Fiona's Blog: Taking a Stand Against Bullying in High School
On Friday, a group of seniors in my school took a stand against bullying, in what became one of my most memorable experiences in high school.I, along with thirteen other seniors, am a peer leader, which means that we lead the freshman class in small groups through a curriculum that touches on sex-ed, alcohol and drug abuse, depression and eating disorders, and various other issues that freshmen may encounter in high school. The program is great—every year almost the entire senior class applies to be peer leaders, because the position is seen as fun and a great chance to interact with freshmen.Recently, there were several instances of bullying in the freshman class. The first couple of examples we heard about were somewhat minor and typical of freshmen, clique-y behavior. However, it soon became clear that there were specific kids who were being targeted, and that the instances were more frequent and intense than in the past. The behavior ranged from getting up from a lunch table when a certain student sat down, to calling people inappropriate, hurtful names.
After noticing the behavior in the ninth grade, the peer leaders came together, without any faculty involvement, and decided that something had to be done. First, we had to be clear about what the problem was. Together, we chose to define bullying as any form of harassment. We took this to include anything done purposely to make another person feel bad.
Jokes can be part of bullying as much as a punch to the nose is. One thing I think bullying awareness campaigns like Rachel’s and Lady Gaga’s have done well is clearly defined bullying as encompassing a broad range of behaviors.To be completely honest, a few years ago, I think I still associated bullying with a silly, unrealistic, cartoonized stereotype of a bully: a giant kid who pushed other, scrawnier kids around and spoke in cave-man language. However, attending programs like the Girls Leadership Institute and hearing people such as Rachel speak out about bullying has helped this word take on the seriousness it deserves. And once the peer leaders started discussing the issue, the word “bully” came up almost immediately. To me this truly demonstrated how in recent years, ad campaigns have made this word more understandable for teens and placed it in a more serious context.
The peer leaders decided that we would organize a grade-wide meeting for the freshmen. Each peer leader would share a story about an instance in which they were a part of bullying. The peer leader could choose to discuss a story in which they were the bully or the victim of bullying, or an instance in which they had stood by and watched bullying happen. The story could be something as simple as “When I talk in class, others roll their eyes,” or as serious as physical violence.
I was extremely impressed and happy to see that students at my high school were willing to take such a stand against something they believed was wrong. In some ways I was shocked to see how supportive the peer leaders all were. While some were reluctant in the beginning, all came together in the end to stand up for something they believed in.I’d like to think that I’ve reached an age where my peers are ready to put their popularity on the line to do what is right. Unfortunately, I know for a fact that this is not true across the board. However, the stance that was taken last Friday gave me hope that this issue of bullying, which has become so intense recently, can be stopped with the help of other students.Stay tuned for next week’s blog to hear what went down at the meeting.