to move up and down
Oklahoma valedictorian denied high school diploma after ‘cursing’ during speech
A high-achieving student from a small Oklahoma town has been denied her high school diploma, allegedly because she used the word “hell” in her valedictorian speech.
Kaitlin Nootbaar, 18, delivered the speech three months ago after graduating from high school in the community of Prague, according to KFOR-TV.
Nootbaar’s father David said she borrowed a line in her speech from one delivered in Eclipse, a movie from the Twilight Saga series.
“Her quote was, ‘When she first started school she wanted to be a nurse, then a veterinarian and now that she was getting closer to graduation, people would ask her, what do you want to do and she said how the hell do I know? I’ve changed my mind so many times,’” David said. (Photo: KFOR-TV)
Transgender student named prom queen at Ontario high school
The night of her high school prom, Connor Ferguson anxiously pulled on a floor-length leopard print dress and slipped her feet inside six-inch high heels covered in glitter.
Despite adoring the outfit she’d chosen, the 18-year-old transwoman from Trenton, Ont., considered not going to the prom at all, worried her peers might say something nasty or rude. She never expected they would name her prom queen.
“It was absolutely unreal. I’ll definitely remember that moment forever,” said Ferguson, who was crowned queen at Trenton High School on June 22.
“The cheers from classmates was overwhelming as well … So much support I cannot even put it into words.”
Obese teen girls three times more likely to be bullies than their slimmer peers
If your image of a mean girl is a toothpick thin high schooler, it’s time to think again.
A new study from Queen’s University has found obese teenage girls are three times more likely to be bullies than the slimmer girls in their class — a finding that highlights the very cyclical nature of bullying.
The study asked 1,738 students in 16 Ontario schools to share their height and weight information and answer questions about their experiences with bullying.
The researchers found that boys were twice as likely to be victims of physical bullying than their slimmer peers — a surprise to study co-author Atif Kukaswadia because they had hypothesized that physical size could help boys defend themselves. (Photo: Justin Sullivan/Getty Images files)
‘This hurts too much,’ gay teen says in last blog before suicide
Jamie Hubley’s goodbye letter appears on a blog that gave so many signs of what was to come: powerful images of other young people attempting suicide after being bullied, dark self-harm mantras and pictures of razor-sliced skin.
Less than a week ago, an anonymous commenter told the 15-year-old openly gay student from Ottawa to stop hurting himself, to believe that he has something to live for. The comment was met with a curt “No.”
“I don’t want to wait 3 more years,” he wrote Saturday in his last message to the world. “This hurts too much. How do you even know It will get better? Its not.” (Photo: Courtesy of Hubley family)
Joe O’Connor: Young Air India victim not forgotten
Bina Bhatt wanted to be an astronaut. She wanted to reach for the stars.
She was 15 and, like me, had just finished Grade 10 at North Toronto Collegiate Institute, a school where mostly white, mostly middle- and upper-middle-class teenagers went about their days without a care in the world.
Bina was different. She was the kid from India with the big glasses and the long black hair. Bina had a bindi. She was quiet, and shy and smart.
And I barely knew her.
It was June, 1985. Summer was all around. Friends were signing friends’ yearbooks, saying goodbye, and saying see you in September.
But we never saw Bina again.
On June 23, the shy girl with the big glasses fell from the sky off the coast of Ireland, a victim, along with 328 others, of the bombing of Air India Flight 182.
Photo: Bhatt family names on the Air India Flight 182 Memorial at Toronto’s Humber Bay Park East. (Peter J. Thompson/National Post)
Freaks & Cliques
Everyone’s favourite mutants go old school in X-Men: First Class. Find out if they’ve made the grade. (Illustration: Steve Murray)
Photos of the day, May 27, 2011
Secondary school graduates dressed in traditional uniforms dance in a fountain as they celebrate the last day of school in Kiev, May 27, 2011. Students across Ukraine celebrated the end of the academic year on Friday, traditionally called the “last bell”. (Gleb Garanich/Reuters)
Most likely to be burdened with expectations: Is there a curse in that graduation label?
For some, the pressure to perform is driven by the recognition they receive in high school, but in adulthood, it can leading some overachievers to regard the trait, and the label, as a burden. For others, the very low bar set for them in high school gives them the mental mettle to want to prove everybody wrong — high school dropouts such as the late Canadian-born ABC news anchor Peter Jennings and American Idol founder and music producer Simon Cowell went on to win fame and fortune, breezing past high school peers with their unprecedented success. Taylor Swift was labelled a geek in high school and shunned due to her love of country music and now she’s the top selling digital music artist in history.
Nearly one-third of people named “Most Likely to Succeed” regard it as a “curse,” found a recent poll of 1,369 American members of MemoryLane.com, formerly known as the high school memorabilia site Classmates.com.
“For people who care too much about what other people think, it can definitely be a burden,” said Alexandra Robbins, author of The Geeks Shall Inherit The Earth: Popularity, Quirk Theory and Why Outsiders Thrive After High School, which hit bookstores this month.
“It’s really important to shed the labels that have been affixed to you in school because you don’t want other people’s perceptions of you to taint how you see yourself. It is a very common thing for the adolescent brain to incorporate other people’s images of you into your self-image, but it’s dangerous,” she said. (Photos: Barack Obama via Getty Images; Pamela Anderson via Getty Images)
Regret the (prom) dress
I don’t have any photos from my prom to show you, because I don’t have any prom photos. Not long after my mom picked them up from Black’s, I stole and destroyed every one. Bent them in half first, so I didn’t have to see myself in my bad dress and bad hair while I was cutting the pictures into jaggedy bits. It’s very possible that my high school boyfriend Josh has one or two, and much more likely that his mother does, but I won’t ask in case they do. Sorry — and, you’re welcome.
Why everyone who’s anyone is dressing like Wallis Simpson
The evening wear of the 1930s is having a moment, thanks to a slew of new period films and series set in the decade influencing fashion.
