As I got into middle school, I was really an outcast. But everybody was an outcast in middle school. I don't know who got the idea to put all kids going through puberty together in a school and give them academic elitism and competition and pit them against each other.
I stopped going to school in the middle of fourth grade. Everyone grows up with the peer pressure, and kids being mean to each other in school. I think that's such a horrible thing, but I never really dealt with it in a high school way.
I think about the milestones from my childhood and what it will be like to watch our kids go through them. Taking Riley to her first day of school was a whirlwind. I can't imagine what middle school is going to be like, and high school, and graduation.
What I'm really addicted to is getting people to understand that if their kids aren't competent readers coming out of middle school, it's really going to be hard for them in high school.
I've had a lot of people who've said they can relate to the show and it's helped them through a lot of difficult times, especially the kids in high school now. Everyone kind of feels like an outcast in high school. Even if you're super popular, you still have issues.
You know . . . a lot of kids at school hate their parents. Some of them got hit. And some of them got caught in the middle of wrong lives. Some of them were trophies for their parents to show the neighbors like ribbons or gold stars. And some of them just wanted to drink in peace.
I really had a rough time in middle school. Middle school to me was the way most people explain high school. Then in high school I had a blast. I basically did everything that you would do in high school or in college, so it really wasn't a difficult thing to pull out.
I was bullied pretty badly especially in middle school. High school was not as bad as middle school, but I was not a macho kid at all. And the kids saw me as different from a very, very early age.
You want to help gay kids, you have to reach them in middle school and high school, when they're being bullied.
I was a founding member of the 'Dungeons and Dragons' club at my high school. I was in chorus, I was in swing choir. I was an outcast but I was an outcast among a group of outcasts.
I grew up in Dutch Harbor, Alaska - a place so tiny, we got only one channel on TV. The high school and middle school had 50 kids total!
I know from my own personal experience. I was bullied in middle school and high school and went through my fair share of hard times thereafter. Also, one of my really good friends committed suicide when I was in high school.
You got to miss class to do it. Like, many periods of school. And then they took us to an elementary or middle school, and we told kids that they could be cool when they grew up even if they didn't do drugs.
I started getting into clothes when I was really young. And then I went through a phase in middle school where I didn't care at all. But after that, after high school, I really got into high fashion. Balmain, Givenchy, Louboutin, all that.
McCain is the kid who was really cool in middle school but never got high school game and people are sick of him acting like he's still popular.
If I lived where I live right now, and my kids were in middle school, they would be the only white kids in the school. That is not a burden I wanted to place on them. My preference would have been a school that was totally diverse - half and half, or close. I wouldn't have hesitated at all if they would have been in the racial minority. But to be the only white kids: I don't think that would have been fair to them.
I was kind of an outcast in school 'cause I always kept to myself and was writing poetry and then going on tour with my brother band all the time, so kids didn't know what to make of me.