what if i don't have any friends

on the "different" kid taking their moment

this is, of course, not the school in which this story happened.

“…that young person hold power” is a phrase you might hear a bunch if you’re around facilitators in schools. We’re always trying to read the group; to figure out who holds power in the cohort and in what way. Often, the young people in any given classroom who do hold power can be integral to a workshop because if they buy in or offer honesty or vulnerability, it becomes a powerful permission slip for the rest of the room. We need those kids tapped in. But I firmly believe that no one young person’s voice is more valuable than another. When a moment of real honesty stops the room, it’s always powerful, but I’ve began to noticed that in the workshops I run, it’s becoming a bit of a trend that this moment is created by a young person who maybe doesn’t have that kind of power. Who isn’t high up on that high-school hierarchy. One who might be seen as “different”.

This was one such moment.