Since kindergarten, I’ve gone to the same school. Not just the same school, but the same building. The school I go to is so small that kindergarten through twelfth grade is in a single building. By saying that, you can assume I know most of the people in my grade (only 55 people) and in the grades around mine pretty well. We’ve all grown up together and seen each other grow. I’ve seen the people in my grade change their hairstyle, clothes and most importantly the way they act.

This year, we were fortunate enough to get a few more students in my grade. One girl stood out in particular. Rumor has it, she was living at Schults Lewis. Which is a home for the troubled… So to speak. And me being the friendly person I am, I invited her to sit with my friends at lunch and found out we have a lot of classes together. All my friends and her hit it off pretty well and a month into school we were all laughing and joking as if we’ve known each other since elementary school. Then all of a sudden, I was talking to one of my guy friends and he said “So, I heard she lives at Schults Lewis”. The words themselves didn’t really mean much but the look on his face said otherwise. The look on his face said, “I already have my mind made up about her, but I just want to see what you know”. Suffice to say, I wanted to slap him. But with a zero tolerance fighting policy hanging over my shoulders with a possible suspension, I said as calmly as I could “She’s waiting to be placed in her foster home” and walked away.

I know at times its difficult not to make assumption about people, and maybe my guy friend really did care, but my point is just don’t. Don’t make it a habit to “judge a book by its cover”, because later you might regret it. I know for a fact that all the kids in my grade that have made the same assumption about her as my guy friend did, are missing out knowing an amazing person.