Can you remember a bully from your school years? Did you ever confront him or her? I remember our elementary school bully. He teased me mercilessly for having a weird name and a tendency to blush. I slapped him in the face once and got sent to the principal’s office. So unfair, I thought.
Stormy Rich, an 18-year-old Florida high school student, recently experienced the same injustice when she stood up to a group of her peers for bullying a girl with special needs. The teenagers all ride the same bus to school, meaning the bullies have the rest of the students captive for torment during the morning rides. It sounds dramatic, I know, but as a former bus rider, myself, I remember how these things go.
As Rich said, according to Take Part News:
They would be mean to her, tell her she couldn’t sit on certain spots on the bus…just because she doesn’t understand doesn’t mean that should be happening to her.
Apparently Rich reported the bullying to her school’s officials but saw no action taken. It was then she decided to step in and confront the bullies, herself. It’s unclear what Rich actually said and did, but whatever it was caused her to be labeled as a bully and her bus-riding privileges revoked.
Regardless of what actually happened, the fact remains that bus drivers, school officials, parents, and all other adults involved in student life need to seriously examine how quickly and effectively they respond to reports of bullying. How long will it take us to step in to prevent emotional and physical violence?
From Take Part:
The bottom line is something more needs to be done to combat bullying in our schools. Three million students will be absent from school this month because of the emotional and physical toll of bullying, and according to the organization Ability Path, children with disabilities are significantly more likely than their peers to be the victims of this mistreatment.
As long as adults let bullying go unchecked and, as in Stormy’s case, punish those who rebel against it, then they are little more than bullies, themselves, in my book.
Were you or your children ever bullied? How did your school respond? Keep the conversation going in the comments section below.
I realize this is a "hot" topic and I don't want to indicate that what I have to say will work for everyone, but I have posted a blog on my website (provided with this comment) about this topic. Since each circumstance involves people with different emotional and intellectual abilities it is not meant to be a "one answer fits all circumstances" response – but understanding the underlying mechanisms may help some. Since the answer I present goes to the spiritual "heart" of things, some may be "put off " by it. Nevertheless, I feel it is time for all human beings to begin to realize that it is spirit (energy) that is the basis of all things – and there will be no peace until there is the spirit of peace inside each of us.