Dare To Be Different

In 2010, a freshman of Rutgers University named Tyler Clementis committed suicide because he discovered that his roommate used a webcam to spy on him having sex with another man and put it on twitter. Tyler jumped off the George Washington Bridge a few days after he found out. He was 18 years old. (New York Times).

Bullying is more serious than people think because it is not happening to them. Bullying causes people to drop out of school, school shootings, and unfortunately commit suicide.

“It’s estimated that 160,000 children miss school every day due to fear of attack or intimidation by other students”. (National Education Association). This is absolutely ridiculous. Now days, education is a must have to get any job. I would go bananas if my child was scared to go to school due to fear of another person. A child should never be afraid to get an education. 1 out of every 10 students are dropping out of school due to bullying. We need to stand up and inform our schools about what is going on. Not only inform, but encourage them to handle the situation properly. A lot of schools don’t think they have a bullying problem until someone commits suicide, or commits a hate crime. It is absurd that school is supposed to be a “safe place”, and now kids are avoiding going because they are scared. Let’s not wait until something dreadful happens. We need to do all we can to stop bullying.

I can’t stress enough how terrible it is to bully someone. Especially when the victim doesn't want to be bothered. Sadly, a lot of students who get bullied conclude hateful acts to “get back” at everyone who hurt them. “Harassment and bullying have been linked to 75% of school shootings.” (Makebeatsnotbeatdowns.org). Most students use the shootings as a sense of revenge. They want everyone to feel the pain they felt.

For example, the Columbine High School massacre in Colorado was one of America’s most tragic moments, where two students that were bullied shot their fellow classmates. During the shooting they said, "Everyone with white hats, stand up! This is for all the shit that you've given us for the past four years!" and: "All jocks stand up! We'll get the guys in white hats!" (Wearing a white baseball cap at Columbine was a tradition among sports team members) (Wiki). Twelve students and one teacher died, and a number of people were wounded. In order to stop tragedies such as the Columbine High School shooting, we have to take action.

There are simple solutions to help stop bullying. You should encourage students that are being bullied to speak up and tell someone. It doesn’t hurt to ask for help from higher authorities. Also, students need to stop encouraging the bully. We have a tendency to be entertained by their intimidating tactics, so we stand around and watch or laugh, but not helping. Become students who defend. Stop the problem, don’t enhance it. DARE TO BE DIFFERENT! We need to pay more attention to this problem and make sure we are doing all we can to make it stop. Bullying is growing more every day, and the more we encourage it instead of stopping it, there will never be a change.