People make an issue about being different. What makes us ‘different’ anyways? Does it have to do with our gender, where our family comes from and what we believe in? The fact is: we are all different. We all like and do things in different ways. ‘It makes you think, why can’t people just be, people?’
High school is one of the major places bullying happens. Even Lake Hamilton, the number one academic public school in Arkansas, falls victim to bullying. Bullying leads to harassment. Harassment leads to violence, and that leads to nothing good. We all get angry and frustrated; however, it isn’t an acceptable way of resolving a conflict or gaining control of any situation. No matter what problem you are having with someone else, you need to report it to an adult. Starting a fight will only get everyone in trouble, and if it’s bad enough, you might get arrested.
It doesn’t just stop in high school; even young kids even bully one another. I actually don’t blame them though; the people that are supposed to be good role models are actually pretty bad ones. One of my friends got bullied in the third grade. The kids would make fun of his name because it was something they never heard before. They said that he looked stupid because he wasn’t as white as them, yet not as dark as others. At the time, he had an accent. So they made fun of the way he spoke too.
Sadly, bullying is a worldwide thing. Another, well publicized, example is from the United Kingdom. A boy named Ben Vodden, who was 11 years old. He told his mother he was being bullied on the school bus, she advised him to sit next to the driver. Yet rather than look after him, the driver joined in the taunts and called the 11-year-old names that can’t be shown in the paper. The boy - nicknamed ‘Giggles’ because of his “fun-loving and enthusiastic” nature - was found with shoelaces around his neck and tied to his bunk bed. His parents said; “The simple fact is that Ben would not be dead if he hadn’t been bullied. We strongly believe that." The parents reported the bus driver to the school principal and they are taking him to court for the loss of love and life.
I was always told ‘Sticks and stones may break my bones, but names will never hurt me.’ I personally don’t believe this is true. Words hurt, maybe not physically, but mentally and emotionally. Scars are there, even if you can’t see them. So try making new friends with different groups of people - not just the ones you normally relate to.
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