Bullying in Schools

According to http://www.bullyingstatistics.org/content/school-bullying-statistics.html,  "77 percent of all students being bullied verbally in some way or another including mental bullying or even verbal abuse in schools in America."  This fact doesn't surprise me that the bullying is so high in the school of this nation.  The school I came from is a very little school with the class average of 60.  The school tries all kinds of ways to prevent the bullying from happening; from hanging up all kinds of posters, to having assemblies over the subject.  

One of the assemblies there was a speaker about bullying and that speaker reminded me of a story.  There was a girl named Brittany that was mediocre student in classes with her grades and when it came to popularity she was just liked by everyone.  She tried to not make any enemies and be friends with everyone.  One day when she was in 7th grade, one of the more popular girl called her white trash.  That day the girl came home and went straight to her room.  Her mom came in and found her daughter crying.  She explained everything and the mother was shocked to hear the words she was called.  This girl hated going to go to school from there on.  The Brittany's mother contacted the mean girls parents.  Their parents were amazed to think their daughter would say such a thing and said that they don't believe them.  As the years went on this Brittany got the nerve to stand up for herself and began to excel in basketball.  The bully and her clique all played basketball as well.  When it came time for playing Brittany had to prove to the coach, one of the clique girls dads, she was really good.  For the longest time she barely got any playing time and the girls would leave her out of a lot of things.  As they got to their freshmen year of high school and basketball came around Brittany made varsity.  The girl tried to start things again with saying its only because her last name even the girls brother stepped in and use a socail media site to bash the Brittany.   Brittany stood up for herself and proved to everyone why she deserved the spot and didn't show them any reaction.  The saddest part of the whole story is the two girls had the same last name.  And matter a fact, the Brittany the one that got bullied, was my sister.

In this lecture on Wednesday, the bullying really hit home to me.  My sister had the nerve and ability to stand up for herself to stop the bullying.  One of her classmates was not so strong.  Her classmate got to the point where she thought her life wasn't worth living and was diagnosed with depression.  The bullying continued and she got to the point where she left the school and went to a neighboring school.  This girl thought that her life wasn't worth living just because someone else thought that she was a loser, was different, and wasn't privileged with things like others are.  Its sad that the girl had to leave her friends she had because of this.  The entire time this was happening in the school, the school did nothing!  The school may think they are doing a lot with the posters and assemblies, but when it occurs they need to learn to step in and stop it before it gets any worse.  In this case they got lucky that the girl didn't go through with thinking her life wasn't worth living.  I feel schools need to really do more on watching what is happening in their schools.  If schools would take the fact that bullying does occur more than they think, then they would be able to realize it and help prevent it.  So Wednesdays class made me think of these questions.

Is my school the only one that has failed in this department?  Are there anyone else who has went through these same things maybe there self?   And recalling back to the question that never got asked, yes I was a bully before and after this happened to my sister I will never be like that to someone ever again.  And yes you really do feel useless when it comes to someone bullying someone close to you.  It’s sad that this rate of bullying is so high, if only there was a way to stop it.