Suicides relating to the College Scholastic Ability Test (CSAT) that High school students took today are common enough to be a yearly occurrence. When a school test defines your place in society, and as a result defines your parents standing later in life, people take it very seriously. Too seriously.

That is why I am always listening to the student’s chatter around this time of year. I don’t teach any high school students, but my students hear stories and know many more people than I do. Today, one of my students mentioned the word "cha-sal", which is "suicide" in class when talking to someone. I listened in to hear what was going on. He went on to give a general description of someone, and the students in class looked even more shocked. It seemed they knew the person somehow. The boy talked to the other students in class who were saying, "No way." or "That’s a lie. I don’t believe it. How do you know? Who told you? How did you find out?"

I asked the boy to explain what had his classmates so worried and disturbed. He told me that a girl in his apartment building, and his brother’s classmate, had killed herself. She had jumped out of her apartment window. She was 13 years old. This happened in the last 24 hours. The apartment building in question is directly across from the school. He said that the girl’s apartment had been taped off, and that when his brother had gone to class, she was absent and everything in her locker/shoe place was emptied.

I was a little worried about the details he had told the students, and since I had walked in only hearing half the story, I waited until the class break to hear more of what was going on. I told my director that one of my students had talked about a school related suicide. She said, "Oh, that happened a few weeks ago, right?"

I went on to explain that this was in fact another case (see, freakishly common), and that there was a local connection in that the girl lived in the nearby apartment complex. We pulled the boy into the teacher’s office to repeat the story. Then I caught the detail that had freaked everyone else out before. Not only was the girl a young local girl, but she had also attended our school. The description he was giving everyone was so disturbing because the students knew the girl. She had attended the summer intensive classes. She had stopped coming to the school afterwards, but it seems that they remembered her. She was one of my students.

Needless to say, when we found out that detail, all of the teachers and directors screamed or shouted in surprise. I think, "Holy shit!" was the best I managed to express before I realized the rest of the school was listening in on our conversation was were concerned at how we were acting.

I’d like to say I remember her, but I don’t. Even with the picture I was shown by my director, I can only bring up a fuzzy memory of the students and room the class was in. She had a large forehead and glasses according to everyone’s description of her. My director said she was an excellent student, and I taught the students at her level. I can’t recall her face, and I don’t know if it makes things more difficult or easier.

Since she’s only a middle school student, there would be no connection with all the high school suicides that happen around this time. She wasn’t taking the soul-crushing tests that have rendered so many high school students to a similar fate.  A coincidence? Who knows? It’s sickening to think about.

Many of the students that heard the news are in shock, stopping by the office asking if it was true. For the boy’s sake, if it isn’t true, he’ll be on my shit list forever. He didn’t seem like someone that would lie about such a thing, and his story didn’t change as he told it from what I could understand. He was passing on information from other sources indirectly, and rumors sometimes fly out of control. I really doubt he is lying though.

Wow. I’m at a loss for words right now. Total shock.

This sucks.