I really don’t like bullying.  I was bullied a lot since elementary school and in this school I had to switch my home room two times already.  People were calling me gay, making fun of me, kicking me, that kind of stuff.  I just sort of take it in, but after, when I get bullied too much, I just feel like I can’t take it anymore and I just want to get out of there.  I have friends here, one of my good friends is Shannon, well she makes fun of me, and I laugh back.  At lunch, she goes where she wants and I go where I want, so at lunch we don’t meet up that much.  For something to do at lunch, I like to go to the library to get books out or go on the internet.  But, my new homeroom that I just switched to is better, I know everybody and they kind of bully me but not that much.

So I want to help out more kids who are being bullied.  I don’t want them to get really mad and kill themselves.  Because I know from the news that some kids got bullied and had a shooting rampage in their school.  I don’t want that to happen in our school, or in another school, so I want to do something about it.  

            So this year was my first incident that I stood up.  I saw someone bullying this girl.  She was in a wheelchair and she was in the elevator at school and he kept on being mean.  She was trying to get the elevator to go up, but he kept on hitting the doors so they wouldn’t close and she couldn’t go anywhere and she ended up being late for class.  They were all just laughing at her. Some other kids were around but they were just ignoring it, they didn’t want to get involved in anything because they could get hurt.  I was the only one who stood up.  I felt really sad for her because I didn’t want her to be late.  Like, people who are handicapped, there’s nothing wrong with them, they’re just different.  That’s why I stood up for her.  ‘Cause the bullies were being wrong, they weren’t letting her go up.  I don’t like that, it made me feel mad.  When I stopped, I went up to him and said “Stop it.  What’s your problem?  She’s just like us, but she’s different.” 

            Well, they started calling me some names but I stood up to them and they kind of just stepped back.  I said “What’s your problem?  Like, you guys were just being mean to her.”  They kept on doing it until the bell rang and then they ran.  She did end up getting late but I think she told the teachers.  I think she was happy that someone was helping her because she started smiling.  She wasn’t there by herself or anything.  Afterward, I felt really good inside myself.  It made me feel proud of myself because I am helping someone and not just standing there being a bystander.

            I thought I could try to stop the bullying ‘cause they were only grade seveners.  So I thought I could stand up and be a leader.  I’m on student council, so I want to try to be a leader.  In student council we saw a bullying talk, started a bullying club and even made cookies for bullying.  So I was thinking about how to solve it when I saw her getting bullied.

            I think the bullies have like a problem in their household, like maybe the person is going through divorce or something like that.  Maybe they won’t tell anyone, they won’t go and get help, so now they take it out on other people.  I think that if someone gets bullied they should go to the office and talk because then the bully could get some help.  Like, when I was getting bullied, this guy kept on bugging me and I told, and then he tried to get help from the principal.  I’m in his homeroom, and he’s become a better student now.

            In my locker I have all these messages from the bullying talk, like “Bullying Bites” “Hug someone today” “Turn a frown upside down” “Don’t stand by, stand up” and “Kindness is cool.”  Even being kind to people is about bullying because then they won’t be mean to the person, they will try to be nice.  They won’t go up to the person and start laughing at them, they will think “How about if someone did that to me?”  Because when someone’s being mean to you, you feel like you’ve been put down, like you don’t belong in the school.