Everyday, all over the world, people are being tormented, mistreated and abused… in schools.
Whether most students believe it or not, bullying occurs regularly in various forms at OHS, in everything from social media rumors to physical abuse.
According to OHS nurse, Debbie Rodrigues, bullying is teasing or making fun of someone, and she attends to the subjects of such incidents a few times a week.
“I deal with the victims, not the bulliers,” said Rodrigues. “I think it’s a big issue on campus, and it happens way too often.”
Rodrigues has seen students who have been bullied continuously from a young age and are still suffering at the hands of the same people.
“People get to high school and think it’s going to end but it doesn’t,” Rodrigues said. “Mental bullying, which is typically seen in girls, has been going on for years.”
Having been on the receiving end of emotional bullying, Elizabeth Brambert, sophomore, comments on her personal struggles with bullies.
“I’ve mainly been bullied for being one of the bigger, taller girls,” said Brambert. “and it made me really self-conscious. To this day, sometimes I still feel insecure, because people made me feel terrible about myself.”
Besides mental bullying, other vehicles for abuse such as social media have become popular in today’s society.
“People are bullies because they just want to create drama,” said Jenna Gilbertson, junior. “And they can hide behind social media.”
Various Twitter pages have been created by OHS students and have been encouraging their classmates to have a laugh at the expense of others.
According to Skyler Meldrum, senior, some students take these Tweets rather well, but others are hurt by what is being said.
“Twitter pages are becoming increasingly prevalent,” Meldrum said.
Kyla Morrissey, OHS psychology teacher, believes that the rise in social media bullying is due to the influence celebrity gossip has on students.
“Media is teaching us to treat people like this,” said Morrissey. “We see this sort of talk in tabloids all the time. Can’t we teach our peers a culture of acceptance and tolerance?”
Along with the idea that magazine rumors are fueling students’ use of social media, junior, Anastasia “Stanzi” England, thinks that the kids who are receiving the brunt of the bullying are girls with a promiscuous reputation.
“It’s cooler to bully the popular people,” said England. “You’ll be picked on more if you have a reputation, than if you have a mental disability.”
With people using Twitter and other websites as bullying outlets more and more, students have suggestions as to how to solve this problem.
“If you just ignore the social media aspect, it could go away,” Meldrum said. “Or, it could escalate. Our whole society is based on looks, and it truly targets teens, because from freshman to senior year, you’re developing who you are.”
Amidst social media’s rise, physical bullying has been given less and less awareness, but still remains to be a problem at OHS.
According to Rodrigues, the physical form of bullying occurs mainly in boys who play sports and does not happen as frequently as mental abuse does.
“My kids played sports, and there’s always some traditional teasing of the new kid,” Rodrigues said. “But people need to look for signs that they’re crossing the line. I don’t deal with it as often as mental bullying.”
Whether it transpires often or not, physical bullying is bullying, and it still causes students to suffer.
“I think physical bullying is just as hurtful as mental bullying,” Brambert said. “Truthfully it’s still bullying, and it can be just as scarring as mental bullying, and hurt just as much.”
And so, with students being harassed by their peers every day, in various forms, it is a relief to know that people are overcoming their tormentors.
“Around 8th grade, I learned to stand up for myself,” Brambert said. “I realized the people that bullied me were uncomfortable with themselves, and they had to find any weakness in someone else they could, instead of trying to improve themselves.”
However, standing up for oneself is only part of ending bullying. Nurse Rodrigues believes that awareness is the key to stopping harassment once and for all.b
“We need to step up and stop bullying if we see it,” Rodrigues said. “Enough is enough.”
