Stories like this can break your heart.
Police in Port St. Lucie are investigating the death of an 11-year old girl who may have been driven to suicide by bullying.
Police say Celina Okwuone hung herself in her closet Thursday night. The 5th grader was found by her parents.
Though still under investigation, Celina’s death has eerie parallels to the suicides of Phoebe Prince and Carl Walker-Hoover in Massachusetts. All three took their lives after being relentlessly bullied at school.
Bullying was once considered an immutable fact of teenage life, like acne and learning to drive. But it does not have to be. Teaching Tolerance’s new documentary, Bullied: A Student, a School and a Case that Made History, shows how one student who was bullied stood up to his tormentors. He filed suit against his former school and won a landmark decision that makes all schools more accountable.
The documentary comes with its own teaching kit. With your support, Teaching Tolerance will produce and distribute 25,000 free copies of Bullied this fall.
"Schools must always act quickly to combat bullying," said Maureen Costello, the director of Teaching Tolerance. "This kit is the resource that’s needed to help curb the devastating abuse endured by these students."
Printer-friendly version
Comments
Hey, you need a "share"
Hey, you need a "share" button on this post that asks us to spread the word.
You can always use this URL
You can always use this URL to share any page with your facebook friends.
http://www.facebook.com/sharer.php
As a child, I was subjected
As a child, I was subjected to relentless "teasing" by other
kids. In elementary grades this was verbal only.
In middle school it extended to things like having milk poured into my book bag and having my ankles kicked and having gum put into my hair. One boy would wait for me until after school so he could spit on me: to avoid him I volunteered to work for a student fashion show that met after school.
To be honest I gave out my share too; when I was called names I would sometimes hit back. i would also call names:
I feel bad that there are adults walking around who I may have hurt deeply by my name calling: I didn't realize that I had the power to hurt too: did the kids who hurt me feel the same/not realize what they were doing?
The only way I can make amends is to write that: I am sorry.
For some reason this ended in high school: maybe because the kids who found it fun to tease me were mixed in with kids who didn't know me: maybe because I had friends: we were a group of science fiction and drama nerds who were considered 'weird' but at least I was part of a crowd:
I think this caused the other kids to back off.
This happened in the late 1960's and early 1970's:
back then, kids who were teased were just told that they had to control themselves and ignore things like that.
Being told to ignore it caused damage to me: to this day when i stub my toe, if I say "ouch" I also silently catch myself thinking "you should just ignore this and control yourself" instead of really feeling the pain.
I really think that schools need to institute, not only no bodily contact policies, but no harassment/no name calling policies. I think that these days more schools have these.
Parents need to realize that name calling is not harmless:
and let their kids know that they should not do it, and let their kids know that if they are the victim of it: that yes, they empathize: what I really wish I could have heard from the adults in my life was: yes, we empathize: we understand that this is hurting you. They didn't get it, didn't realize it hurt: so I erroneously felt that they didn't care. Let kids know you care and encourage them to be kind: "think of how you would feel if someone called you that name".
I think that bullying is
I think that bullying is wrong. But there's nothing to be ashamed of if you fought back. It's called standing up for yourself. If someone hits you, you hit back. All the new mind games that people want kids to use to stop bullying won't work. Asking a bully "why are you trying to hurt me? I haven't don't anything to you", won't work to stop him. But a good punch to the mouth and nose would probably stop it....if not, then keep punching him until he does stop. Not everything can be solved by talking to people.