High School Outcasts Rule the World

High school graduation feels more like the end of a prison sentence for far too many students, writes author Alexandra Robbins in the Los Angeles Times. But here's some solace for the outcasts: "The differences that cause a student to be excluded in high school are often the same traits or skills that will serve him or her well after graduation," writes Robbins. Still, that may not mean much to a lonely teenager treated like a pariah.

"The most heartbreaking consequence of this treatment is that tens of thousands of students—imaginative, interesting, impressionable people—think that they have done or felt something wrong," writes Robbins. It's up to adults and schools to discourage the "in-crowd" mentality and to get the message across, before graduation, "that being different is not a problem but a strength." (More high school stories.)