We call it “Socialization,” but it is really being told our place in the social structure. Our place in the “pecking order” of middle school and high school reflects where we stand and what expectations, in their eyes, we should have. They deal with the superficial while ensuring that we understand their expectations of our ultimate failure in life. Many times, teachers are our lifeline to becoming more than their expectations and have been rewarded with low pay and ideological attacks. I remember the mean girls and boys whose parents could afford fashionable things, vacations, huge homes, and expensive cars. My parents worked themselves to death and gave us what they could, but it was never good enough to be allowed into the inner sanctum of the popular. When we examine where we have failed as a society, we must begin with the understanding that our education system and its support of an abusive status quo were more concerned with promoting wealth and status despite the hard-working teachers doing their best to save us all.