Stop! Read! Help! It's Your Turn Today!

Welcome to my new blog.!!! My name is Shira Dillon and I am a high school teacher in Los Angeles, CA. This blog will explore the mind and life of teenagers today and help adults better connect with them. Please come by often, add me on google+, or subscirbe so you can receive these bogs by email.

As a high school teacher, I come across students who feels that they are in crisis daily.  Being an educator is a job where I have to think on my feet fast and do whatever it is necessary to keep as many kids on the right path mentally as well as intellectually. 

In today's blog, I have included an assignment I received from a student, and I would like to know how you would handle the situation. I am hoping that today you will accept the challenge and share your expertise and quck thinking with the rest of us by leaving a comment.  If not, as long as you take the time to think about how you would deal with this situation if this was your child, neice, cousin, etc.

For those higher ups that beleive that education is all about teaching for a big test, then they need to think again.  I currently watch the show Blackboard Wars on the Oprah Winfrey Network, and truthfully I'm not fazed by what I see.  In some cases, that school is doing better than many schools I have worked in. One of the major problems with education is that many of the prevelant issues are the ones that are not being dealt with.  For years, these issues have been swept under the rug, and now we are living in a time period where the rug is touching the ceiling.

I believe that it is our duty to do our part, no matter how big or small, to help the young people today deal with their issues, problems, and/or crisis.



Student Journal:

Why did I need it to be born? Why did I need it to come to this world?  I hate my life! So yesterday I went home afterschool and everything was fine until my sister screamed at me b/c she didn’t ask for chili cheese fries, she asked for regular fries and she was screaming in my face telling me that she didn’t ask for chili cheese fries. She told me that she texted me saying regular fries and all this shit and I even showed her the text that she send me it didn’t say nothing about what she said.  Well that happened. So we went to pick up my mom and they called her saying that they send a paper with me that they need to sign.  My mom asked me to hand it to her and I did. It was a paper that has my grade for Algebra and I had a lot of F’s because I don’t do my homework, classwork, or quizzes.  She got mad and she didn’t sign it.  After that she told my sister if she wanted to go to the store with her and my sister said yes. It pissed me off cause she didn’t even asked me.  Well they took forever to come back from the store. I went to bed early like around 7pm and I brushed my teeth and got ready for bed. I was crying and crying and I couldn’t stop b/c I feel like they don’t like me and I felt like leaving the house. And well my mom and sister came and my dad ask them what was wrong with me, that why didn’t I go with them to the store.  My  mom told my dad what was happening and that’s when my dad came in my room and took the covers off me and screaming at me and I got mad and he was like hand my your phone and all this shit.  I hand it him my phone and they left to the living room and my dad was talking all this shit saying, fuck you , that I get him mad and all this shit. I started crying even more.  But before my mom came I started grabbing my neck trying to choke myself.  Because I didn’t want it to be here in the first place, I wanted to kill myself. Well this is what happened to me. I need to talk to someone that would understand me and well right now I’m not talking to my parents.

This is the reason why I started this blog.  This is what goes through the head of many teenagers each and every day. This whole idea of being in denial that its not our child or a teen we know doesn't feel this way may help our conscious temporary. But as the "Elephant in the Room" gets bigger and bigger, it gets harder and harder to pretend that teenagers don't have major problems.

The whole notion of killing herself startled me the most.  When I was in 9th grade there was a classmate of mine who killed herself because she felt that her mom loved her sister more than her. She really killed herself.  All while I was wishing I had a mom period! She was always well dressed, with her hair and nails always done, and yet in her mind, suicide was considered so much that she actually made it hapen.

It is time that we begin to really talk to our teens, and if they cannot talk to their parents then that is where aunts/uncles, cousins, and friends of the family come into place.  It does take a village to raise a child.  Join me and become apart of that village.

Shira Dillon is a high school teacher in South, Central Los Angeles.  Shira has over 15 years experience working with teenagers and is an expert with helping them and their parents deal with teenager issues. Ms. Dillon is the author of the book Sex, Drugs, and Other Elephants: How To Deal With Teenage Issues that true stories from the authors life, as well as true stories from teenagers and how they dealt with their problems.  The book also offer helpful tips and information to help anyone who's ready to expose the elephant in the room.  For more information about the book go to www.heyiwantthatbook.blogspot.com  And don't forget to like my FB page www.facebook.com/ParentsTeachersandTeens to unite with me to help public education become a better institution of learning. Our children need it!