Valedictorian ruthlessly rips apart adults who didn't help her succeed

[L0ki]

@waetherman

Yes, she worked hard. No she didn’t do it alone. Yes there were probably people who could have helped her even more, but there were literally thousands of students at her high school who needed help more than her. I don’t want to hear about the valedictorian who didn’t get everything handed to her on a platter,

@anon21100188

The counselor “failed them?” We have absolutely nothing to indicate that, other than an 18 year old saying that she doesn’t think she helped her sufficiently. Do we know if she was spending time helping another kid who was in danger of harming herself? Or counseling someone who got pregnant?

I think what might have rankled in that situation is the counsellor telling her how proud she was that one of “her students” was valedictorian.

If you think the person who you think did not help you is claiming to be responsible/any way involved with your achievement, you’re likely to be annoyed.

Ultimately, expecting an 18 year old to care about whether the counsellor isn’t helping them ‘sufficiently’ because they are helping someone else who apparently needs it ‘more’ is a bit much.

Since she also calls out the school allowing that situation in the first place…

@waetherman

Teachers and administrators are pretty much universally overworked and underpaid. Maybe she should take her “truth to power” gun and aim it in that direction.

Again perhaps a bit much to expect from a schoolchild?

To you, teachers and administrators may seem powerless (and in the grand scheme they are). To a pupil in school, they can a) claim to be and b) seem to be and c) actually be - akin to gods.

Arbitrary and cosmically powerful within their bounds - which cover 90% of the child’s life.

Finding out that those who claim to have/you are told have the power and the answers are frail and fallible can be traumatic. One reaction is anger.

I agree her response is probably a bit much given that she’s evidently done ok (but from her point of view it might be the difference between valedictorian with ok results and valedictorian with a shot at getting into a really good university with some decent scholarships) but again, we’re talking about an 18 year old. Emotional maturity is a bit much to expect.

@waetherman

I want to hear about the kid with middling grades who got more time with the counselor so that he could actually make it into community college. Or the kid whose parents got deported and who needed extra help from the administrators just to make sure she graduated.

That would be lovely. Do we have such stories?

Usually with this sort of thing there would be a heap of folks piling in online with any facts that speak against the narrative.

So far, the best that has been put forward is someone making generic claims about:

1. how hard a counsellor’s job in that school would be (fair enough but why should the pupils care?);

2. that the counsellor in question lost her daughter (again, fair enough but the student has a point when she says that shouldn’t be allowed to impact on her work to the detriment of pupils; and

3. how scholarship info is published by the school on a website and on a wall (I’m not sure how that is relevant if part of the school’s role is allegedly to inform students about scholarships that would suit them - which it apparently is - and they did it badly).