When I was placed in special education, the teacher was an amazingly kind woman whom I loved like a mother. Problem was, I already had a mother. I didn't need another one who excused me from class whenever I wanted, who talked teachers into giving me more chances, who "advocated" for me even when I wasn't deserving of it. What I needed was someone to draw a clear line and tell me what would happen if I crossed it and then to carry through with the consequence if I did. I had a childhood which, in a lot of ways, was the stuff of sob stories that get kids excused from their entire education, lest their problems be exacerbated by the normal expectations of a classroom. But what I didn't need, and what kids today don't need, is the permission to be their worst selves. The only way to make it out of a bad situation, and to make up for past bad decisions, is to begin making better choices. There is no cheat code into a good education. The adults who are meant to help students with "special needs," like I had, need to understand that they can't make the decisions for these kids. They can help them to make good decisions themselves, but they can't do it for them, and the worst thing they can do is continue making excuses for the bad decisions and behaviors that kids like I was persist in all in the name of compassion. It wasn't until I got out into the world and got my ass absolutely kicked by the vicissitudes of a world which was much less kind to me than my beloved teacher ever was that I began to find my way to normative and prosocial behaviors. But this took the better part of a decade, a decade that may have been avoided if I had learned the right lessons earlier in life, taught by the people who are supposed to care the most.