High School Lover

High school is supposed to be about finding yourself. Who are you? Where are you going in life? Are you a leader, or a follower? It's about becoming an individual, with your own thoughts, values, morals, and setting yourself above the rest. Graduating year is a rat race against your friends, in an attempt to get into the best school possible for the career you've chosen.
Career you've chosen? Throughout the whole 4-5 years of high school, there is only one mandatory ½ credit career course that is supposed to magically point you in the direction you should be heading for the rest of your life. Other than that, you're stuck in a boat without a paddle. The counselors have no better knowledge of the industries than you do, and you're flailing about trying to make a life long change while trying to find yourself.
High school is supposed to be the first big step towards adulthood, the first lick of freedom. You get to chose your classes, go out for lunch, have your own personal locker. The people you come in with aren't necessarily the same people you leave with. The boy in your grade 8 math class that everyone picked on because of his size becomes the captain of the football team. The couple you were sure was going to be together forever because they were so great together breaks up because he discovers he prefers the company of other men. Your best friend, who never kissed a boy and wasn't going to until she got married drops out in grade 10 to have a baby on her own, because the dad is a deadbeat druggie she dated to spite her super strict parents.
How do you keep your head above water, when everything around you is threatening to swallow you whole? Term papers, exams, group projects, extra ciricular, it's overwhelming. More and more students are leaving high school just as confused as when they came in. They have no idea where they're going in life, and they're okay with that. Because we all can't be rocket scientists, and someone needs to fulfill the starving artist quota.
High school sucks at some point, for everyone. But some people go out of their way to make it hard on people, and some people can't handle it. Noone wants to be the bullied student who tried to get help and didn't get anywhere, so they got bullied worse. Noone wants to be the student who slips through the cracks and only resurfaces as that random 10th grader who committed suicide when really, noone meant any harm.
With all the holes in our school system, all the leaky faucets, it's not exactly the easiest environment to find yourself in. You ask questions that noone knows the answer to, and you think you're the only one worried about the future. It's almost like the whole staff if under some kind of confidentiality code, where everything is on a need to know basis. If people were more open, maybe there would be less confusion. Perhaps some people would be more open to the idea of talking about their problems, rather than resorting to more drastically permanent measures.
Maybe we could teach our students that homosexuality is okay. That being different is okay. That people get depressed, and people graduate all the time with no idea what they're going to do with their life. It's not the staff's job to instill basic morals and values into the students, but since they're the future, shouldn't we do what we can to help them get on the right path?