All of the topics that we talked about this semester really got me thinking about how difficult teaching is going to be. However, one of the topics that I know will be an issue is bullying. I was searching on youtube for some different stories about bullying and I came across this story that was aired on ABC News. In the beginning of the video it talks about how girls start to be mean as early as the age of 3. One thing that comes to mind about this is the movie Mean Girls. Girls just form clans together and pick on people jus to feel beter about themselves. The video then moves into a family where bullying occurs with their own son, Ryan. Ryan had motor and learning disabilities and boys at his school started to bully him. When his dad noticed the bullying that was going on he set Ryan up in some self defense classes. However, there was one girl who did stick up for Ryan and her name was Ashley. One day Ryan told one of his friends that he got an erectal exam as part of his emergency room visit and that was a mistake because his friend spread the news like wildfire throughout school and everyone was saying that he was gay. Ryan then grew an online friendship with a girl that he had a crush on and later on we find out that his crush was Ashley, the girl that defended him who now was considered a popular girl. Ashley was now part of the crew that would constantly pick on Ryan through the computer and a school. Her and her friends would say that they liked him and tried to convince him that Ashley really did have a thing for him and Ryan took them seriously. When the girls figured this out they told him that they would never go for a loser like you and all these other cruel things. This then lead to Ryan saying "Girls like you make me want to kill myself". From here everything just went downhill and Ryan was also talking to another person online who was trying to convince Ryan to kill himself to get away from all his troubles. A couple of days passed and Ryan told his friend that he finally decided that he wanted to kill himself and the next day Ryan hanged himself while his father was away on a business trip. Ryan's father was devastated and heart broken. He didn't want to blame Ashley for his son's death and he forgave her for it but he does believe that she contributed to his depression.
This story is one of many heart broken stories about bullying. Kids need to stop bullying other students and to just mind their own business because you never know how serious they are going to take it. Another issue that I noticed in this video was that the father had said that he regretted buying his son a computer for his birthday. Since Ryan did get the computer at such a young age I think it is so important that parents are fully aware of what their children are doing online. His dad had no idea about the friend who was convincing Ryan to kill himself and you have to think what would have happened if the dad knew.
Here's the link to the youtube video of the news story.
wow. if you could have seen my face when i was reading that, my jaw literally dropped, thats terrible. i've heard of stories similar to this before and every time i can't get over the shock of these situations. it's crazy and very sad, this could have been easily avoided but stuff like this happens some where every week
ReplyDelete