Hi sophomore class,

This is Mr. Kurtz. It is Friday night at 1am. I have been wondering how to approach our discussion on Monday. I mentioned during our time together on Friday that what I shared with you would keep me up tonight. I was wrong. It is what some of you said on a discussion forum that is keeping me up tonight.

Yes, what I shared with you on Friday was personal. Extremely personal. And it was painful for me to share that. So, so, so painful.

But surprisingly, what was infinitely more painful was watching your reactions and posts on the chat room.

For all the comments directed at me– I enjoyed them. Believe it or not, your witty and original comments tend not to phase me. Thanks to people exactly like yourself when I was a 10th grade student, I have developed a callused outer layer.

For those students who were targeted during our time on Friday: targeted with hate speech, sexist comments, profanity, and general filth: I am not worried about you at all. The students at Edina High School who are singled out, ridiculed, teased and bullied are unfailingly the brightest, strongest and most courageous people I know. You will move on from this experience because you know that you are better than any of it.

For those students who tried to police and clean up what was happening on the forum– I felt pain for you. I saw the frustration, helplessness and embarrassment in your posts as you sought to make things right. You gave it your all, and I thank you from the bottom of my heart. However, there were frighteningly few of you. We have nearly 700 sophomores at EHS. How would our perception of Friday’s events have changed if the whispers of the few well-intentioned were instead a unified voice of the sophomore class? I felt pain that there were so few of these whispers voiced on the forum when I know so many of you were disgusted by what happened.

What I found most painful about Friday was reading those of you who were posting disgusting thoughts on the forum. I worry for you. I worry for your own confidence, your own sense of morality, ethics and general ability to exist as a decent human being.

During my speech, I mentioned the feeling of suffocation, isolation, and hopelessness I felt as a 10th grade student. Looking at the discussion forum, I truly believe that all of you who were behaving in a horrific fashion online feel this as well on a very deep level. About yourself.

I do not want these negative feelings to begin to define-or perhaps continue to define-you. I am worried for you. I am scared. It is those of you who behaved most poorly that I care most about.

One of the subliminal goals of my presentation of Friday was to have each student begin to see the “dots” of the passion project, and connect those dots as they relate to whatever you may choose. When you connect those dots, a perfect mirror of who you are-inside and out-emerges.

Looking at everything that went on both during and after our time together on Friday, I hope you like what you see in the mirror you have made for yourself.

With deepest appreciation for making my passion project so painfully memorable for many, many members of the community,

–Mr. Kurtz