Memo to world's tallest teen: at least you're not short

If this looks like a musical instrument to you, you were probably the shortest kid in high school.

From elementary school through senior year teachers loved to arrange our bodies in height order. Assemblies, class pictures, sporting events, bus line-ups, lice checks, you name it.

Possibly the cruelest thing you can do to a group of kids, at any age, is organize them by their physical traits. Why don't they just do flattest to breastiest? Or smallest pores to largest erupting whiteheads? The height line-up is just as bad if you're on one of the extreme ends of the spectrum. I was. That's why I feel for 14 year-old Elisany Silva, who's recently been named the world's tallest teenager at six foot nine. As my grade's shortest teen, and pre-teen and zygote, I know what a major role height plays in school. Especially when you hear those dreaded dictatorship commands: "Class! Line-up in height order."

For the next four years, teachers will arrange the class according to height as if the students are a pile of blocks in a spatial psychology experiment. My only message of hope for Elisany is this: At least you're not short. One study that measured adult success by the heights people were in high school, found that taller students fared better in their careers. See? It's tough being relegated to one end of the student line-up. But the tall end's better. You're considered better athletes, mentally more mature and you get to do things first. Consider the shaft I got as the shortest girl in school.

Creativity: I sure would have liked to have learned to play the keyboard or maybe even the tuba, but as the shortest kid in class, teachers assumed my height was directly proportionate to my brain matter. Guess what instrument I was always assigned to in music class? The triangle. For those of you tall and medium types, this was a silver triangle, the size of your palm. You held the top of it and clanked it with a pen-sized piece of medal. It made only one note: the sound pity.

Competition: How long was the basketball segment in your gym class? I'm asking because I'm pretty sure mine lasted 24 months. I was good at soccer, dodgeball, gymnastics. Stuff designed for short people. But all we played was basketball. And it was also the only sport where teams were decided in the cruel method of captain selection. After years of lining up by height order, my own brain-washed classmates turned against me selecting me last every time: "I guess I'll take Piper." That experience was not at all damaging. I'll remember this come dogdeball week, a--holes.

They're friends. Why are you all laughing? (Getty Images)
Prejudices: Lining up for an assembly or a class photo is an underrated social determinant. Studies have proven people with physical similarities gravitate to each other. Thanks education specialists for fostering that notion of sticking with people who look like you. It's been really helpful for society. In grade school, if you're the shortest kid it's hard to remain friends with the tallest kid after a line-up. You knew there was a size difference, but when you're placed on opposite ends of the room it really hampers that connection you made. Five minutes ago you gravitated to people based on personality. Now you see you're a world apart physically. And you're seven so you're impressionable. Now your best friend is the tallest kid and class and you're the shortest-- the two freaks who have to be separated by crowds of peers because you're so damn different. You're not even sure you're the same species anymore. After a class photo, you both just need some time apart to think.

Social adaptability: Meanwhile the medium kids, who feels like everyone in the world, are so similar in height they get to form really cool hang-time clusters during these "height order" moments. The conversations I imagined that transpired between medium kids in the line-up range from the exact location of Carmen San Diego to the first mention of the frenulum. On the short end, the conversation was singular: Who's taller? Fiercely vying for a spot closer to the middle, the second shortest and the third would stand back to back and I'd have to measure them over and over. The fourth shortest could have done it too, but she wouldn't even talk to us because she considered herself closer to the mediums.

Humiliation: And if, during some height-order line-up I attempted to socialize with the medium crowd, I got burned. "Piper, where's Piper? Get back in the front!" said the teacher over muffled laughter and a few awwws. "Nobody can see you if you're standing among your peers who are your same age and Darwinian competition." Hey can someone also lift me up to show how I have the muscle strength of a newborn? That would help get earn me even more respect.

Hope: So you've spent your entire life in school, and here you are at 18, preparing to graduate. You've made friends and lost them, cursed at a parent once--just to see, maybe learned another language, maybe had your teeth fixed or even gotten to third base. So much has happened. So much physical and mental effort has been exerted to grow and change and evolve.

And then you're told to line up for graduation in height order. It's the final injustice. It doesn't matter how far you've come, if you're still the shortest kid, you go to the end. Because you're little. Tiny! Microscopic! A speck! A human who should have incubated longer! And as you wait for all the talls and then the mediums to walk down the aisle in the auditorium, you're still stuck standing in the hallway. That's when you notice the poster on the wall. It says "Small hands change the world" and has little hand prints, of varying shades of tan, circling the planet. It's a comforting thought...until you realize, there are no small hands on that poster. All those hands are the same exact size. They're just a bunch of mediums. Happy, happy mediums.

In the words of Ziggy, the subject of another poster teachers really like: hang in there, kid.