While institutions like the school dance or football team are presented as problematic, they also serve as important sources of social bonding and personal challenge. Daniel finds friendship and a certain degree of acceptance amongst his peers. However, the element of school learning, and ordinary classes, is the exception to this. The teachers are indifferent to the lives of their students. For example, as Daniel says of his geography teacher, “Mr. Keats usually just gives up on us and creates a work period so that he can sit behind his desk and read the paper” (4). This is also the case with Sara’s teaching assistant. As Daniel observes at the dance, Sara “was just sitting there, her eyes glazed over while Miss Lecky texted” (71). Despite her TA being paid specifically to help Sara, she evinces no real concern for or understanding of her. Indeed, this is shown by the fact that Sara does not talk to Miss Lecky, who makes Sara scream when grabbing her arm to “calm her down” (14).

The teachers’ indifference is part of a broader problem, in which “learning” is reduced to a competition for grades, where the needs or individuality of the student are ignored in favor of establishing means of measurement and quantification. It is telling that the “Gifted Program” (3) was closed down; it aimed to acknowledge difference and individuality, and it was a program where Sara and Daniel once belonged. These ideas also point to a broader critique of “objective” and scientific ways of understanding human psychology and suffering. For example, in the book about OCD that Sara gives Daniel, the author claims that OCD is “caused by a malfunction of a component of the brain called the amygdala” (214). It also gives a generalized bullet point list of “fears” for the person living with OCD, including “Sanitation,” “Scrupulosity,” “Personal health Fears,” and “Responsibility Fears” (215). King suggests that this objective assessment offers little comfort for the person living with a mental illness and instead recommends self-reflection and understanding.