The secret life of teens
VOICES
It’s a don’t ask, don’t tell world that exists in school hallways, parties, malls and online. There are rules, hierarchies and high stakes. No adults allowed. The secret life of teenagers. Two stories unfolding over the past week have offered a glimpse into that world: the arrest of 16 students in a year- long case of another student who says she was sexually assaulted and harassed. And the murder trial of two sisters accused of drowning their alcoholic mother. Testimony has described the girls and their friends discussing details in emails.
In a series of conversations with teenagers across the GTA last week, this is what they had to say about their world:
going on in your high
school?
Shelene Chambers, 18, Sir Wilfrid Laurier Collegiate, Scarborough: “ You hear about all kinds of things like initiation. Initiation is when Grade Niners first come to school and Grade 10 welcomes them. They pick on people they can easily dominate.
“ And groups in school fight each other. I don’t think ( the teachers) can do anything about it because sometimes fights happen off school property and after school. Fights happen over sports competitions, girls or a guy. Sometimes there are just plain haters. There are a lot of haters: hater is someone who sees that someone else has a pretty face, is easy- going, or has nice stuff. They hate them for that.”
Melissa Loomans, 17, Markham District High School: “ There are a lot of people doing drugs and having sex. It’s written on the bathroom walls. The graffiti in the bathroom will say stuff like this girl is a slut or there will be phone numbers for fake ID and to buy weed, but stuff that’s written on the walls about girls does not travel through the school. No one teases someone by saying they saw something written about them in the washrooms.”
T. J. Michaels, 18, dropout from North Park High School, Brampton: “There’s a lot of drugs in schools these days and it’s getting worse. You end up getting into fights and you get kicked out of school. It’s happening to more and more kids these days. Once you’re kicked out, you end up hanging around when you should be in school, doing the nothing
QWhat’s
kinda ‘ stuff.’
“ What’s happening on the streets gets dragged into the schools these days.” QWhat
does sexual harassment
mean to you? ‰ Ahmed Khan 16, East York High School, interviewed at the Eaton Centre: “ Girls will go out with guys and they do things. If they change their mind after and accuse the guy of rape, what’s the guy gonna do?” ‰ Shentelle and Mary, both 16, go to high school in Scarborough:
Shentelle: “ If you’re forced to do something you don’t want to do, that’s sexual harassment. But if you did something and then changed your mind about it after you did it, what’s that?”
Mary: “ There are many girls I know who do stuff like sexual stuff but I think they like doing it. No one’s forcing them.” ‰ Melissa Loomans: “ When people go too far and they touch you inappropriately. But you know the difference when your friend is having fun with you. It’s different. There’s a lot of sexual innuendo that my friends and I share. We call each other names and pinch each other’s butts. We text each other saying stupid things. That’s not harassment.” ‰ Rebecca Hazell, 17, attends allgirls Loretto Abbey Catholic Secondary School, North York: “ It’s not just touching. I also consider verbal abuse as sexual harassment. Especially when someone tells you what they want to do to you, physically.
“ Having fun is when both friends want to do it. It can’t be one-sided . . . Even if it’s your friend, they can make you uncomfortable. And sometimes, things just go overboard. What started out as fun can end badly.
“ Our parents didn’t feel so many pressures before. Now, sexual harassment can come in the form of an email or a text message.” QWhat
sort of divides exist at
your school? ‰ Shenieka Russell-Metcalf, 18, Woburn Collegiate Institute, Scarborough: “In a weird way, there’s an older/ younger divide. There are also racial divides. Younger girls wanted to be like them and the older girls looked down on the younger girls.
‘‘ When I came to this school in Grade 9, older girls were like, ‘ You’re trying to run this school’, ‘ Don’t talk to the older guys’, ‘ You think you’re big?’ In a way, it’s still there because immaturity arrives in new batches, but not just in Grade 9.
“ For the older people, we felt like we needed to accomplish something. We wanted to change how others had treated us. So we don’t do initiations any more.” ‰ Shelene: “ There is definitely a hierarchy in school. Say you’re on a sports team, so everyone wants to know you. The sports guys know everybody. They get what they want from people and also from teachers, like grades to pass them. Bottom of the hierarchy are people who just do their own work. They are easy targets.”
Joe Gowtham Velautham, 16, Monarch Park Collegiate, Toronto: “ The sports guys and the guys who have girls. If a popular guy dates a popular girl, they can do whatever they want. And there are the ones — the kind that will call you gay to your face but will run away as soon as they say it — those are the ones that get beaten.” ‰ Melissa Loomans: “Everyone has their own little sections. During lunch, the smart ones hang out in the classrooms, the stoners hang out outside the school no matter what the weather and the rest of the people hang out in the cafeteria.
“ Mine is a very sports- oriented school. Their heritage is football, so jocks run the school. They’re bigger than everyone so they get their way.” QHave
there been fights in your
school? ‰ Shenieka: “ There used to be issues with blacks and Tamils in our school but they realized and dealt with it. Division across racial lines is only a little bit now. Before they had halls where the Tamils, Indians, blacks, Europeans, other white kids hung out separately. They’d hang out near the lockers in the halls. People didn’t walk through those halls because you felt you could get bullied or you didn’t know how to reply.
“ Girls are horrible at gossip and boys fight. It’s the word. Girls gossip and do it maliciously. They make it everybody’s business and everyone’s business is theirs. They want to scare. They want to bring it to the table with dirty looks, body language around you and whispering.” ‰ Melissa Fargas, 16, Francis Libermann Catholic High School, Scarborough: “ There used to be lots of fights last year. There were clashes against Albert Campbell ( Collegiate). I’m not sure if fights take place on the school property any more. Besides, we’re right next door to the police college.” ‰ Trevor McOstrich, 15, Northern Secondary School, Toronto: “ It’s a pretty big school with over 2,000 students so it’s hard to tell. There might be gangs but they fight outside of school property.” ‰ Joe: “ There is some problem with the different groups that are divided mainly by being from Afghanistan, Pakistan and the Tamils. Sometimes they snitch on each other to the principal. The
principal doesn’t do
anything. If someone
complains, he calls the
cops on us.”
‰ Rebecca: “As an allgirls school, gossip is the
only thing we have. I
guess it’s our form of
torture. Word travels
fast, good or bad. And
girls hold grudges while
guys just throw punches and get it over with.” QDo
you tell your parents about
what’s going on in school? If someone were picking on you would you have your parents come to school to report on your behalf ? ‰ Omar Mohammed, 16, East York High School, interviewed with Ahmed at the Eaton Centre: “ Why would you tell your parents? If they complained back to school, everyone can source it back to you.” ‰ Ahmed: “ I tell my mother everything. She’s cool with it but she always tells me to be careful, to do the right thing. I can’t talk to my dad like that, though. If I told him that I was going to support my friend, he’d think I did something, too.” ‰ Omar: “ Parents don’t put themselves in our shoes. They don’t think of what it was like and what happened to them when they were our age.
“ Sometimes they do want good things for their kids so they’ll go to school to complain because they’re too busy to deal with it personally, because I guess they have all these other stresses about life. And they just don’t know how to deal with it.
“They come from a different country where their parents told them what not to do and they looked around and it made sense. Their parents knew what they were talking about.
‘‘ But with us, we’re in a new situation. How they do know how to deal with this?” ‰ Shelene: “I wouldn’t tell my parents. They’ll become suspect of everything I do. If I came home and told them, for example, ‘ Billy is doing drugs and he comes to school high,’ and then I come home with a bad report card, they’ll think I am hanging out with Billy.” ‰ Shentelle: “ I don’t tell my parents about what happens to me in school. If I have to deal with it, I do it myself.” ‰ Mary: “ With friends as back up” ‰ Shentelle: “ My mother does not need to know about what’s going on.” ‰ Rebecca: “I tell my parents about what happens in school. I’d rather they hear it from me instead of on a newsletter that arrives from school. There’s no bullying in my school. We have groups who prevent bullying, like ESP — Empowered Student Program.” QWhat
sort of people get picked
on at your school? ‰ Ahmed: “If you want to do something quietly, like study, you can get picked on. So you should be part of a group of people. You don’t have to do what they do but if you hang with a group of people, then others will know and they won’t bother you.” ‰ Shenieka: “ As much as we try to deny, it’s true, the populars pick on the geeks. I go to a gifted school. There are enriched- level of classes for some students. The kids in these classes lack social skills and common sense. I think they lead very sheltered lives. They get picked on the most because they don’t talk back.
“ The ones that get bullied never take action. Then they get bullied more. They tend to be the shy, quite, introverted people.” ‰ Shelene: “ You have to have really good self- esteem to make it through high school. If you don’t have it, then pretend. Put on a show. It’s survival of the fittest.” ‰ Joe: “ The fat ones and the stupid ones are the ones who get picked on.” QHave
you ever been picked
on ? ‰ Melissa Loomans: “ When I was in elementary school, around the time I was 14 and 15, I was teased because I had red hair. People used to call me all sorts of things like carrot top and Raggedy Ann.
‘‘ Mine was not as bad on a whole. It was just about my hair, I can change it. But there are comments that you cannot do anything about. Like racist comments. You can’t change the colour of your skin.
“ I told my mom. She told me that my red hair made me different. It made me an individual. She’d show me photos of models in magazines and they were all alike
and she said that she
wanted me to be different. They asked me to
grow out of it.
“Once I got to high
school, I stopped hanging out with my elementary school friends. I
grew up and realized I
am an individual. Now I
am actually part of a
group of friends who’re all red heads. We’re the Red Hots.” QAre
teenagers misunderstood
by adults? ‰ Shenieka: “Adults often look down on us like we’re all alike. Like we’re all the same. It’s like ageism. They think not much has changed and whatever has, it’s been for the worse.” ‰ Melissa Loomans: “A lot of adults focus on how bad teens are, they expect the worst of us. Some of us are capable of good things, better things.” ‰ Rebecca: “ To a certain extent we are misunderstood but we have given ourselves a reputation. It’s like there’s a stereotype about teens and we are feeding it.” Email comments to: life@thestar.ca.