—
RSVP for Weekly Calls on The Disposability of Men
It’s a brave new world, this Netflix.
Recently, Netflix produced a series based on Jay Asher’s best-selling young-adult novel Thirteen Reasons Why. The show is proving itself to be both an unheralded success and a societal lightning rod.
The story follows the suicide of a 17 year-old protagonist named Hannah Baker, who left behind audio tapes addressed to the people who bullied her, tormented her, and ignored the warning signs leading up to her decision to take her own life. The show’s themes—such as cyber-bullying, sexual assault, mental illness and teenage suicide—reside in the forefront of our society’s discourse on how we can better serve our young adults.
Unfortunately, the Netflix show, while a compelling narrative, fails to address these issues with any real compassion for Hannah or the issues—particular her mental health problems—that lead to her tragic death. It is a missed opportunity to have an important discussion. It also depicts the teacher, counselors and school administration as a bunch of bumbling idiots.
♦◊♦
Full-disclosure: I am a public high school teacher. I’ve taught high school English for 15 years, first in Las Vegas now in New Hampshire. Like many of my colleagues, the bureaucracy and paperwork can be overwhelming, but I genuinely love working with my students, encouraging them to read deeply and think critically.
In my experiences, however, no one smells bullshit quite like the adolescent. Adolescents experience life viscerally, in the moment, with an intuitive bullshit-sensor—think Holden Caulfield—that howls whenever someone or something feels “phony.” And the adult world, sometimes, appears as caricatures to them.
So the adult writer looking back on adolescence, who can tap into that visceral adolescent narrative without being didactic or condescending, has done something exceptional. They’ve built a time machine that allows them to tap into their own pasts and connect with the present.
It’s that old human condition that my students will invariably roll their eyes when I bring it up.
Therefore, I applaud Jay Aster and the writers and producers of Netflix’s ‘Thirteen Reason Why.’ It is a compelling series. For any young screenwriter or fiction writer wanting to learn how to plot a story, how the release of information works, how the almighty hook—the questions that keeps readers turning pages or viewers binging—this is a graduate class in marketability.
But for those of us working in high schools, waking up every morning to teach and help kids, ‘Thirteen Reasons Why’ is an abject humiliation to our profession. Watching some of the scenes in the classrooms where the dopey teachers look dumbfounded and unprepared, where lessons are all taught off the cuff, and the counselors sit in their offices all day and shoot the shit with students is painful for those of us in the profession. It is a patently false depiction of what we do.
Did these teachers and counselors at the fictional Liberty High School skip out on every undergraduate education class? Did they skip every college class—including Common Sense 101—when you’re taught that any student hinting any signs that they are being harmed or could harm other must, legally, be reported? Were these counselors plucked from a college beer pong tournament at some distant frat party in Never Never Land and given contracts? Is all the administration in every district in this country so concerned about litigation that they shrug off their students’ well-being?
Stop. Please.
The fact is most educators and administrators, nowadays, have master’s degrees in their fields, and we care more about your kids than our paychecks. It’s been said that teaching is the easiest job in the world to do poorly and the toughest job in the world to do well.
The traditional myth is that we work part-time jobs so we can kick our feet up and sip drinks during the summer. For anyone who believes this, who believes these goofy portrayals of adults as buffoons in adolescent dramas, please, come into our classrooms and see for yourself what we really do.
This is to say nothing about the way ‘Thirteen Reasons Why,’ a series captivating our kids, misses a prime opportunity to talk, in a serious way, about mental illness.
Most teachers wouldn’t sleep if Hannah Baker was in our class, and we thought she was in danger and didn’t act. Most of us cry when there is a suicide in our school and ask endless questions about how we failed these students, how we can prevent this from happening again, which, of course, we can’t. Most of us care about your kids and want them to be safe and happy and successful. In this sense, the writers of ‘Thirteen Reasons Why’ failed to do their homework, thus rendering it implausible and making the educators appear as indolent stooges.
As an educator, the depiction of us—I think I’ll read a poem from some underground student publication aloud in my class because, you know, I didn’t have anything else planned—is demeaning.
Sadly, the show pits the school against the parents, and if there’s any solution in education, the opposite has to be true: When we all work in the best interest of our kids, good things can happen and bad things can be averted.
Hannah Baker could have lived.
RSVP for Weekly Calls on The Disposability of Men
—
We are proud of our SOCIAL INTEREST GROUPS—WEEKLY PHONE CALLS to discuss and help solve some of the most difficult challenges the world has today. Calls are for Members Only (although you can join the first call for free). Not yet a member of The Good Men Project? Join now!
Join The Good Men Project Community.
The $50 Platinum Level is an ALL-ACCESS PASS—join as many groups and classes as you want for the entire year. The $20 Gold Level gives you access to any ONE Social Interest Group and ONE Class–and other benefits listed below the form. Or…for $5, join as a Bronze Member and support our mission.
Register New Account
*Payment is by PayPal.
Please note: If you are already a writer/contributor at The Good Men Project, log in here before registering. (Request new password if needed).
◊♦◊
ANNUAL PLATINUM membership ($50 per year) includes:
1. AN ALL ACCESS PASS — Join ANY and ALL of our weekly calls, Social Interest Groups, classes, workshops and private Facebook groups. We have at least one group phone call or online class every day of the week.
2. See the website with no ads when logged in!
3. PLATINUM MEMBER commenting badge and listing on our “Friends of The Good Men Project” page.
***
ANNUAL GOLD membership ($20 per year) includes all the benefits above — but only ONE Weekly Social Interest Group and ONE class.
***
ANNUAL BRONZE membership ($5 per year) is great if you are not ready to join the full conversation but want to support our mission anyway. You’ll still get a BRONZE commenting badge, a listing on our Friends page, and you can pop into any of our weekly Friday Calls with the Publisher when you have time. This is for people who believe—like we do—that this conversation about men and changing roles and goodness in the 21st century is one of the most important conversations you can have today.
♦◊♦
We have calls about these topics 7 days a week! Join us by becoming a Platinum or Gold member. (Click on the graphic for more information about the calls and to RSVP for them.)
♦◊♦
We have pioneered the largest worldwide conversation about what it means to be a good man in the 21st century. Your support of our work is inspiring and invaluable.
◊♦◊
“Here’s the thing about The Good Men Project. We are trying to create big, sweeping, societal changes—–overturn stereotypes, eliminate racism, sexism, homophobia, be a positive force for good for things like education reform and the environment. And we’re also giving individuals the tools they need to make individual change—-with their own relationships, with the way they parent, with their ability to be more conscious, more mindful, and more insightful. For some people, that could get overwhelming. But for those of us here at The Good Men Project, it is not overwhelming. It is simply something we do—–every day. We do it with teamwork, with compassion, with an understanding of systems and how they work, and with shared insights from a diversity of viewpoints.” —– Lisa Hickey, Publisher of The Good Men Project and CEO of Good Men Media Inc.
Don’t like ads? Become a supporter and enjoy The Good Men Project ad free—
Photo Credit: Screen Cap of ‘Thirteen Reasons Why’ Trailer
My son died by suicide 2 years ago at the age of 20 (he graduated high school at 19). The book is from 2011 so it’s not far off base for those days at the school where my son went. When he was in school it was like we got the clueless counselors. Not one of them EVER mentioned a psychological evaluation for diagnosis. I never got any education on mental health despite 20 trips to special ed in one particular year. I made every effort to be easy to work with and I asked questions. My son was once… Read more »
Sorry but this 45 yr old remember she teachers and admins just in the manner depicted in the show. More concerned about liability than actual students.
I don’t understand.
Thanks for this; I think sometimes dramatic license can be extended a bit too far, based on meeting more generalized perceptions, assumptions, or prejudices (whether or not they are accurate or inaccurate) of what the general public or the outlier believes. Entertainment is first beholden to that- to verisimilitude and expected aesthetics; not to documentary accuracy, which may often be incongruent with presumptions or expectations, or the casting of unambiguous heroes and villains. People tend to take that for granted, so thank you for the reminder and the insights.