This article was written by Devan Grewal, a grade 9 student living in the Greater Vancouver area.
Bullying. Some of us have experienced it, some of us haven’t, but almost all of us know it’s not right.
Even if you haven’t experienced it yourself, if you see it, stop it. But what does bullying look like? Bullying can come in many different forms, it can be through actions, words, or even cyber bullying, but one thing for sure is it makes the bully feel bigger and the victim feel smaller.
I myself have not experienced bullying, but one of my friends was constantly getting harassed by older kids. He would come to school and instantly become their punching bag. They threw racial slurs at him, swore at him, and even once put him in a garbage can. When he fought back, it got worse day by day until he started missing school. The worst thing about this is he was too shy to tell us what was going on, until one day he reached his breaking point and told us everything. In order to stop this, myself and the rest of my friends got together and agreed that the next time he was getting bullied, we would step in, and so we did.
My point in this is sometimes YOU’VE got to stick up for someone to help their situation. Don’t stand there and just let it happen, do something about it. Be the leader, because if you don’t, maybe no one will.
Although bullying is horrible and it makes people feel insecure about themselves, in most cases, we don’t really know what the bully is going through. Sometimes you have to put yourself in other people’s shoes to understand where they are coming from because for all you know, they could be having a hard life at home and so they take their anger out on you.
Obviously, this does not happen in every case and I am definitely not justifying bullying, but all I would like to say is, if someone is bullying you, you should let someone know right away even if it’s a teacher. If there is one thing I’ve learned, it’s better to share your feelings with someone else who will listen, rather than let them build up and pop.