Bullying

              We had a couple guest speakers that came in this semester to talk about a variety of things. The speakers that stood out most were the anti-bullying ones. Two girls were waiting in the front of the class when we walked in. At first I thought they were helping out Emily but then we started talking about bullying and how everyone is affected by bullying. Their presentation was very eye opening. To find out that ignoring someone is a form of bullying is mind blowing. The first thing we did was put on a nametag so the two young ladies would know each of our names. Then one of the speakers randomly lays a red line of duck tape on the floor and had students stand on either side of it. Next, we were asked questions, and for every question that was a yes you had to step on the line. The whole point of this exercise was to show the people in the class that we have a lot more in common then we think we do, and that people go through the same situations as others. It dawned on me that most of the kids in my class have been or have taken part in bullying someone. 

          After that the two speakers had the class take their seats, which was shaped, in a circle so everyone could see each other. We then classified the different types of bullying. This exercise was to show that there is many different types of bullying that we might not even know were participating in. For example, there is verbal bullying, cyber bullying, symbol bullying, a lack of communication is bullying, and excluding people was bullying. Those few examples are not where the list stops. Bullying is killing people inside day by day. The hardest thing to do this day in age is to get kids to speak up and tell someone that they are or have been bullied. 

        This hits home for me because I met a girl in 7^th grade by the name of Veronica. We were very good friends and she would even come over after school sometimes. I never knew something was wrong with her until I got the phone call that she had tried to kill herself. I was livid and didn’t know what to do. When I saw her next I asked her one simple question… why didn’t you tell me? She looked up slowly and said, “I was scared and embarrassed”. Thats the problem these victims go through, their scared to tell because the bully might find out, and their embarrassed to tell people.

         On the other hand, the last activity we did was take sheets of paper write your name on the top and send it around the room. Two rules, you had to write one good compliment about the person, and you couldn’t write on your own paper. When I received my paper back and looked at all the good things my classmates had to say about me I couldn’t do anything but smile because I never knew they had good thoughts let alone good thoughts about me. So for me, the bullying seminar was the most touching shall I say.