A boy killed himself after being bullied in school.   After Columbine,  several other school shootings, and stories of kids with guns planning to do great harm, one child committing suicide might seem a small thing.  But it’s not.  If anything it struck me as worse.

The article talks about how this boy was repeatedly bullied.  His mother reported problems to the school 7 or 8 times.  The school sang its “we try hard” song.  The day he killed himself young Jaheem brought home a report card with As and Bs.

I am not a fan of government schooling.  It brings together some potentially talented people, locks them down with rules, curriculum, and systems designed through a political process where motivations, goals, and outcomes aren’t always what we’d want or expect.  Children are left for stretches of time without significant oversight of their personal interactions.  Cliques, relentless teasing, small acts of violence when adults aren’t looking, ostracization, … children can be cruel, but also, power structures develop in their many waking hours at these institutions.  Our children are faced with this beginning generally at age 6. Some kindergartens go all day.  Required pre-school is coming to some states.

What would have happened if Jaheem’s mother had other options?  Perhaps she felt she couldn’t handle homeschooling and if a working mother that may not have been an option.  What if she could choose schools?  What if the school the other side of the street had a different system, one which created an environment where teasing of this sort wouldn’t occur?

And perhaps more importantly, what if schools knew that Jaheem’s mother, that all parents, had that choice?  Somehow, I suspect, the problems these children deal with, problems that seem earth shattering to them, problems that seem earth shattering more so because of the many waking hours they spend in these institutions … somehow I think they’d be far less of an issue.

I mourn for Jaheem.  I mourn for all the Jaheems out there who may not commit suicide, but who die a little everyday because of treatment like this.  And, while I homeschool mine, I long for the day when school choice will eliminate the loss of energy … and in this case the loss of life … that the current system brings with it.