Bully

I am reading a fantastic book companion to the movie Bully. As a soon-to-be-teacher, I have been thinking a lot about bullying and how it will impact my classroom. Unfortunately, I know a decent amount about bullies because I had several throughout my educational career. It stopped in fourth grade because the girl moved, it stopped in seventh grade because the girl transferred to a private school, and it stopped senior year when I finally had the courage to tell my bully how horrible of a person she really was. I didn’t have confidence in myself at those ages, and this is not a new phenomenon. In fact, bullying is becoming such a huge epidemic that schools, parents and students are having trouble trying to figure out how to handle it. Thankfully, there are more resources and more awareness campaigns out there compared to when I was in school. Kind Campaign and The BULLY Project are just two of the amazing anti-bullying websites/campaigns out there. If you have children or work with children, I encourage you to be proactive about bullying. It could be the difference between a child taking their own life and living to see graduation. Also check out the book Bully because it is really fantastic!

The article (from Inspiyr) below shows a wonderful example of a father taking charge and talking to his son about bullying. This story gave me goosebumps, and it reminded me of the parent I want to be in the future. Enjoy and happy Saturday!

http://inspiyr.com/high-school-questions/

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