To End Feigning Normalcy

Every day this week, I sat in all my classes waiting and waiting for anyone to address it. Everyone knows about the tragic event of earlier this week, yet we still continue the routine schedule of school. Students are forced to bury their emotions from 7:20 AM to 2:09 PM. Why? Why must we act like everything is normal?

One of my teachers insinuated that the schoolwork we've been doing has been to distract us from our emotions. However, distractions can only do so much. They don't help when you're alone with your thoughts at night. They don't help when you realize why there's a rose on that one desk in class. Sooner or later, we'll have to come to terms with our feelings and the sooner we do, the better.

We need to discuss mental health in our schools together, not just as one person going to the counselor's office. Although the counselors have done a great deal to help their grieving students, there's a disconnect between the emotions in their office and the indifference of classrooms. We need to be allowed to bring our thoughts to our classrooms, otherwise we're doomed to appear as superficial as the characters in Gatsby. We cannot turn into someone who sees the love of his life and assumes an act of indifference, his first words to her being "we've met before".  

We need to foster discussion on mental health and ingrain it in our schooling, not as something distant that we only deal with at home. We need to realize that this is a problem of utmost importance and everything is not the same. If we don't, if we continue to keep our emotions to ourselves, if we feign normalcy, we'll become as damned as the characters in The Great Gatsby.