Bullying,+In+My+Words

=ANACAPA MIDDLE SCHOOL=

Anacapa middle school. Also known as hell, for me at least. I saw a lot of bullying in middle school. In sixth and in the beginning of seventh grade I didn’t really do anything about it. But end of seventh grade and eighth grade I started trying to stop it. I saw kids get called names and get pushed around. I would go up to the bully because most of the time they were younger than me. I would tell them to lay off and to leave the kid alone. Sometimes they would listen to me and sometimes… they wouldn’t and they would start to bully me, the older ones of course.

From sixth to eighth grade I was bullied. Constantly. I was called names, pushed, shoved, and thrown into walls. The halls of this school to this day still secretly torment and play with my mind. I specifically remember this one incident. I was at lunch talking to my friends and I had to use the restroom, which I hardly ever did because I was so terrified. I was washing my hands and the kid splashed water all over me, pushed and shoved me into the stalls calling me a “fag”. This was very traumatizing for me. I still to this day am still scared to go to the bathroom at my schools. Anacapa had horrible principles all of my years at Anacapa. They didn’t really do anything about the bullying. I went to the assistant principle, Mrs. Guthrie, once because I had gotten sick of this one kid. They told me to ignore it and if it kept happening to come back. Well it kept happening. When I went back all they did was pull me and him into a room and they told him to stop, they made him apologize to me and I don’t know why but they made me apologize to him which was really stupid because I didn’t even do anything to him. This kid still tormented me. Then this year he apologized to me and we are kind of friends now. I wish I had better principles at middle school.

The nature of young people is that they don’t have any maturity. Young people don’t know the effect that bullying has on other people. That it leads the victim to believe that suicide or death is the only way out, but it’s not. The nature of older kids is that they have more consideration and maturity toward other kids. In middle school I observed that those kids are mean, and cruel. Also very immature about things.

Adults can’t really change or stop bullying. They try, but ultimately they fail. Bullying can never be completely stopped. Personally I never saw my teachers or my principles doing anything about it. One time we were in P.E. and I remember this day because that’s when we were doing our testing. My friend was getting picked on because she couldn’t really do the best on one of the tests, and then this guy comes up starts picking on her. I mean like a girl getting picked on by a guy…. That guy is pathetic. She started crying and told the teacher Mr. Gonzales from anacapa what had happened all he did was say stop and he just looked away as soon as he did this guy started his pathetic crap again. She got really angry and got up and threatened to punch him in the face, and this kid was sort of big, and wasn’t going to hesitate to punch her back. I had to step in to keep her from getting hurt I told the kid to stop and to walk away and he did and I don’t think he bothered her again. In the end the teacher ended up doing nothing in this situation.

In the end I had a lot of friends graduating middle school. Bullying is a big problem in this country. It causes way to many suicides a year. We need to end this problem soon. Too many people are losing their kids to this disaster.

From personal experience in elementary school most of my friends called me a freak and said that I was weird. Then I moved and started school at a Jr. High school in Santa Barbara and when I started every one was nice to me but then the people who I thought were my friends were really not my friends at all. One of them had told me to my face that she didn’t like me because I wasn’t like her and her other friends and most of them would laugh at me and say that I was stupid and I was a retard. Then when I got home I would start to cry because I had no friends. Then when I came to Anacapa it was ok but later in the year there was this kid in my group who I didn’t really like because he would make fun of what I would wear and say that I looked like a boy and I wouldn’t do anything but just hear what he said and I told no one so it started to build up inside me which makes it hard for me to make new friends.

Even though I’ve been at Anacapa for about a year I saw a small amount of bulling but I saw quite a large amount of fights. But some of time I would see 8th graders picking on 6th or 7th graders and all I did was watch and do nothing. But most of the time I wasn’t picked on because I hardly talked to anyone so they never did anything to me.

To me, really, the school didn’t seem to put all their effort in making the school safe from bulling, and it seems that most teachers don’t understand that the bullies, today, are crueler and more aggressive. Even though they might have had a couple of guest speakers and that the principle told us what to do if we were bullied it seemed to just go in one ear and out the other and it seems that what they do to prevent more bulling it was just not enough and so it seemed that the bullies didn’t care on the affect that it is put on someone who has been bullied.

Bulling is kind of the nature of most teenagers because at a young age they aren’t as concern about what they do or what they say to other kids. Also they don’t think that they are as responsible for what they do so they don’t really care what they do. But I think that some of the time most of the bullies bully others because they were either bullied themselves or they find it funny or amusing to them and they like to feel in control of other kids smaller than them or younger than them. And most of the kids that get bullied don’t do anything so I think that that’s what makes them strike at other kids making the bullied the bullies.

I think that why bullies pick on other kids is because there not much of a challenge to them or there not as much of a threat to their image in school. But at Anacapa I from personal experience didn’t get bullied or bully anybody, but one of the girls that hung out with me and my friends was really mean and would pick on kids smaller than her or younger than her and nobody would do anything but just watch. I really don’t think that in their early teen age years they aren’t mature and that’s why they act the way they do.

I really don’t think that teachers can do much to stop bulling from happening because they can only prevent so much to stop kids from getting bullied but it seems that even them being there doesn’t get anywhere because they still have to deal with the bully after school and at that time there are no teachers around to protect them. It seems that as much as they try by having speakers come or have the principle come and say something seems to not be enough for kids still being bullied. I think that kids being bullied need to stand up for themselves and not have a teacher be their bodyguard 24/7 because their going to have to deal with

Overall I think that most kids that get bullied should stand up for themselves but should stay in a group of friends because when kids who are tend to stand up more for themselves because they have someone to back them up and tend to fell as if they can’t be bullied anymore.

Bullying is a “recognized” epidemic going on in schools all across America. To me it seems like the same scenario is being portrayed nationwide! The one where they tell children that fighting is bad and not to do it, being children do they honestly expect all of us to abide by that? We all have a story and this is mine. Bullying was never the issue for me that it was for some in sixth and eighth grade at least. But seventh on the other hand was a nightmare & a completely different story! Before the eighth grade I was not popular nor was I even close to the higher end of the social spectrum. I fell somewhere in the lower end next nerds, the “wanna be’s” & the band the geeks.

I was never the kid who got put in the GATE courses but I always was one to pull off A’s & B’s. In all honesty middle school might have been a breeze had it not been for my worst nightmare Melissa! This girl had every intention to destroy me as a person in every way possible socially, physically, mentally, and emotionally. I thought things such as this only existed in stories, yet there I was enduring all the pain that those fictional characters in my story books had so accurately portrayed. I wasted so much time and energy on her that now I feel that by expressing my emotion I’ve just more wasted that much more energy? I can’t help but wonder what was going through her head at the time? She was just so adamant about making my life hell, & I just couldn’t comprehend why?

I had never been anything but nice to her and I would do everything I could possibly think of just to get her to like me? I was never one for problems in fact, I had never dreamed I would find myself in the principal’s office on a daily basis, DAILY? The funny thing was that this girl started out as being my friend and then one day she decided she just really didn’t like me? Next thing I knew she was the puppeteer and all the girls whom I thought were my friends were hanging by her strings! They were mean and they knew it! I can’t even begin to tell you the countless times I came home crying and my mom called the office & what did they do? Well I’ll tell you one thing the last words I want to hear out of an administrators mouth is “we’ll take care!” of it because now I have trust issues, Why?, because nothing got done!

Granted she did move schools and I got lucky & let me tell you there was no greater feeling then having those girls kiss my but later in eighth grade when I was the popular one and they finally came to realize just how much they hurt me. I sometimes wonder what might of become of me had she stayed at. But I am grateful every day of my life that she didn’t stay and I was able to make the most of eighth grade year! I hope someday to be a successful business woman & though I even after all the hell she gave me I hope that someday shell make something herself too or at least become a better person then the one I knew.

So now that the sob story is over and done with let’s get down to business. Even the school administration tries to help there is only so much they can do. Let’s face it kids today are for lack of a better word CRAZY! As far as I’m concerned there really is nothing adults can do to change it. I mean the way I see it is that as much as they tell us that fighting is bad and not to do it and don’t say anything you’ll regret were all still going to do it at some point and obviously.

Is it the nature of young kids to bully one another? Bullying is the nature of young middle-schoolers to bully one another, they are just too immature to understand what they are doing is wrong. In this essay I will tell you about what I’ve seen.

In elementary school there was not a lot of bullying, but there was a small amount of verbal bullying, people being called nerds, geeks, and things similar to that. The school I went to, Portola Elementary, had a good program to keep other students in line, a program where other students would walk around during lunch/recess and make sure all the kids were being kind towards one another. These students were called Peer Mediators, one of which was me. I got into the Peer Mediation in 3rd grade, which was different because most of the kids would only get in to it in 4th or 5th grade. So elementary school wasn’t very bad. But Middle School was. I would see kids get bullied rather frequently, whether it was verbal or physical, mostly verbal. People would get called nerd, geek, gay, and other names. I don’t think I had ever seen somebody just randomly get beat up at school, but people would plan to beat up a kid after school hours at the bus stop, and thankfully, rumors spread quick, so a kid could call a parent to come pick them up. But if somebody were bullied enough, they would stand up to the bully, in a bad way, by fighting them. If they won, the bully would leave them alone, if they lost however, they would be picked on even more, and be called even more names and be pushed around constantly, and there wasn’t much they could do. Another thing, if you were to go and tell the principals, they **might** be able to help with the bullying IN school, but there wouldn’t be anything they could do outside of school, in other words, more beatings, more name callings, and more thoughts of suicide.

What did I do when I saw somebody getting bullied? If it were a serious thing going on, like a fight, then I would try and be mature and break it up, but, knowing how kids are, that wouldn’t happen. If it were something minor, like a little name calling (being something that I know isn’t offending the kid) then I would just let fate take its course and see how it goes. I was simply a bystander, somebody who couldn’t make much of a difference, and didn’t attempt to. Now if it were somebody who was close to me, I would fight to save them, to keep them from humiliation. The school administration at Anacapa Middle School wasn’t very good. They didn’t do very much, if anything at all, to prevent bullies. Sure, they would suspend a kid for a day or two for bullying a kid, but the only way they would really know that a kid was being bullied, was if that kid went to the office to tell on the kid that was causing them a problem, and by doing that, they would bring even more bullying upon them, because apparently to bullies, going to the administration to deal with the problem means you’re a coward, that you need somebody to fight your battles. So really, there isn’t much that the administration can do to help the kids who need a defense from bullies. So can the school administration stop the bullying? NO. They can try, but they obviously aren’t succeeding, and I don’t even know if they are doing anything to prevent it. They try and get guest speakers in to tell kids that bullying is bad, but, like I heard a fellow student say, “Those lessons on bullying are like a new toy to a little kid, they play with it for a week or two, then it’s thrown out the window.” They can have all the assemblies and guest speakers they can get, but it won’t stop the bullying problem. They may say they have the problem “under control” but that’s not the case, not from what I’ve seen. Their solution to a bully is to suspend them for a day or two, monitor the kid who is being bullied for a week, then leave them both alone, at which point the bully does even more bullying, because they think the kid is weak and can’t stand up for themselves.

Is it the nature of young people to bully others? Yes, yes it is. It’s simply this: Kids around 11-12 can’t help but be cruel towards the “weak kid” or the “different/weird kid,” they are so immature, they don’t see the long-term effects of their bullying. Bullying can lead to isolation, depression, and in some cases, suicide. Middle school is a place where the kids don’t like “different” kids; they want everybody to be the same, to stay with the Mainstream. It is the nature of young kids to be bullies, to be unkind toward one another. They won’t realize the long term effects of bullying until they are in high school at least. Some people don’t realize it until they are out of high school. It’s an ever-growing problem, it cannot be stopped.

Can adults stop the bullying problem? The answer is no. Adults cant’ change it because kids are too immature to get the message that bullying is wrong. Sure you can protect the kids when you’re around them, but once you turn your back, the bullying resumes, and there’s nothing you can do about it. Kids will continue to be bullied; it’s just the way of life in Middle School. Kids will be kids, some may say. You can go ahead and say you have the problem under control, but we all know you’re lying. If you had the problem “under control” then maybe the worlds head count of teenagers would be higher. But every day, kids are faced with the challenges of being a teenager, for most kids it’s dealing with bullies, it’s an unstoppable force of cruelty, you think you can stop it? HA! All I can say is GOOD LUCK.

So is it really the nature of young people to bully one another? Given the information, not just here but from the voices of other students, I say it is a definite yes.

Bullying has been one of the most causes of deaths and suicides around the globe, and these deaths are usually between kids. Bullying is just something very unnecessary and if you may ask, very immature also. Why would you want to put down a person just because of his size, weight, race, or religion? When someone gets bullied, they lose their happiness, they get home and they’re quiet, without an appetite and they’re depressed. Many schools are enforcing punishments for bullying and are having guest speaker’s talk about bullying at their school, but many say that this does not work sometimes. It’s as if what the entire guest speaker said went inside a bully’s ear and came out through the other ear. Bullying should be stopped, many innocent kids are killing themselves because of bullies taunting and picking them around.

I really did not have any experience with bullying. I was never bullied and I never bullied anyone. In elementary school, there was really no bullying at all, everyone got along and were friends with each other. In Middle school, I saw some bullying but I never took part in it. It was usually between people I don’t really know. I would see name calling and pushing. I rarely saw any bullying though, all my three years at Anacapa Middle School; I spent at the field playing soccer during lunch. There were some fights in the field, but then again, I really didn’t know these people. At our school we usually had one assembly a year about bullying, we would have a guest speaker talk about the negative effects of bullying. Although I don’t really think it made a difference, there were still fights.

I think bullying is just something immature that immature people do, like kids. There is no reason to put down people. Some bullies just do it because they’ve been bullied before and want revenge, or just because they want to look cool and though and impress girls and friends. Bullying is usually between a popular big kid, and a weak kid. The weak kid probably has no friends or just looks easy to pick on therefore, not going to defend himself. If that “weak” person defends himself and gets in a fight with a bully, then that bully will know not to pick on him again if he does not want to fight. Adults can change bullying but it will be hard and will take some time. Adults can tell their son to stop bullying someone because that is not right and they can get in trouble. If a kid is getting bullied then his parents could tell him to stand up for himself and tell the bully to stop.

Bullying destroys families. Larry King, a 14 year old boy, was bullied and shot twice in the head because he was gay. Other kids have hung themselves because of bullying. People have even gone to the next level and have a shooting in their school and ending it by pulling the trigger on themselves. Bullying needs to be stopped, kids are going home depressed and that is not right.

Bullying is not cool. Everybody knows that. When somebody gets their feelings hurt, it makes life not that great and everybody experiences it sometimes.

I have always been weird. Not in a creepy way but that I didn’t go with the flow. That is partly from how I was raised, to have strong morals but to still be myself. I never needed or wanted to be friends with everyone. I grew up in a small beach community until fourth grade. Then I moved to the Ventura school district. I went to fifth grade at Elmhurst Elementary school and that wasn’t that fun except for outdoor education.

Middle school was so different from everything, from changing classes every hour to not knowing just about everybody. But it was better, I think. Middle school teaches kids that life is pretty much going to suck, for the most part, but you need to learn to make the best of it. When some body was mean to me i would stick up for myself. But not too many kids that are picked on are very independent. If somebody else was getting picked on, i would tell the other kid to stop, even if it took some fear to be put into them.

Throughout middle school we were instructed on why we shouldn’t bully people but mostly the consequences that were implied when you got in trouble. The only time I think that it might have sunk into people’s minds is when Mrs. Abbe brought in guest speakers who greatly affected by bullying even being beaten and their friends being murdered. But some time, actually most of the time, kids needed to change on their own because nobody can make them do anything unless they really want to.

Middle school is full of crap! There are so many groups of kids and so many different emotions going around. Eighth grade was pretty cool. But I had my enemies, but I tried not to get into anything sinister. I do remember seeing plenty of fights from far off, but I didn’t care much.

Some adults may actually try to change things, but if kids aren’t willing to change then the adults can’t help. At Anacapa they supplied us with many assemblies and seminars to remind us of rules and stuff. Sometimes they could help a little bit, but a few weeks later it would seem like we needed another to straighten things out.

From Portola Elementary to Anacapa Middle school, bully has gotten worse throughout the years. Not only do people spread nasty rumors, stab you in the back, and embarrass you in front of a crowd of people to make themselves look cool, but now people will fight with you, send you rude things to your phone, post something about you online and may even want to murder you. Portola Elementary is where the movie “Mean Girls” became reality. There were cliques every corner you went to with a special name; like if they were food in a grocery store in need to be categorized and separate from everything else. I was in one of the meanest group of the whole school. Everyone knew who me and my friends were. I went from one of the top students in my school to one of the worst. Everyone was rude to each other, and it somehow seemed normal.

Entering Anacapa Middle School was like entering a living hell. Everyone always had one specific person to pick on and make their day the worse it could possibly be. Kids would draw Nazi signs everywhere, if you had drama with a person the whole school knew about it in less than a day, if there was a fight everyone knew exactly where to go, even people would go to the bathrooms to smoke weed. Everyday there would be kids with referrals in their hands going to the office to get detention or get suspended. Teachers wouldn’t do much at Anacapa, mostly because they never knew anything about all the fights in Anacapa or anything. Only several teachers would do things but they wouldn’t catch most of the things kids would do there. Someone tagged the girls bathroom last year and everyone got punished for it so they locked every bathroom in the campus for the longest time. A lot of people ditched class when there was a substitute and no one would ever notice. Anacapa had so much bullying that everyday there would be people crying over the dumbest things.

I think it’s time adults find out what is going on during middle school and actually do something about it. From what I have seen in middle school, the people in charge are the 12 year old kids that think they are cool by fighting one person and getting the worse grades. No

I have had a life based on hate. It starts at the basics: hate of your annoying brother, then it progressed to actually hurting him, then hurting others, both physically and mentally. I have been in every position of bullying, except for the part where you try to stop others. Bullying is just like a bad infection on your hand, it grows, and then if left untreated, grows further, until you wind up in the hospital near death. I have nearly reached the full point of that.

A young mind is easily manipulated, by human and other kinds of corruption. I was in third grade, at Elmhurst, and I had to share the last fifteen minutes of lunch with my brother. I had his friend beating on him, and eventually he was beating on me with my brother. Then he went back to fighting my brother. Eventually we were caught, and brought into Mr. Sather’s office to tell him about the whole thing. Then our parents got involved, and they all were ticked that: 1: we didn’t tell them about it. 2: We let this happen, doing nothing about it. 3: that they had to waste their valuable time to consult us about it. So it turned out like this: I had to spend all of lunch in the office for a week, me and my brother both got the computer and video games taken away for two weeks. For a third and first grader, that is harsh.

Then I got into fourth grade. This is where everything changed. I was starting to be teased, and it would not stop. To worsen it, my ADHD started to kick in, and I went all out on him, trying to beat him to a pulp. Mr. Knowles found us, and put a stop to it. My glasses were broken, we both had bumps and bruises, and we both had to talk to the principal. Afterwards, I had to talk to a psychiatrist every week, and I had to take medication, which I still do now, to control my ADHD. It continued, though we did not get into fights anymore, but we had death wishes on each other, and we called each other names. On the last day of school, I was left under a desk crying. Once my parents picked me up, we had an emergency meeting with my psychiatrist to talk about it. I am just thankful that the only bad part of fifth grade was that my partner screwed up on our entire State Project, sending what would have been an A, to a low C. And that I barfed 3 times during the Outdoor Ed week.

In sixth grade, I had a friend that we started calling very bad names, and gay along with that. Another friend and I drove him to tears and also out of our scout troop. We sent him into a whole other part of school, and then he started telling his parents, and they told my parents, and I wound up without video games even longer than I already had. We continued throughout middle school until the middle of eighth grade, and then it got bad for me.

I started to get annoyed with other students. They teased me for being on the Sound and Light Team, SaLT. I started to unleash the rage that has been held inside me for years. I punched a few girls in the face, got into a fight, which resulted in getting a (very) bloody nose, a swelled upper lip, and a day of suspension. Not as bad as the other kid, who got a giant bump on his forehead, and a week of suspension.

Now I am here, the rage held inside, my mind shredded into pieces, and revenge taking hold of me. I still get in trouble at Foothill, I cussed at my Spanish teacher (very fun), pretending to stab at a girl (I still have trouble remembering that), and I still beat on my brother occasionally.

Boys take violence like no big deal. Life is no video game. You don’t get to respawn back to the checkpoint; you don’t have health points or a shield for cover. You have blood, clothing, and flesh. There is no reset button, and unlike the movies, you will not survive a bombing raid, or shrapnel in the heart. Reality does not pause for anyone, and your ghost will not run for your body when you die. Think before you act, and you may survive to the next day.

Have you ever been bullied, or seen someone getting bullied? It’s cruel. Why can’t we just all get along? Does a small school or big school matter? There’s always that one in a million who get bullied each and every day no matter what size school they have and how many kids there are.

I’ve noticed over the years of elementary school at Montalvo and middle school at Anacapa, that bullying never takes a rest. Every day, walking through the halls or simply just sitting in the quad to have your lunch, you would either see someone getting bullied or you would be the victim yourself. For me, my elementary school years, I remember being afraid to eat lunch where everyone else ate, so I’d spend my lunches eating in the bathroom. The kids at my elementary school would tease me or make fun of me because I was different, so they had drove me to the point of having an olser.

At school I saw that kids that were really mean to one another just because they were either new or different on a level which they didn’t understand. I never bullied anyone to the point of hitting or shoving someone, but I am to blame about calling people names and talking behind their backs. I wasn’t proud of it and I really wish I hadn’t. I was just doing the same as the other kids did to me. The school administration didn’t do anything. It wasn’t until the bullying at Anacapa increased, that the schools teachers had assemblies explaining how to prevent bullying. Every day, there’s just no telling whose going to get bullied or made fun of. Kids think it’s funny to make fun of other kids, but what they don’t know that this is a serious issue that sometimes scares kids for life. I truly think if teachers address this issue more in school and parents at home, then this would decrease on all the bullying in schools all around.

Bullying. This is a word that is all too familiar to everyone all over the world. This horrible growing epidemic America in, this has also have a horrible affect on teenagers. SUCIDE this has happen to a lot of teens all over the world. Why would you want to judge someone just because their Race, Gender, Finical Status, Religion or their sexual orientation.

In elementary school there wasn’t that much bullying…or at least from what I saw. But I wasn’t really the victim I was more the bully. Also many of the teachers would bully the kids also. Like my 4th and 7th grade teachers would pick on the kids so bad that they would end up crying, then when the kids told the administration about this. Didn’t do anything. The parents usually had to take matters in to their hands. Like my 4th grade teacher was picking on me and the school did nothing about it so my grandma had a meeting with him and broke his hand. But then I started to bully kids for fun and it made me feel better about myself. Also the school had discipline assemblies every quarter but yet the bullying was still a problem.

In elementary school from 1st to 4th grade. I wasn’t a bully. But then that all changed in 5th grade… There were 2 5th grade classes at my school… We despised each other!!! So like every day at recess and lunch we always fought. My class always one though ha-ha. Even our 5th grade teacher hated the other 5th grade teacher. Usually the yard supervisors would try to stop us but the really didn’t do much the just sent us back to our teachers. But then the teachers got so fed up the finally sent us to the principal. He took more serious actions. Because of fighting I didn’t get to do like all my “Fifth Grade End of the Year Privileges”. But it wasn’t worth it! Then I went to middle school. There was so much fights and bullying! There was some many “Cholos” and “Cholas”. So there was always a fight every day. The school would try to stop but they couldn’t. We’d either have the fights at Burger King or the Railroad Tracks.

Every Quarter the deans had a Discipline Assembly. It reviewed the school rules, about grades, school schedules and consequences. Honestly this didn’t do much, because there were always fights every day. But when we did fight the punished us by suspending us or giving us attention but yet again this didn’t do anything. A lot of the teachers said they had this so called “No Tolerance Policy” but most of them didn’t really enforce it.

The nature of young people. Do they just lack the maturity to not take advantages of the weak? Most “Bullies” just bully people to make them feel good about themselves, or sometimes people who are the victim of bullying often become the bullier. I don’t think they have the maturity to not pick on people to because as you get older and older you have less desire to pick on someone. Can Adults change this? Can they change bullying and control the bullying environment in school. Adults can get involved in the school and their kids and decrease bullying all over the world. If parents discipline their kids and teach them from a young age not to bully other kids. Also they school needs to have bullying assemblies in elementary school so they can know no to bully. Can they control this growing epidemic in United States and all over the world that is called bullying. This is not only the kid’s problems but the adults and administrations problem to. If we begin to take bullying seriously and take action bullying will be a thing of the past.

Is bullying a problem? Yes it is. Bullying is a huge problem happening to people all over the world. Almost everyone has either been bullied themselves or seen someone being bullied. So why has no one done anything to stop it?

A lot of kids are bullied in school. In middle school a group of kids called this one girl stupid because she was Asian. They would laugh at her or talk about her behind her back whenever she said anything. Another girl was made fun of for being a good student and because she wasn’t as pretty or popular as some of the other girls. And she was bullied because of her skin color. In gym class they would always make fun of her and laugh at her. On the bus they would throw stuff at her.

I didn’t do anything. I wouldn’t bully anyone but when I saw people being bullied I did nothing. Although I wanted to help them out and tell the bully to stop it, I thought it was better not to get involved. To just stay away from the bully and the victim. Otherwise you would just get bullied as well. Looking back on it, I wish I had stood up to the bully’s.

In my three years at middle school we only had one assembly for bullying. It was for girls only. It was not at all useful. Nobody was paying attention they were just texting or talking to their friends. All they said at the assembly was that if somebody came up to you and wanted a fight, you should just walk away. Otherwise you would be suspended. But it’s never that simple. Most schools or at least my school was completely useless when it came to bullying. While I understand that teachers can’t be everywhere at once, they could have tried a little harder to put a stop to bullying.

I think that bullying is just a part of life, and no one can really do anything to stop it. Most of the teachers don’t really care if there are kids being bullied as long as they get paid. And most students are too scared that they will be next to do anything to stop it. I think that maybe if more parents started teaching their kids that bullying is wrong then maybe there would be less bullying.

Since kindergarten teachers, parents, and school administrators have always taught students that bullying is wrong. All the schools I have attended pressure the knowledge that bullying someone is a bad thing. Most students understand this and steer clear from being a bully, however, some students don’t quite get it through their head. To be honest I’ve never seen anyone get stuffed in a locker or thrown in a trashcan. I’ve never even seen anyone getting beat up for lunch money. These incidents may occur every once in a while, but through the 15 schools I’ve been to, I’ve never seen that sort of stereotypical bullying.

Now although I’ve never seen the drastic bullying that children watch occur on television channels like Disney or Nickelodeon, there have been many incidents where people get hurt do to bullying. Normally, these people get hurt emotionally, not physically. I can’t even count the number of times I’ve heard students call their classmates names such as; nerds, dorks, losers, etc. Not only do they call their peers names, but also state outright insults such as; ugly, stupid, fat, etc. These bullies are real life bullies, and these bullies are in every school, every neighborhood, and even in work places. The traits of a bully aren’t just in students or kids, but I even see it in adults too. Most schools set up assemblies to prevent bullying. They teach you ways to talk to counselors and faculty about what you see. Sometimes people take that approach but most of the time they do not. I think it’s important to help out when other people are hurt. That is why whenever I see someone being ridiculed I try my best to comfort them.

I believe that because schools are so diverse, and have many students in them with different looks, beliefs, styles, and much more factors that can separate one another, it is difficult for everyone to get along. This is definitely not a good thing, however, schools are one of the first sources of social communications within people that are not included in your family. This creates somewhat of a practice for dealing with people in the grown up world. The strengths you learn from dealing with bullies will help you sufficiently when you are an adult.

All in all, minor bullying is part of school and growing up. Major bullying, however, can get someone seriously hurt. It is important to remember to keep an eye out for bullying that can result in fights, suicides, and even school shootings. Although these situations do not occur very often, they still are possible. Bullying can range from calling someone names, spreading rumors, throwing food at someone, or even hurting them in a physical matter. Any type of bullying is 100% wrong. You may never be able to stop a bully, but you can always do your part to better the lives of the victims. You can do this by making them feel comfortable around you, making them smile, or even just spending time with them. You never know how simple it could be to make a difference.

=BALBOA MIDDLE SCHOOL=

Bullying: A cruel and terrible way of making one feel better or more secure about themselves. The rarity of someone never having witnessed bullying is almost unbelievable as bullying takes place just about everywhere. Playgrounds…Elementary School, Middle School, High school…It seems almost inescapable to me, and sometimes, and actually a lot, teenagers commit suicide due to bullying. This can be from cyber or physical bullying. The teens taking their own lives are really miserable, and this is because people torment them with things like homosexuality, and dress style. The question is, would people say the things they do online to someone’s face? And would they bully in the first place if they were more secure in their own selves? It’s up to us to find out.

I saw bullying. It happens. And mostly in areas we don’t know about. You may tell yourself that if you saw someone getting bullied, you would step in right away without hesitating. But it really isn’t that easy. In 7th grade, I was at P.E. with a friend. I went to go change and when I got back, two boys in our grade were talking to him, swearing at him, and pushing him around. These same boys had been bothering him for a while and I walked up and said the usual “leave him alone”, but to no avail, as they just turned to me. They started swearing at me as well. I pushed one of them, and he pushed me back. I didn’t want to fight, so my friend and I walked away. We did write to the principal, as well. The same day, a boy I had seen bullied many times before was sitting alone at a table. He was in 8th grade, but not popular with anybody. He wasn’t kind, but he didn’t deserve harassment. Somebody ran up and took his roller backpack and began running in circles around a large planter with it. He, being a little overweight, couldn’t keep up, and gave up, sitting down on the ground, and he cried. I didn’t want to mess with 8th graders, so I ignored it. I felt bad; I didn’t want to leave him just sitting there. But I did. I had done the same thing a lot before but I didn’t feel good about it. I just was too scared to do more than watch, or walk away.

Middle schools promise you safety. They promise you respect. But we don’t always get it. And neither did I. Coming from a private school, then being homeschooled, I chose, 3 years ago to attend Balboa Middle School instead of Missionary. 6th grade, though, you could find me complaining to my mom; begging her to let me leave Balboa, and go back to my old school. I didn’t like the company at Balboa because all the kids had friends. And they all had known each other for years. I knew no one. And I didn’t fit in. Overwhelmed with my new locker, my excitement would soon die out as upperclassmen would walk by and shove and push me, or knock my books out of my hands, or slam my locker shut. They did it because they could. I told myself it was only because I was in 6th grade. But it wasn’t; it was more than that. Lunch time one day, I was surrounded by 6 boys, all older and bigger than me. They pushed me around and hit me for something someone else had done. I just stood there. I didn’t have a friend to help me, and nobody else cared. Mr. Lewis, Vice Principal, happened to catch a glimpse of what was going on. He lectured them in front of me. He told them it wasn’t fair to do that to someone; that 6 against 1 wasn’t a fair confrontation. Over the days following that, you could find me spending the majority of my time in areas only he was in. I did this because I felt safe. I didn’t think anything bad would happen. But one day, sitting alone in the great court, on a bench at lunch time, two of the same guys walked up to me. They told me it was their bench and that I had to give them my lunch. As I made a few close friends who I knew couldn’t let anyone mess with me, I had still been bullied. I knew and know the feeling. It hurts, and it leaves a person emotionally scarred to a point. Nobody wants to ask their friends to go into the bathroom with them, because they don’t want to get beat up. It’s absolutely humiliating. I hated middle school. I felt safe in class. However, I wasn’t bullied forever. I did deal with it differently though. I never told an adult, because I knew I could handle it, and I was slowly making more and more friends. The bullying eventually stopped when I wasn’t the kid who walked around alone anymore and had no friends. I had been small, and wouldn’t defend myself. That is what made me a target. But I changed, and so did my problem.

I loved the rest of 6th grade year, along with 7th, and 8th. It was thanks to the school, I think. Like the time my friend and I had written to the principal about the issue we had with the boys at P.E., they had been suspended, because it turned out they were harassing other people too. The school got cameras too. By looking at the new, little 6th graders, I could tell everyone felt a little more secure with them taping everything happening at the school. Balboa got better at handling bullying. There were seminars all were required to attend. They were fun, and everyone enjoyed them, but they were serious and sad a lot of the time, of course. It wasn’t that our principal and teachers couldn’t handle these situations. It was that nobody would speak up. The principal talked to us in the gym twice a year, too. She would tell us of all the dangers and effects of bullying, cyber, and real life. And soon, these talks, and seminars, and suspensions started to really make a difference. I saw less bullying, but of course, it is still existent. You can’t completely stop something unless everyone knows, and understands. I truly hope that someday, everybody can say that they have a bully free school. Balboa Middle School just got one step closer.

Maturity. Do you know the definition? In the dictionary, it says that maturity is being fully developed. Do young people, usually junior high school kids, bully and antagonize because it is the mere nature of the young and immature? Maybe. Middle school, for some is a living hell; a toxic and cruel environment they’re afraid of. In my middle school years, I only felt this for a short while. However, others may feel this way a long while. I saw young students get bullied, and it is, like I said before, really difficult to intervene sometimes. I do believe it is the nature of young people…But also the confidence deprived. As adolescents, we tend to follow the crowd. It’s almost as if we refuse to be our own person.

The main question being asked about bullying today is, “What can the adults do, and can they stop the problem?” The answer is maybe. Adults most of the time are clueless about the problem, therefore, what can they be doing to stop it? Nothing. However, mot adults know where kids are coming from when they complain about bullying, and even though they may not show it right away, or maybe not even at all, they do care, and they do want to help. I think that sometimes, adults are just faced with the same malignant mental issues we come across when faced with a predicament. Adults have the power to stop things like bullying: they just don’t take advantage of it. As the older, and wiser people, they should be using their knowledge and know-how to protect these victimized children from further harm. We shouldn’t always blame adults, as sometimes it really isn’t their fault. It is our job to let them know when we have problems. I am not fully releasing them from blame, as they do, of course, hold a duty of keeping someone safe from harm and hurt when they hear a story. It is a cry for help. And so yes, clearly, and in conclusion, adults can and should more often take control of situations and definitely have the power and ability to make a change.

All in all, bullying is a serious and harmful thing. It takes place everywhere and it sometimes gets so nasty to a point that death occurs. As a society, we should care about the well being of teenagers, and we should pay more attention to their needs, and their feelings. Obviously, the bully, and the victim both have a problem. And also as a society that is on the verge of out-of-control bullying, we need to address the problems we are presented with, and take action. Wouldn’t you like to someday look back and say, “I helped find a stop to bullying”, or “I am so glad the world took a turn for the better”? I would. It is up to us to make a change, and it is up to us to pass on the message. Stop it because it could affect your children and grandchildren. Stop it for you, because bullying is a disease, and we need an antidote.

Have you ever been bullied before? Bullying is a subject that seems to happen most everywhere to most everybody, something that everybody cannot escape. It has caused revenge to be taken way out of proportion and suicide to be caused. My experience was not a bad experience nor a good one.

At balboa middle school there was bullying most everywhere. Whether it was verbal or physical bullying when on. If you walked down the halls or out in the field you would see bullying going on, mainly verbal fights. You could tell that there was verbal fights because most every where you walk whether it was in the fields or down the halls you would here people yelling at each other, mainly cuss words and such and you could tell that they were mad because of their facial expressions that they head when they were talking. Every once in a while you would see the physical fights. One time when I was walking to class right as I was walking past these people they got into a fight and I had to run or else I would have gotten caught in the middle.

During middle school I was not bullied very much. Whether it was my size or if I just blended in I tended to not get bullied. When I went through middle school I tended to use the walk tall approach. When I walked around the school I made sure that I was as big as I could be so that people would stay away from me and I would stay would stay away from them. I did not bully people either. Sure every once in a while I would defend myself from people that tried to bully but otherwise no fights or anything of that sort, I just tried to go with the grain and not go against it. At balboa there were many assemblies that were anti bullying. A couple of time our principal would come in during P.E. to talk to us about it and also the consequences. We also had speakers come to talk to us about anti bullying and gave us stories of different people that were affected by bullying. There were also a good amount of supervisors that walk around the school to make sure that everything was in order and that we did not do anything.

It’s just how the teenage brain works. They tend not to take advice and also it’s the nature of teenagers and younger. They tend to pick on the weak and the more weird people. If you have a difference that seems to be a threat to them and so they target that person. There is not much that we can do about it its just the nature of teenagers and younger children alike….it cannot be stopped in my opinion.

I do not think that adults can change bullying in school. There are normally too many students in schools to be able to monitor the entire student to prevent the students from bullying. And also the student will normally not head the warnings of the teachers when they tell the students to stop, they will probably just continue bullying the student no matter what. All of the assemblies’ that happen will not effect the bullying that happens in schools because most students do not care and ignore everything that is said to them.

Bullying… in escapable nightmare or small problem. Bullying seems to have effected a lot of people and also has been seen by most everybody. Either a person has taken place in it or has been affected by a bully. Can this problem be fixed?

Every time you walk through the halls of any middle school, you will you kids being cruel to one and another. This is also know n as bullying. Bullying is the cruel act that every middle school student sees.

In Middle School bullying was always around. Whether it was in the halls or in the classrooms, bullies were always around. Every day one kid specifically was bullied. This unfortunate student would be called gay day in and day out. This kid was called gay because he hung out with different people than what normal boys would hang out with. He would hang out with girls more often than boys. Because of this he was called gay all day every day. But this kid would just take whatever they said and walk away. But even though he didn’t show it on the outside, he was hurting on the inside.

I did my best not to join in on the name calling, but I found myself following the crowd. Though I never said it to his face, I still said them behind his back and to this day I still regret saying them. Later though in the eighth grade year this unnamed student started riding my bus. Getting to know him better, I found that he truly wasn’t gay, but people still called him gay because he hung out with girls more than guys, and he had a high pitched voice. Knowing this I didn’t try and stop people from calling him names, but if I saw him getting made fun of I would try to get the bully’s attention so he could leave and stop getting made fun of for that moment. Though I did my best to stop people from bullying when it was in action, the bullying never stopped.

Though I helped this child, the adults tried to ignore the fact that he was being made fun of. Though there were assemblies, they were never pointed at people getting called gay. They were always about people getting made fun of for not being good at sports or good at a subject. The administration would try to pretend that he wasn’t getting made fun of when it was actually a bad problem. Throughout the three years that I went to Balboa, I never once saw a teacher stop a student or group from making fun of him. The administration would play stupid while he was in hell.

Is it just the nature of young people to bully? Do the teenagers just have to take advantage of younger or weaker kids so they can feel better, and know that they are moving up in the in social groups, so they won’t get picked on and bullied as much. In my eyes I believe it is just the nature for a bully to pick on someone weaker than them so they can protect themselves. They have to be mean to others, so others won’t be mean to them. The lack of maturity in a teen doesn’t let them make the right decision. The make someone else’s life a living hell to try and prove that they are “cool” enough to hang out with the popular groups. The bigger person picks on their victim, so that person tries to become the bigger person.

Can adults change and try to prevent this from happening. I personally believe adults can’t change bullies from bullying people. The teenage mind takes in what it wants to and throws out what it doesn’t want to hear. The schools have little power over the bullies. The victim must protect themselves or else they will be tortured forever. Only teens can stop teens, parents may be able to slow the process down, but in the end the adults can’t stop the teenagers.

In the end, bullying will never stop, no matter how hard an administration works. But with courage and perseverance, any school, adult, or student can get out of bullying, and live a wonderful life!

In sixth grade I didn’t really get bullied. But, I met this girl. We were friends. I also met this guy. He was friends with the girl. At the end of the year, I was close friends with the boy, not the girl. I found out that the girl had a crush on the boy. Then sixth grade was over with.

Seventh grade was when the bullying stared. I had found out that the girl and all her little friends liked the boy still. Her and her friends would walk by me and make mean remarks like, “Ewww!” they were just really jealous. I don’t know why, I was just friends with the boy.

I didn’t tell anyone about this, the only people that knew were my friends. They were helping me deal with them. My friends were very supportive and were there for me. Seventh grade was now over.

The reason there is so much bullying at balboa is because the administration does not care. They don’t put anything personal in their jobs. they didn’t really try to stop the bullying. Some of the teachers gave a little bit of effort, but most of the time, they didn’t care. It was a new, fresh year. The big 8th grade. But, the bulling was just as fresh. The group got even bigger. They used even meaner remarks like, “whore”. It was just never going to stop.

There was an episode in PE one day. Three of the girls approached my friends and me. I didn’t say anything, but my friend said something really mean. The girl said, “I will kill you” and ran away. The next day she told the teacher on us. The teacher talked to all five of us and said we all could be expelled for what happened the day before. I was just standing there and I would have been expelled too.

It was finally the end of the year. If I would have been expelled, I would have not been able to do the end of the 8th grade year stuff. But, I lasted through the year.

During the summer, the bullying was still going on. I got a text message from the boy’s phone. It was actually from the girl though. It said “have a nice life at foothill, WHORE!!! –Rissy” So, maybe bullying comes with age. Maybe it’s not the hell hole ‘Balboa’!

Balboa Middle School was a school that is known for bullying. Balboa Middle School a school that was a jail before it was a middle school was a nightmare for this kid. From one grade to another grade there was bullying everywhere. There was one kid who started to get bullied the second he stepped on to the campus. This kid will be anonymous and his name will not be mentioned.

This kid was not popular but he was not hated either until one kid, “Anthony Alamillo”, made this unknown kids’ 3 middle school years a nightmare. All this kid wanted to do is stay friends with his current friends and make new friends. All Anthony Alamillo wanted to do was get some attention. One stupid mistake by Anthony Alamillo made him and this unknown kid enemies. Getting called dirty names, being pushed around, stared at all the time getting stuff thrown at, like paper, erasers, pencils, basketballs, etc. This was just a daily routine and everyday life for this anonymous kid. He had friends, but not as many as Anthony Alamillo. Eating lunch with 3 friends, stared at all the time. While playing basketball, this kid got fouled on purpose. It was an attempt of injuring him. It was living hell for this kid every day of his damn life.

7th grade was even worse, this kid got in trouble for things he didn’t do. Anthony Alamillo would bring friends and bully this kid. This unknown kid would tell, “Mrs. Gern”, the principle and she would do absolutely nothing about their inappropriate behavior. Anthony Alamillo was a teacher’s pet, principles pet, etc. This kid also received racist comments about his ethnicity.

8th grade was better than ever for this kid though, because he had more friends and Anthony stopped bothering him for a while. He played basketball more than he ever did than the past two years with his friends. He had mostly friendly, sometimes dirty 1 on 1 basketball games. He was one of the best 1 on 1 basketball players in the school. Life was better than ever for this kid in middle school. Now, this kid is making a new start at a new high school, where he is going to try to stay friends with his current friends and make new friends.

One true friend whose name is anonymous had the kid’s back when he needed it. Whenever this kid was called names the other kid would have his back. This kid could always count on the other kid and the other kid could always count on him. This kid and the other kid would play basketball with each other almost every day. They have had their good times and bad times, but when it really matters there are always there for each other. They played basketball with each other for 3 years.

Have you ever been bullied to where you were going home crying and feeling miserable. Many schools face the misery of bullying and there effects. Balboa had their times when I t had came to balboa.

I would walk through the halls and see bullying and all sorts of bullying going on at Balboa. I saw many things but didn’t stick around too long to see very much go on. In 6th grade to of my fellow students from my class in a fight. It was two young ladies, who were in the very same group. I was on my way back to class when I saw the fight happening with a bunch of kids surrounding them. This got to the administration at Balboa middle school but they didn’t take this much into account. Balboa also had many other fights throughout the three years I was there. In 8th grade was the biggest though because two things happened. The first thing that happened was that this girl was mean to me for no apparent reason. One day I came into class to work on my rocket like everyone else was. I then held down the paper for this other girl and the one who was bullying me took the for glue gun, put it to my hand and brought out some glue. I didn’t want to tell anyone about this except for some of my closest friends. My closest friend was an office assistant and she told the nicest counselor Mrs. Bradvica. She then called me in and we talked about it for awhile and she said she would bring her in and talk to her about it. I never really saw bullying at Balboa but I did see many fights.

Balboa never really ever had control over the bullying that went on around the campus. They would often bring in guest speakers, but that never really ever helped. It would last for about a week then it would die down and bullying it would come back up and continue. Mrs. Gern would also come in every year and talk about bullying. That didn’t last either. Balboa would also often take action right after everything happened. If Balboa really wanted to take action they would have tried harder.

In 6th grade at Balboa, I saw this kind of small Jewish kid get his lunch taken away by a group of 8th graders. The kid was walking to his locker innocently to put his lunch away, and the group of kids run up and snatch the lunch away from him. After getting his lunch taken away, he screamed at them as they pushed him into the locker and ran away with the lunch. Besides hearing about fights and body-blows, this was pretty much the only bullying I saw in middle school.

Throughout middle school, I never really bullied and I never got bullied. I was pretty much the kid that was just there and nobody seemed to bully at all. I watched a few fights in my 7th and 8th grade year because they were very entertaining, but besides these incidents, I was not part of any bullying.

In 6th grade, there was much more fighting and bullying than in 7th and 8th grade because of cameras. The principal was trying to stop all bullying by this and even though it did a little, kids were still managing to fight after school and bully them secretly. A couple of adult speakers came to Balboa to speak about bullying in 7th and 8th grade. After about a week, all the tension came back to the kids who were probably getting bullied. Adults tried to get in the way of bullying but without much success because it is up to the kids to stand up for themselves.

Bullies will always go for the different, weak- hearted people. Bullies usually bully because either there bored or it makes them feel good. Often times, young people will bully because it makes them look cool and stand out.

Bullying is a bad thing to do. People even 40 years from now will remember being bullied if they were, and it tramatizes them. Bullying can also lead the kids being harassed to commit suicide. Holding that grudge for the rest of your life will be a hardship and should not happen because one day you decided to bully.

I believe bullying occurs most during middle and elementary school I used to see bullying all the time on movies, TV, and books, but I never really thought it was real because I never saw bullying in real life, until I got to middle school. When I was in 6th grade I saw some people being bullied and one of those people was my friend. My friend would get teased and bullied a lot but she wouldn’t really get into any fights or be punched. Unlike other kids she wouldn’t get hurt by all the teasing she just ignored them and went on with her life like nothing was wrong.

My friend wouldn’t really get teased when I was around her but when she was I was would defend her. I didn’t really understand why they were teasing her if she didn’t really do anything bad to them or so I thought. About three months later I found out why they were hating and teasing on her and it was because of jealousy. I was actually friends with the people who were teasing her, but they only hated her because they said she was the reason why I didn’t hang out with them as much and so they were trying to make me stop hanging out with her. They called each other names for a long time such a slut, whore, and bitch. They even sent her death threats saying that they are going to kill her if she didn’t leave me alone. I tried telling them that it was not right to bully and tease others and especially my friends. I also told that if they were really my true friends they wouldn’t do anything that would hurt me and my friends. After reasoning and talking with them they realized what they did was wrong and they didn’t want to hurt me and they wanted to keep me as a friend and so they apologized to me and my friend. After all the bullying and teasing they did to my friend was over, everyone eventually became really great friends.

I believe bullying occurs more in middle school then it does in elementary and high school. In the middle school that I attended, there were more fights then bullying. In 7th grade we had a guest speaker that talked to all the students about bullying and how it affects their life. After that assembly, there weren’t really any fights at all, but after 2 or 3 weeks everything went back how it used to be. Another way that the school tries to prevent bullying is that the principle would have the same speech about bullying every year. That speech didn’t really work because hardly anyone would listen. In my opinion I think no matter what the schools and teachers say, no one will ever listen and will do whatever they want and it’s up to the students to solve the bullying problem.

The main reason I believe people bully others is because it depends on the environment there in and what they have been through in life. If the environment they live in is bad such as violence, loud, and full of anger then it’s most likely that they will act the same. Then again if something bad has happened in their life such as parents getting divorced, getting abused, or even them being bullied by others, they will probably want to get all their anger out by bulling and hurting others like they were when they were younger.

In my opinion I don’t think adults will be able to change whether kids will stop bullying or not. I think no matter what they say or do, it won’t change anything because it’s up to the kids to whether or not bullying stops.

Bullying is a big issue in middle school. It causes pain that lasts more than one might think. Bullying happens whether we know it or not, whether we want to admit it or not, and whether we, ourselves, bully or not. Can bullying be put to an end? Can adults change bullying? Is it just the way kids are to bully those who are different?

I never really got bullied except for one experience in 7th grade. My friends and I got bullied all because of an accident. Something accidentally got flung at another group of girls, who were a grade ahead of us. They then stared at us and threatened to beat us up, this happened over a week or two. We told a counselor what happened, and he seemed to just brush it off as no big deal. Our problems got worse. The girls started following us around the school wherever we would go. We couldn’t handle it anymore so we told Mr. Duenas, who we knew would do something to help us. He finally talked to them and the girls stopped bothering us, although they still “dogged us out.” Our problems got better.

I haven’t seen a whole lot of people get bullied, but once, on my friend’s birthday, my other friends and I decorated her locker. Later on in the day, we noticed that this girl was ripping the stuff off the locker. We asked her why she did it and she replied, “Someone ripped my decorations off and I asked a teacher if they were going to get punished, and they didn’t, so I’m allowed to take yours off.” I told her: Why would you do that? Just because yours got ripped off, you have to go around being mean to people on their birthday? Why don’t you treat people the way you want to be treated? Maybe if you weren’t mean to people, then they would be nicer to others. So you should treat people the way you want to be treated!” That girl gave me a dirty look and walked away. I think that the school administration did a good job of trying to stop the bullying at Balboa. A couple of years ago there was an assembly about bullying that everyone saw. The guy talked about how easy people got bullied, and talked about some people who he knew who got bullied. The guy made it a fun assembly, but still getting his point across. The teachers, at least the ones that I had, really tried to stop bullying. They wouldn’t allow it in their class, and if they saw it, they would put an end to it. The principal, Mrs. Gern, would have an assembly, during PE, and talked to everybody about bullying, and that it needs to stop. I don’t think that helped the students stop bullying. I don’t think that anybody listened to Mrs. Gern. During my time at Balboa, she gave that assembly, (to every PE period) once a year.

I think that it is partially just the way kids are is to bully other people. It shouldn’t be that way, but kids think that it is funny to see the bully-ee’s reaction. They bully people for entertainment. I think that it is also partially the parent’s fault for not teaching their children to be respectful of others and to not be mean to someone just because they are chubby, wear glasses, and have asthma. I think that the parents should re-initiate in their kids to play nice with others.

Adults can change it to a certain amount. They can only do so much. Beyond what they can do, is how the kids were raised, it is like training a puppy – they learn the best when they are little, once they develop habits, it is almost impossible to break them. Once the kids reach middle school, it is like a full grown dog, they most likely won’t change. If the school had better supervision, either the school be smaller, or have more supervision around the campus, I think that bullying would go down. But we can’t have a ton of schools everywhere, there are a lot as it is. The adults can change the bullying, but if an adult isn’t around, then most likely, there will be bullying. The adults in a middle school could make school more exciting, which would make less people bored, so the bullies who bully for fun wouldn’t be bullying.

I didn’t get bullied that much, nor did I see others get bullied. Bullying is a big issue and with a lot of work, can be put to an end. The adults at a school can change it if they tried a little harder. I think that bullying is part of who kids are; they like to make those who are different feel bad. Bullying hurts others and needs to stop. Bullying is a world wide issue and it’s getting bigger. We can’t do much to help/solve it. The ones most in charge and in command and most that are going to be able to stop this mess and send it in the other direction. Bullying needs to change. And something needs to occur for this change to happen.

I had only been “Bullied” once. In 7th grade in my group of friends... There were four of us. Three eighth grade girls were just being them annoying selves… So our group looked over at them. They immediately called us on it. Saying to stop dogging them out. We sat at the same table the next day and the weeks that followed. So soon they would start following us around and even following us to our lockers after the bell had rang. We would keep walking by our locker till they stopped following us. So, they wouldn’t know where our lockers were. The way our two tables were set up two of us were facing their direction and there table. And even though we would barley even looks at them. Not even so much of a glance.

Someday these three girls would just walk by with not one look at all. Other days they would call us bad names as they went to their table. Some days they would stare us down. It was different each day. As far as seeing people get bullied goes.. I never really saw too much of it other than the constant name calling never knowing if they are *kidding* or not. Never anything big, like slamming into lockers? No. In my middle school years name calling was Everywhere. According to everyone that did it they were just kidding. But no matter if they are kidding or not it could always hurt someone. On the inside. No one ever did anything about that. Including teachers... Not that they knew.

In our situation of bulling the school administration did nothing then something. We went to a counselor and told him about what was happening to us and then after that we went to a math teacher and ASB teacher. He was known for the person for everyone was supposed to be afraid of. He had a loud voice and caught everyone with gum. After we informed him about things started looking up. The bullying stopped and when we told him the names he acted like it was no new thing.

Children are mean to weak because if they pick on the strong who’s going to win that war?? Why do they pick on anyone at all? I have no idea. But the weak are targeted as being bullied because the weak are usually different and get picked on majorly just because they aren’t like everyone else. Another question is Will it always be like this? I’m am going to have to say yes until something convincing changes my mind and until something Big/Drastic happens to kids and their way of thinking or teachers and adults do something about it.

Adults can most definitely stops the culture and make a different of Middle School. They can change what’s going on by having a most strict policy and having a more disciplined system if one is caught bullying. But what happens, instead? The bullies in themselves “get in trouble” by the teacher, or whoever it is, telling them to stop or there will be consequences. I find this unfair and a slap in the face to the people who is actually was bullied by them.

Overall, I could make some changes to the school board and make the Middle School Experience allot better and more enjoyable. Also, most kids see bullying yet they don’t know what they can and or should do about it. Or in another way kids are bullied and they don’t know what to do about it. This is what happened to me. With effort teachers and adults can come together and stop this problem if they really wanted too.

Bullying is everywhere, but the place you see it the most is in middle school. Most people say middle school is like living hell and the memories of being bullied are long lasting. Some adults still hold grudges against their old middle school bully, even though it was many years ago.

I’m positive that everyone’s either seen someone being bullied, been bullied, or been the bully. At Balboa Middle School I’ve usually been the one to see. Every day I see people stick up there middle finger at someone for no reason. Maybe there just being immature or there trying to be “cool”. I’ve also seen a few physical fights that eventually everyone in the school is there watching until the principle or another staff member comes and breaks it up. I remember in 8th grade at P.E my 7th grade friend would always get bullied by this girl on the basketball team. She was called fat and got dirty looks from the girl on the basketball team. It didn’t only hurt her it also hurt me to just sit there and watch.

I couldn’t just sit there and watch her being taunt anymore. I had to do something. So first I asked her what I should say to the councilor in case she didn’t want me to say something specifically. So she told me what to say and I was off. Since I was an office assistant last year it was easy to just go and talk to her councilor.

After I told her what happened in P.E she called my friend up to the office to talk to her about it. That day right after my friend told her what was going on she called the girl that was bullying my friend up to the office so she could tell her side of the story. All the councilor did was made her sign a paper that said if she bullied her again she would get suspended. Also there was a talk about bullying, but no one was really paying attention so it didn’t help much.

Everyone has their own view on bullying. Some think it’s funny to watch the smaller children squirm. Others are more considerate and think bullying is just plain cruel.

=DeANZA MIDDLE SCHOOL=

What I saw in middle school was a living nightmare. I mean there were kids behind the gym and after school fighting all the time and during the school fights the staff member did not try to prevent the bullying they just broke it up. Some of the fights were so bad that the police had to come and arrest some students. I even saw a student bully a teacher. The question is why it won’t stop. Even myself I got bully. From my experience the bully likes the power of when they bully someone. In 8th grade in my 1st period science class there was this student that bullies a teacher. What he said to the teacher was cuss words and racial words. What the teacher did to the student is telling the principle and had him kick out of her class. What I did was nothing because I let the teacher take care of it. Now there was a student that kept bulling me until one day he went too far he told me “I am going to blow you up”. That right there made me not fill safe in De Anza. What I did was tell the principle which did not take care of his behavior towards me at all it just made it worse. There was this one staff member name Mr.Etter and he said “oh we are train for this kind of stuff now so we know what to do if something happens”. When I saw other fights I told the staff member that there was a fight going on. What the school did to the kid to who cuss out the teacher and made racial comments about her is he got in trouble and kick out of her class and got put into another science class and what they also did was the suspended him for a week. What the school did to the student that threatens me was they yell at him and only suspended him for only two days and then he came back to De Anza. What the school did when I told them about the fights that were happing they went to go stop it and they figure out who started the fight. Children are mean to the weak because maybe at tone time they were bullied to and were weak so now they are taking what happen to them to another kid. Also they might be bullies because they got problem at home like fighting or something like that at home. Another reason is that they either think or know the student won’t fight back and that they have control over them because there short and quiet. The last reason is they might feel like they have the power over the student that there bulling. The principal and teacher can if they watch over every single student but they can’t because there not enough teacher at one school and plus the teacher and staff member can’t see everything that goes on in a middle school because the student population is too large. Parents and adults cannot always protect their children because the parents are not always around the students and the adults don’t always see or know about the fights that go on in the school unless they are told but the student don’t want to get involved. But what the parents could do is raise their kids better and care about because most bullies parents don’t care what there student do at all.

=CABRILLO MIDDLE SCHOOL=

Every time you walk down the halls of a middle school you will probably see someone being bullied, or being called names. This is a everyday occurrence, it will never stop. I think that middle school is just a period of time that kids are trying to find there likes and dislikes. They just can’t cope with the real world. No madder how hard adults try to stop bulling, it won’t work. The only possible solution to this is to either lock kids in boxes at this stage, or keep them from other kids.

The years I was at Cabrillo I saw a lot of bulling happening, most of it happened on the schoolyard or in the locker room. I saw my friends bully a kid, they always called him a fagot, said he was gay, and lots of other names that are similar. The next couple of days went by and the kid started getting really irritated, the next day a kid got in a fight with him. The kid being bullied nose was broken and the kid that was bulling didn’t get hurt at all. In the outcome the adults punished both of the kids.

In school I tried to join in on the name calling, I was not the worst of it, but I wasn’t a good kid. I found myself following the in crowd, new to far from the cool crowed. I talked behind kids backs but never said it to their face, it was something that every kid in my group did. I was just trying to fit in! We made fun of this one kid till the point that he cried, that’s the day I realized that it was wrong what I did. Later that week I apologized to him. He was very accepting to my apologue and forgave me. I told him how it was wrong, and that I would do my best to make everyone else stop. I felt like a better person after, because I helped make a kids life better little by little.

The admistration handled bullies in the worst possible way they got them in trouble and they just went and did it again. The school administration did nothing to prevent it, they just enforced it after it happened. There was a kid who constantly harassed by the same kid all the way through middle school, the school didn’t even try to prevent it, they just got the kid in trouble after the fact that this has been going on for 3 years. Later in eight grade the kid who was constantly getting bullied got in a fight with the bullies, the ironic part of this whole satiation is the kid who was getting bullied got expelled from the school because he started it. After all the years of harassment he is the one who gets the punishment.

The nature of young people is very different in some ways and very the same in others. It is different because some people are much more light hearted, and they also are all hitting puberty at different ages. I think the nature of young people is that they are very mean and heartless. They are this way because at this period in time in their lives, there are mixed emotions. They also lack the maturity to make the just dissection. They are emotional time bombs waiting to explode; they pick on the weak and don’t have any respect for anyone. They are at an age where they lack the common sense to tell a good decision from a bad.

Bullying is the word that will bring most people to tears or bring them back to bad or painful memories when you speak to some adults or teens about their past in school. They may be a bit nervous to speak about it. Parents and Teachers say that they can stop bullying. I believe that this would be a bit difficult project for adults, everyone has to have a part in this and no one will be left behind.

During my time in Elementary school and middle school years, I never had the experience in being bullied or being the bully. This doesn’t mean that I never saw someone being bullied. In elementary I was mainly the loner and almost no one knew me. Not many people noticed me until someone introduced herself to me and I was pulled out of that darkness. I did not see any one get bullied though almost every time I went to the office to get something or to drop something off I saw at least one kid sitting there with a scowl on his or her face or a face full of fear on wondering in what’s going to happen. I had always wondered in what they were in trouble for but I never asked them because it was their privacy. Middle school was a different story. Even though you may have never saw the bullying or fight, you would hear it from a friend. The story of the fight or bullying would spread like a wild fire and continue to go until everyone knows about what had happened. During all of the time at Elementary and Middle school I had never been bullied nor done anything to prevent it. Whenever someone was bullied I was never there to see it close up and personal. I had told myself that if there was someone who was being bullied. I would go over and help them even if it means that I got hurt in the process. Even though I had told myself this no one around me had been bullied. So, I don’t know the feeling of being bullied or helping someone being bullied. It has never happened to me so I guess that I wouldn’t know how it feels. The teachers did have and assemble to speak of this idea. I believe that I was in 8th grade when they introduced this assemble to us. This assemble was inspirational to me and I wanted to help anyone that was being bullied. A man came to speak to us during this assemble and the first thing that he said was “sticks and stone may break your bone but words can never hurt you”. This is a lie he had told us sticks and stone can break our bones but words hurt the most. During the assemble he had shown videos of teenagers from middle school and elementary school. They all show3d me that even though you don’t see the bullying they do happen and it is hurting the people around you. “Everyone around you may be wearing a plastic smile in order to show the hurt that they feel”. He had told us this at the middle of the assemble and the end of the assemble. The nature of young people cannot be determined by race, ethnicity, or gender. I believe that the nature of young people comes from the nature of the family. The family has a lot of influence on the children but sometimes they can be just born with a mean nature and it is natural to them. They could have had a bad experience from the past or they just have it in them. They could just like the felling of being superior. Children can be mean or even cruel to the weak. They pick on the ones that are weaker or different because it shows them that they are on a different league than they are. They want to say that they are stronger and they will do whatever it takes to stay at the top. This will continue to go on until no child feel inferior. Sometimes children will just do this so that they can pass the time in a boring school zone.

Adults say that they can change this. They say they will protect those who can’t protect themselves, but can they back it up, can they really change anything. They can have a guest speaker and teachers talk to the kids but what will they do after that? Do they really think that everything will fall into place after that? Children and young teenagers don’t work that way. They hear it all but they won’t do it if there is no influence or something to back up the words. If you put them in a smaller school with less kids to pick on and there is more work and the school is more exciting. Then they might stop teasing and bullying. Kids are unpredictable they can be as unpredictable as a horse. You don’t know what they will do next. Everyone says this and that about the kids of middle school and how they are animals and cannot be controlled as easily as elementary kids. They cannot be controlled but they can be influenced a little to stop some crimes that they have committed. A child will do as they think that they please and what they think what is right. You need to guide them through life but leave room for them so that they can see their own path.

Middle School life can be tough, knowing that you can be bombed on at any moment by someone, having the fear of people whispering behind your back as you walk down the halls, girls calling each other names everywhere you turned, getting made fun of because of how you look or because of your “sexuality“, it’s horrible; To the point where people often can commit suicide, as young as the age of ten years old. How many more young adults have to take their life before people start to realize that bullying is a serious problem?

I’ve experienced this fear and witnessed it. Not even in middle school, but in elementary school. Yeah, it starts that young. I used to be best friends with these two girls. One was an African American who would get called really mean names because of the color of her skin. She also got called “four eyes” and “fat”, fortunately it wasn’t to her face, but she knew something was going on. When she wasn’t in the class, I’d talk to my “other friends” who would somehow bring her up into a conversation and find SOME kind of way to make fun of her, and scrawny little nerd me, I laugh along, because they were the “cool kids”. It hurt to laugh but I didn’t know what was going on. I guess I was just another little “un-cool” kid wanting to be labeled as “cool”. I presume I was being a bully by not telling my best friend or telling the administration or anything. Thinking about it now still hurts. I guess karma came back at me a little, because the “cool” kids didn’t talk to me after I stopped joining in on the so-called fun of making fun of my best friend.

Being in middle school, you also see tons of fights, but no one ever tells the administrators, you’re just another kid trying to get through the day, not getting beat up or sticking up for anyone. You join in the chanting and all the kids saying “FIGHT! FIGHT! FIGHT!” It was terrible. I once witnessed this girl who was sitting in the field eating her lunch, pleasantly, when all of a sudden, this group starts crowding around the field, so of course, my friends and I go over there, and what do you know? This girl is being called out by another girl, they were almost about to fight, but a teacher broke it up. I guess you had to witness the intensity of this fight and the look in one girl’s eyes was a look of hatred, while the look in the other girl’s eyes was fear. Fear of being beaten up, fear of being embarrassed, fear of being made fun of. Just pure fear. It was quite sad actually. Another one I encountered was also in elementary school. I guess this kid had like seizures very frequently or something like that, and I guess this one teacher would laugh at him? I’m not sure of the whole story, but I know it went something like that. No one ever bothered to tell anyone what happened, even though many people, including myself, knew about it. I was among the many people who were like “awe” and felt bad, but we were just bystanders in the situation. I’m pretty sure the kid was probably mentally scarred, if not hurt by the fact that that could happen. The middle school I went too talked about bullying and said it was bad, but they never really addressed the problem. Yeah, we had assemblies and talked about it ‘once in a while’ but they didn’t really try to prevent the fights, they just said “If you have a problem or get in fight, tell us immediately” which didn’t really help, because then you would probably be labeled as a “rat” which is never good. My elementary school on the other hand addressed it a little better. We had yard duties with bright orange vests and walkie talkies who monitored the field at all times, but they also said “Come to us if you have a problem” which isn’t very helpful. I think schools should have more awareness. Show videos, talk about stories of kids getting bullied, like the two recent ones Tyler C. and Larry King (even though Larry King‘s story wasn‘t that simple), both homosexual, both killing themselves. Schools should have guest speakers, and maybe talk about it more frequently.

Bullying I saw a lot of it and did some of it, also was greatly affected by it. Many of my friends were bullied often by friends and people they didn’t know; one of my friends was overweight. He was insulted by his friends by random people, and probably one of the worst people was me, I did it because I was often insulted by other people, because I acted pretty weird and was just different. I also saw a loner kid, who people messed with because he had some problems, people always insulted him and messed with him, but I never thought about helping him, because I didn’t want to never really crossed my mind.

I was bullied a lot, 5th grade to 7th grade, I didn’t have a lot of friends I was really weird and my parents’ divorce was still affecting me. In 5th grade I was at a private school, It was a small class, I acted weird as it was and I made a change to my diet, I stopped eating sugary stuff and candy, and I told people about it, now just because I was different people decided that’s why I should belong with them, the school at my school Sacred Heart was kinda corrupt kids who had parents in the faculty, got special treatment, and bullying had few attempts to stop or even try to slow it down. At my middle school, Cabrillo, I wasn’t used to public school life, my old best friend saved me there from tons of bullying, but thankfully being a larger school I was more ignored then at my private school with a class of 30 instead of a class of 300 at Cabrillo, even though the school was larger bullying still affected me because private school somewhat sheltered us from kindergarten to 8th grade, but I got through it better than some other students from being conserved and not really talking that much. Then High school at foothill is good and bullying doesn’t really affect me much anymore.

=OTHER=

Bullying is a sensitive topic for some. It can have harsh effects. Though, bullying isn’t the same as the media would have you believe. It is the nature of young people to bully other kids, and kids need to figure out how do deal with these things.

When I was in 5th grade I saw bullying, though nothing much to throw a fuss about. Just dumb kids pick on some other kid who feels bullied for about three days and a few days later the bullies would move to a new victim. This was true except for one kid. This kid came to our relatively small school and started annoying __everyone.__ His amazing immaturity combined with high energy and high spirits proved to be a potent mix. He was Called names and made fun of, but nothing could break him. Until one day, when the bullying went physical. Some students took a scorpion encased in resin that he would flaunt, and they pretended to throw it in to a backyard neighboring the school, and then pocketed it so he thought they had really thrown it into the yard. The kid was freaking out and the bullies pushed him around and he fell to the ground. From here they weren’t so much as mercilessly kicking him while he’s down, more just poking him with their feet, since none of them were the type to badly harm another person. At this point a member of the staff came in and broke it up.

It is the inherent nature of young people to be cruel or mean, and bully others. Middle school kids have too much testosterone or other hormones for their own good and rather than venting in a way that doesn’t hurt anyone, they tend to pick on someone. Also, they lack the maturity to feel for others. Nobody in middle school wants or cares to think of consequences of their actions, or the effects on other people.

I don’t think that there is anything the schools could do to stop bullying. Guest speakers, presentations, group activities, none of them work. Though I do think the problem will be greatly helped by focusing on the victims rather than the bullies. They can teach the kids to defuse the bully’s attacks and other ways to deal with bullying. Also, when kids are being bullied, they need to tell someone, and when school administration receives a complaint about bullying they need to act on it, or nothing will ever change.

Bullying is a hard issue, but it isn’t the crippling pandemic the media has you believing. Kids bully each other, and that’s life. They eventually figure out how to deal with things, and problem solved. Bullying isn’t a new thing, and it hasn’t changed. If it wasn’t something we needed to care about 30 years ago, it isn’t something we need to freak out about now.

The School at Sacred Heart didn’t do much to stop bullying, it was easy to avoid getting in trouble by throwing insults around, and saying rumors, in a class of 30 it got around, but the school didn’t do much and they demanded complete respect of the adults, detention was given for even the most basic of consequences, I got a week for throwing a rubber ball at a girl, the school was unforgiving and overdid consequences, the school was also a bit corrupt the kids who had parents who supported the school or were teachers get extra benefits, which was unfair. Cabrillo tried to help but the kids didn’t cooperate with the school, because it punished us, how was it supposed to help us? It had meetings and stuff but they didn’t really do anything, It tried to help but even when it did it usually failed at it.

Why children are mean to the weak? Children are human beings, humans are corrupt and power hungry, they want to be dominant, the weak are the easiest to pick on, to attack, the strong may be targeted but not nearly as much. I believe that kids aren’t going to change enough to stop this major bullying across the United States, kids lack respect for each other. The natural instinct is to get rid of the weak, which may have stayed with kids to pick on the kids survival of the fittest, kids are immature little assholes that are selfish, and I know I was one of them. I regret a lot of the things I did when I was younger but we can never take them back, all we can do is try to make sure the next generation doesn’t do the same.

Adults want to make life in school comfortable learning enviourment and fun, but they usually don’t succeed at it, they try to make it better, but I doubt the school can make it much better, the parents can teach the kids, and help them learn how to deal with it but it is mostly up to the kid, this problem I think can never truly stop this problem. Adults will try and try again but I doubt they will ever be satisfied. I think the best thing to do is to make sure that this problem won’t get any worse, if adults can succeed in that it will be something, unless a school is dedicated to no bullying, this problem will continue to get worse.

In the future I hope the kids will be more mature, and that this problem will not be as big, because these youth that create this problem are creating a waste in resources, and it is a problem that has to be reduced soon. The problem is only getting worse and I personally think adults should be celebrating if they can simply keep this problem from just getting worse.

In middle school I went to a small private school called Ventura Missionary School. There were those weird kids that there are at every school, but everyone seemed to keep to themselves, and there was almost no bullying. Though I recall an incidence that a small sixth grader was being pushed around, by a bigger sixth or seventh grader. He was just mocking him and calling him little names. I watched for a little bit but then left, leaving the incident to defuse itself.

Another time, my good friend was joking around with another friend, calling him names and just messing with him. It seemed like nothing just how thirteen year old boys act to each other. The situation grew to a bigger problem where they grew to dislike each other. Soon my friend and another friend of ours were calling him names until he was actually angry. It was supposed to be harmless fun, just making him the butt of all their jokes and things of that matter. He ended up feeling so angry about the “bullying” that at the end of lunch, after the bell rang, he punched my friend from behind. Hitting him so he wouldn’t be able to defend himself. This was one of the only “bullying” incidents that occurred at my school.

My school seemed to be pretty good at watching the kid and keeping them safe. Also being lenient, and letting the kids think for themselves. The kids weren’t that bad either. The school also had weekly assemblies, to address different problems, but mostly the assemblies focused on having morals and being kind to other people. The teachers also talked about bullying in the classes, telling us that any type of bullying was wrong, and would be dealt with harshly. Overall at my school the teachers kept control over the kids, and there wasn’t any fear of bullying, but I have to also take into account that the school was fairly small. I don’t know if it was the school size, or the teachers, or the kids at the school that kept bullying to a minimal level, though I think that it was the school size that kept everyone under control.

In life there is always going to be bullying. In middle and also in elementary school it seems that bullying is far worse than high school or even college. When kids are in the younger grades they are obviously a lot less mature than older grades. In middle school the kids don’t seem to have a filter to tell them what is right and wrong. The bully doesn’t usually get in trouble, and if they do the consequences at school and at home are usually small. Middle school kids are just bored and immature. I think that it is just the nature of middle school students to bully.

Have you ever felt the gut wrenching feeling of when you know that you did something wrong. Well I used to feel that one a daily basis when my best friends would make fun of one of my childhood friends of how she looked a cartoon animal (Pikachu). I stood up for her when they would make mean remarks about how she looked. I used to watch the hurt in my friends eyes when they took the bulling to the heart, and will probably never forget about the comments made and the hurt felt. When I witnessed the name calling happen I usually just let them say whatever to my friend instead of standing up for her. I should of just help her stand up for herself and told to bully to ‘pick on someone their own size’.

Middle School is a very emotional and hurtful place to grow up in. I went at Cabrillo and I had a lot of friends but some of my friend weren’t the coolest people and others known as the KKK (The Cool Kids Klan) had some of my best friends in the group but they didn’t accept most of the people I made friends with. I always tried to stop the bullying in between my friends. I hated being in the middle trying to resolve things. After awhile I gave up trying to make things better and tried to ignore the rude rumors. Ignoring people is very hard especially about the people you care about. It doesn’t make sense why our society is so cruel to the same species.

You may ask what does a person do when you see that much in one person. Well I wondered the same thing. When I didn’t have many friends, I wouldn’t usually have the confidence to talk to other people that I didn’t know, let alone stand up for myself to a bully. One time I tried to stand up for a friend, but it didn’t turn up as planned. The bully forgot about my friend and started to pick on me. That day I learned my lesson on what to if you see someone getting bullied, to stay out of someone else’s business. But when I got older my confidence grew and I started to say something when I saw people getting bullied. And some people get offended if I try and do the right thing, but others say “Thank you”. It feels good when you know you did the right thing instead of avoiding the situation. Standing up for yourself and your friends is a very important thing in life; it’s just the right thing to do.

In the culture of children, t-weens, and teenager they are so immature that they think it’s funny when people make fun of the weak. Children crave for power, so they feel like they get more power by destroying another person. This bulling in elementary, middle, and high schools needs to stop sometime or another. But the question is, will it ever? It wouldn’t be realistic for adults to supervise us 24/7. One way to try and reduce the bullying might be to educate children young so that they will know that this teasing is wrong and hurtful. Another way is to encourage the students to go and talk to their counselors.

At Santa Rosa Technology School there weren’t any fights or bullying. Santa Rosa was really just a calm lay back school. The teachers were aware of everything. Many of the students were close with their teachers. Our principle was very active with the students he was aware just like the teachers but he made sure that the school was running smoothly. Santa Rosa was small, it was K through 8th grade, and it was also in the middle of nowhere there weren’t really any schools around. You would notice how close all the students were with each other because most people like myself knew people from outside of school or because they have gone to Santa Rosa since kindergarten.

I’ve heard so many stories about bullying and fights, but hearing the difference and living the total opposite middle school life is just crazy. Many parents and students here at foothill think that middle schools are too immature to know that bullying is bad but I completely disagree. Mr. Gieb has said that maybe because my school was so small and there were younger kids around that it may have influenced our behaviors but I don’t think it was that at all. I think it’s just because we knew right from wrong he were all reminded of that every day. We had guest presenters and video’s shown to us which did make a difference to many of us. We were all told to be leaders and to be a good to the students around us. And that is exactly what we all did.

Can adults prevent bullying is actually a question I have been hearing a lot and I have mixed emotions on this topic. When hearing the stories of others I feel that maybe adults can’t make a difference but living it makes me feel it can. So I have come to conclude that yes adults can make a difference but it depends in the environment you put a student in. Like if there are younger students at the school I’m sure many of the older students will act more mature. Another thing is the principle and teachers really need to be aware of the student’s surroundings, to actually make a student feel like you care, to not make them feel helpless, or even stupid.

In a private school, you may think everyone is nice and is friends with everyone. You might think that no one is ever bullied verbally or physically, but after experiences I went through I know the truth. Yes it is true that there are rarely any fights, but I have gone through a lot of verbal abuse. I have had to deal with this ever since elementary school. I have had people call me names, I’ve had people that said they were my friends, stab me in the back because they were being made fun of for hanging out with me, and I was accused of things by those people for things I never even did, and I have even heard people talk about me right in front of my face, all because I look different. The major bullying started for me in the seventh grade, and many of the things that people said was really hurtful. I can’t believe that at a private school would resort to doing things like that.

The things that happened at my school were pretty mild. I went to Ventura Missionary ever sense pre-school, and they had some very strict rules. Although if a person went behind the scenes, almost everything seems opposite of what the school actually teaches. It is rare that you will ever see or hear of a fight happening at this school, but only a couple of fights have happened before. Also, if you listened in on some of the conversations the some of the students had, they were normally about other students. Now, if you have ever heard about this school before, you might be thinking, “That can’t happen at that school. That’s all wrong.” Well it is all true, and how do I know, I know because I lived it.

Bullying not only affects the bulliers, it mostly effects the bullied. There are many cases for some people where physical and verbally bullied have committed suicide because the bullying was too hard for them to bear. People should not take the issue of bullying to lightly. I can greatly affect the state mentally and physically of a person.

Now with all this bullying going on all across the country, is anyone trying to take a stand to stop this from happening and before things get worse? Also, is it even possible to change the people who do the bullying into doing something good???? Some adults in my different schools around our country are actually trying to help change students in many schools and trying to make the bullying go away. Although, it is not always possible to fully change a bully, but we should still continue to try.

Bullying is not something that should be taken lightly. It is a very serious matter that affects tons of kids. Sometimes bullying can become so drastic, it can affect the mental states of students. Try to teach others that bullying has a negative effect on most students.

At my school we did not have much bullying. I went to a private catholic school named our lady of the Assumption. I felt very safe at my school without much bullying. It was very calm and a layed back school.We also had very small class one class per grade with about 30 people in each class. During recess and lunch we always had teacher and other adults around outside watching us. I always felt very safe and protected when I was at school.

At my school there was never any bullying there wasn’t much I did because not much ever happened to me and even if it did the teachers took care of it. I always felt very safe and protected when I was at school.

The school was definitely in charge and made sure we were safe and protected and nothing bad every happened. If anything did happen a teacher we take them out of the classroom and go talk to them or they would go to the principal’s office and that definitely took care of it. I believe the all of the adults were there supervising us and keeping us safe.

I believe it is not just the age of middle schoolers promoting them to bully each other. I believe this happens to young people because of school and environment. There is not as much control with larger schools than smaller schools. Sometimes though kids get bullied because they are gay, short or tall or predujuice. It all depends there are many factors associated with this problem.

What I saw in middle school was not as crucial as in other schools but it was bullying. There were these cliques in elementary through middle school. They were four girls who gossiped about everyone but targeted mainly one girl. Those girls would call her a lesbian for no good reason. Especially when the girl came into sixth grade with her hair cut much shorter. This “clique” of theirs was disturbing. All they thought about was themselves and no one else.

The clique didn’t bully me but gossiped like I said before. The thing that hurt me the most was one of those girls was my best friend. We had known each other since we were born. Her mom and my mom went to school together. Gradually my best friend was being taken away from me and she was turning into a monster. When there was a fight between these cliques she’d come to me the next day she wouldn’t talk to me and act like she’s too cool for me. Next thing you know I’m friends with the.

What I did was sometime stand there and listens to the crucial things they said. I told them a few times not to say that but they would roll their eyes and act like nothing even happened. The rest of the time I was a bystander and did not do anything because I did not want to get involved. Sometimes I was even part of these cliques. When it came to boys I didn’t even want to get involve with that. If you told a boy to stop bullying you they would just make fun of you or say ok. But then they keep making fun of that person all over again. I didn’t do anything because I didn’t want to get made fun of and it wasn’t very “severe”.

The school administration did a good job of making sure to stop bullying but not so much the gossip which hurt just as bad or worse. Even when teachers turned their back for a split second there would be name calling, throwing, and much more.

While at Ventura Missionary I saw very minimal bullying. Most of it was verbal and psychological with the exception of about 2-3 physical confrontations that lasted mere seconds. I remember seeing people exchanging miniscule insults that weren’t paid attention to and forgotten soon after. While other times I saw people purposely excluded from a group. Another form a bullying I saw was when a particular person was completely ignored by most students for a period of time, which led to arguments that weren’t unnoticed. While it didn’t happen often I still saw the damage it rarely caused.

When time came and I was the one to be bullied, I never really dwelled on it long enough to continue a grudge or have an ongoing fight with the person. Rather I tried to let it pass and forget it happened, because if something happened the school was small enough to were everyone would know about it. The bullying I usually endured was almost always verbal, so I never had to physically fight, although on some occasions I did have to show that I was capable and if need be willing. But I do remember having to use an old trick I learned as a response back. I was at a table talking with some friends when another kid made what I thought was a hurtful comment towards me, but instead of taking it personally I laughed with the others. When he questioned why, I said,” Why can’t I laugh at myself every once in a while.” He had trouble thinking of what to say back realizing he had looked foolish muttering trying to come up with a response back. Although this wasn’t the case every time, I still had to do what most students did, continue a meaningless argument to see who would come out on top.

Ventura Missionary did not take too kindly to bullying. Any form of it would be considered wrong, and if any reports came in it was dealt with immediately. With it being a small private school, punishment was swift and usually ended with detention, a phone call to the parents, and in some cases suspension. This was mostly due to the volunteer adults that watched every part of the school. The teachers were in the classrooms and the volunteers were in the halls, gym, and on the lunch area. So for me middle school was not a hell hole but a semi peaceful learning environment.

In my school everywhere I went I saw bulling. One kid I knew in 5th grade got it really bad. People would call him fat or 4 eyes. At one point he lied to make himself look cooler to other people. This did not help this made it worse. At one point when he was playing football on the playground and then a kid that hated him talked him on the concrete and broke his arm. Then the kid that broke his arm got expelled. After a year of being tortured he left to go to a nether school.

At the time he was being bulled I did nothing. At the time I was new to school. I had been homeschooled for years and then when I went to school in 5th grade I found myself in the middle of school bulling. Some of the bullies thought that I was kind of cool and for being new to school and not having any friends I did not want to get in front of them and then have them want to be me up for trying to stand up to them for someone. Now it world have never mattered because I don’t even see them anymore. Sometimes I wish that I would have stood up for that poor kid. Now I feel bad for him and I hope that he never has to go through that anymore.

When the teachers heard of this they did nothing at first they just sat there. Then the bulling kept going on and they started to do just a little bit. Then after they started to hear it all over the place they talked to us. They told us that they did not want to hear about us fighting and they said that it was bad. That was not going to do anything though just telling them they did not want to hear about it. Then when they heard about the kids breaking his arm then they flipped out but they should have seen it coming. They still did not do anything to stop or to help the problem of bulling and now seeing the school I think it got worse.

11-13 year olds are the meanest things to you can ever think of. They do not listen most of the time. They are mean to their peers and they complain about everything when something does not go their way. They also think that they are the coolest thing and that no one can touch them.

I do not think that they can be changed. They live in a world where there are people that hate and so they copy what they see. They also live in a world where if they have money there parents are going to most likely buy them whatever they cry for.