Another High School Caper

High School Shira was exactly as cool as she thought she was

By popular demand, Shirby's Dream World is proud to present another high school caper. This one is not as comedically tragic as the code red story, but it is equally shocking in its unpredictability. This is a story about a sentence that has haunted me with its thrilling complexity since the age of seventeen. A turn of phrase so mysterious that it transformed an otherwise normal school outing into a life-altering misadventure.

Every May, around forty students and four teachers spent a weekend up north at an entirely student-run leadership retreat. In 2007, I was one of those students. (I also went in 2008, but nothing nearly as remarkable happened that year). We played sports, did trust exercises, talked about school issues, and met people from different social groups. This was just before Guitar Hero invaded our lives, and so I view it fondly as one of my childhood's last weekends of innocent, wholesome fun. 

So effing cool

Code Red

The following events are true and unaltered. 

My grade ten English teacher, Mrs. O, was a cross between Professor Umbridge and the Trunchbull. By that I mean, she was self-righteous, cruel, and enormous.* Her class was so tortuous that each seventy-five minute period felt like a life sentence, so much so that by the hour mark I was usually contemplating the humanity of capital punishment. I tell you all of this so that you understand the complete jubilation the class felt when she told us that there would be a code red drill during this period the next day. God had smiled on us: we had been given a fleeting respite from Mrs. O's tyranny and we intended to savour it. 

My artistic rendering of Mrs. O

A code red occurs when a dangerous person causes a threat to the school, like a shooter or a bank robber on the loose. (The latter actually happened the following year and we had a REAL code red). Much like the mandated procedure in case of nuclear holocaust, students and teachers are meant to take to the ground for safety: hide in a corner, turn off the lights, lock the door. At least, that is what you are meant to do. Mrs. O had an entirely different plan. 

Why Gay Doesn't Equal Pedophile...and other things nobody should have to explain

Randy Bish / Politicalcartoons.com

Today the Boy Scouts of America officially welcomed gay members into the fold, but told those wishing to be Scout Leaders to take a hike. While I'm sure there are various homophobic reasons for this line being drawn, like the erroneous notion that homosexuality is a learned behaviour, the clear underlying assumption is that gay men will not be able to help themselves around young boys.

I was in high school when I first came across this puzzling stereotype. JK Rowling had just "outed" Dumbledore from the cupboard under the stairs, as it were, and my friend commented, "This makes me really uncomfortable to think about all those meetings Harry had alone in Dumbledore's office." She instantly linked homosexuality with pedophilia; a sentiment made even stranger by the fact that this was a fictional character in a resolved story who never showed any signs of sexual perversion.

Despite the title of this post, I don't really feel the need to explain why someone's sexuality in no way impacts the likelihood of them becoming a child molester. Homosexuality is neither sexually deviant nor perverse, and it does not lead to such behaviour. Like the notion of Blacks being lazy or blondes having more fun, these associations blur the line between what is an inborn trait and what is a free choice; a lack of distinction so often characteristic of homophobic arguments.