“Tell Me I’m Beautiful”

The Glair - “Tell Me I’m Beautiful” Wins NEA Endorsement and UN Approval for International Baccalaureate Schools in US

By Joseph Warwick Guttermann for the Missive

Last updated: 8:10 AM
Wednesday, December 13, 2006





The “Tell Me I’m Beautiful Program,” the controversial public school initiative that first started in Denver, Colorado as part of the No-Child Left Behind Act, and has since been adopted nationwide has just won NEA approval. In addition the program has been sanctioned by an international education commission and has been approved by the UN as part of the IB program for International Baccalaureate Schools in the United States.

The program, which originally began as a Child Tolerance Initiative, that included the free distribution of brightly colored and candy flavored condoms to first and second graders in order to stem the spread of AIDS/HIV, a set of colorable social studies and history books aimed at homosexual issues which the kids could finish in crayons, and an on campus policing program to prevent harassment of young homosexuals, has since matured and developed into a much larger and more ambitious program.

Said Director Heidi Florcheister, “We’d like to give all students a chance to participate in the ‘Tell Me I’m Beautiful’ initiative, not just our beautiful homosexual grade school students. So we’ve talked with several middle and high school principles as well and they unanimously endorse the concept. So the program is going to be expanding into all grade levels of public education. From K 3 and 4, all the way up to our 6-year Senior Level ‘Let’s Finally Graduate with Respect’ program. What we’re trying to do is combine several initiatives that will be beneficial to all of our students into one big package of educational benefits so that every child will have a chance to feel that they too are beautiful. We don’t want to leave any child behind. A child might start out behind, but with this program, sooner or later; they will get their turn up-front as well. It’s important in today’s complex world of cultural, social, legal, and sexual issues that every child feel beautiful and that every child get their turns both in the rear and up-front. A child just learns more about the world, and his or her ultimate places in it, that way. Educators are united in their desire to see all of our children fully mature, both from the front and back. That’s the very best way for child and educator to both get what they want and need out of a good public education.”

From a modest beginning the program has now grown to not only cover all grade levels of public education, it has also grown to include several sub-programs, as well as having branched out into over twelve other states as well.

“We expect to be in all fifty states by the time our great new Democratic Congress is seated, and at that time we expect our budget for the next two years to quadruple every year thereafter,” said Ms. Florcheister. She was clearly excited by the prospect of seeing the program that she had spearheaded for so long now progressing by leaps and bounds.

“We’re absorbing the ‘Head-Start,’ ‘English as a Dead Language,’ ‘My Parents are Different,’ ‘Teach Me to Spend,’ and the 'Darwinian Dilemma’ programs, all of which will now operate under the umbrella of our world class US educational super-program, ‘Tell Me I’m Beautiful!’ Kids taught in public schools will be even smarter than they are now! Can you believe it?”

It is indeed very difficult to believe but the evidence seems clear judging from the reactions of the students themselves. The most popular part of the program, from the student point of view, seems to be the ‘Tell Me I’m Beautiful’ nametag, which the student can wear on his or her shirt or blouse like a post-it sticky note. The name tag, which is six inches by six inches includes the phrase ‘Tell Me I’m Beautiful’ in big, bold pink lettering, has a space for the student to insert their own name, and contains a wealth of biometric data as well as what is coming to be called socio-metric data. Socio-metric data includes; weight, height, hair color, eye color, favorite color, favorite places to eat, favorite secret meeting places, a student’s My Space address, an email address, favorite mixed drink, favorite narcotic, sexual orientation, popular warm and cuddly catch-phrases, known communicable diseases, most eye-catching eye-liner, best shades of make-up, best tattoos, and of course, favorite places to be pierced. Originally the program had planned to use blue lettering for the boy’s nametags, but when it was discovered how popular pink is as a color among modern boys in public schools all nametags were left pink.

Privacy and security advocates have expressed criticism and concern over the biometric and sociometric data chips contained in each ‘Tell Me I’m Beautiful’ nametag. But school and educational officials scoff at the idea that such information could be used to do harm to any student.

“At the end of every day they simply peel off their ‘Tell Me I’m Beautiful’ nametag and throw it in the garbage,” said Ms. Florcheister. “Each day they are printed out a new nametag complete with the same biometric and sociometric data. What could be simpler and what could go wrong? These people who worry about security and such things think everybody is out to get them. We don’t have more than three or four students and teachers at any given school involved in a criminal case at any given time. That’s a small price to pay for feeling beautiful, and being beautiful. And the costs for the program are minimal.”

Indeed, costs notwithstanding, the nametag program alone is said to be a truly rousing success among students at all age and grade levels. Rather than breaking down into gangs and cliques along socioeconomic and racial lines, a common occurrence in many public schools these days, students from a wide variety of backgrounds are now heard to greet each other every day with the “You’re Beautiful,” mantra. Gone are the days of gang fights, racial tension, cliques, and a desire to dominate. Instead modern schools are filled with boys covered in make-up, girls tattooed like sailors, strange unisex hairdos, free exchange of biometric and sociometric data, on campus political party rallies, a cacophony of various languages, a great variety of unusual and bizarre odors, and of course a veritable floral colored plethora of “Tell Me I’m Beautiful” nametags.

Apparently when it comes to getting a good, solid, high-quality public education, beauty works.

© JWG, Jr. 2006