Thread by @The8BitIdiot

I want to tell you a story. It's the story of my deepest core memory. A story of a single day in the 1980s education system, and how it failed a little boy.
This is the story of Julian. [Thread]

It was 1989, and I was in the second grade. I'm not sure if it's still a thing, but back then Pizza hut had a program called Book-it. Basically, in participating schools, kids read a certain number of books, and they get a coupon for a free personal nan pizza.

In addition if EVERY kid in your school participates every month, your whole school got a pizza party at the end of the school year.

Enter Julian.

Julian was the kind of kid that ate paste for a snack. He cried for two hours when we watched Charlotte's Web. His suggested addition to the school time capsule was diarrhea.
Julian was not one of the cool kids.

So the first months rolls around and everyone in the 2 first grade, 2 second grade and 1 kindergarten classes had met the book reading quota, everyone except Julian.

We had already lost our pizza party, but everyone kept on reading and hitting quota, except Julian. He read not a single book toward the program.

The end of the year came up fast, and there was a surprise announcement. We were having the party. The school decided that we shouldn't all be punished because ONE child didn't participate. We were all super pumped.

There was one catch. Julian couldn't come.

In front of the entire class our teacher announced that Julian would remain in the principal's office for the duration of the party. I remembered feeling her deserved what he was getting

The day of the party rolls around, and we all pile into the cafeteria where a big screen tv is set up. We're told they're going to be showing the movie "The Land Before Time". We all take our seats, and then we hear it...

A loud scarping sound coming from the hallway getting closer and closer. Then we see it. Julian dragging a chair behind him, and the other second grade teacher with a kids desk lifted up over her head.

I thought, are they letting him come, is he going to be allowed to be in the party? I was quickly answered.

The teacher brought his desk to the corner of the room right in front of the trash cans. She slammed it down facing away from the TV so he would be looking directly at the garbage and nothing else.

He put his seat down, sat down and immediately started crying.

The movie was turned on l, the pizza was served. None to Julian of course. We sat there and ate pizza and watched a full length feature animated film with the sound of Julian's non-stop wailing.

Not ONE of us enjoyed the party.

The movie wrapped up, we all got up and started to leave. Julian was still sitting there, crying.

There was a bunch of Pizza left over, so one of the teachers started piling the boxes on top of each other, and started walking toward Julian...and the garbage.

No way, I thought, no way is she going to do it. But she did.

She threw the pizza in the trash right in front of him, making sure she opened the boxes and poured it out into the can so Julian could see it. He was crying so hard it sounded like screaming.

It's a moment frozen in time in my memories forever. A moment of cruelty like I had never witnessed, and have never since.

It would be later discovered that Julian was autistic, and dyslexic. We didn't know what those things even meant then.

Not only had the school failed him, it failed us all for having shown us this cruelty as if it was deserved.

I'd like to say we were all nicer to Julian after this, but we were kids. I moved away a couple years later, but I ran into an old friend who told me about him being diagnosed as autistic and dyslexic in high school.
I hope he's doing well.