Bully The Movie

 Today you are going to reflect on your experience watching Bully: the movie

1. First go to the following link and read about the movie here:

  http://learning.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/04/05/on-bullying-resources-and-questions-for-writing-or-discussion/

2. Read the essays students wrote on Nicolas Kristoff's blog below:

Now here are the winning essays:

Teenage Girls; the Cruel Super Humans from Outer Space
By Lena Rawley, 17, from Montclair, N.J.

Teenage girls are cruel super-humans from a distant galaxy sent here to destroy us all. They have the self entitlement of a celebrity heiress and the aggression of a Roman Gladiator. Like vampires they feed off the blood of the weak. They’re pubescent monsters. Adolescent boogeymen.

While my observations may be coming from a point of bias, that doesn’t mean they are faulty in accuracy. As a teenage girl myself, I think I know teenage girls quite well. Not only was I a former teenage mean girl, but I was tortured, tormented, isolated and socially maimed by them as well.

When they acquire a target, teenage girls, with the determination of a private assassin, will stop at nothing to take down their target. They’re relentless. They’re cruel. Their methods are insane. They are never to be underestimated.
In middle school, I made the mistake of underestimating the power of these skinny jean clad monsters. I thought I was safe, I thought myself impervious to their cruelty. I watched them do on to others as they would later do on to me, and felt no fear.
I was a fool however, for teenage girls pick their targets by familiarity. They are less likely to torment someone small and insignificant and more likely to viciously turn on their friends. Preferably the weakest link in their group, prey who is easy for them to catch and take down.

I was the weakest link. I was the wounded gazelle. And thus, I became their target.

It was eerie because, when my eventual demise began, I had no idea what was going on. Yes it was slightly fishy that they had stopped calling me, stopped saying hi to me in the hallway, but I assumed it was just nothing.here

Again, I was wrong.

Once the period of silence came to a close, all hell broke loose. Vicious rumors began spreading around and dirty looks and foul words were thrown my way in the hall. I was forced off the lunch table and into social leprosy.
Exactly a week after phase two (social alienation) had began I received an email from the ringleader of the group. I opened it up to reveal a headline that bluntly stated, “Fifty Reason Why We Can’t Be Friends With You.” Underneath the headline, as promised, were neatly fifty reasons, ranging from my body to my personality to my clothes, that clearly stated the reason for my alienation.

I felt sick.

But I wasn’t going to let them get me. Those hyenas didn’t deserve my tears. I deleted the note, picked up the pieces and moved on. I found friends who were kind and accepting. Friends who wouldn’t devour their own.
My experience, while evidently not ideal, is something I would not change. I don’t see it as a stain upon the fabric of my life, but more like an embellishment. A decorative brooch I wear with pride, a brooch that cries, I overcame bullying, so can you.

Too Late
By Alyssa Ahrens, 17, Indiana

A young girl walked through her high school halls, clutching a book tightly against her stomach, as if it were a shield. She has her hair loose, allowing the tendrils of it to gather by the sides of her face. Another shield. She stares pointedly at the floor, taking quick, hushed steps as she reaches the stairs. Gingerly, she climbs up them one step at a time, looking about her for that frighteningly familiar face. She feels the clamor of the students around her, brushing past her, fighting their way through the crowded hallways.

The world turns into blurs around her as she sights a face at the top of the stairs, lounging against the corner in the stairwell, smiling as it recognizes its prey.

It’s too late to turn around. It’s too late to hurry past. She’s been spotted… Too late. Too late. Too late.
Hands grab her book, and she is pulled to the corner. Cruel eyes crinkle in laughter.
No words are spoken.

In the breath of a moment, the girl’s hands are empty, flailing in the air for purchase as she is tumbling, falling backward. Her head meets a sharp corner, her hand hits the wall with a sharp crack. With pain erupting in her, she slides down the rest of the steps.

She hears something skidding across the floor by her head.
It is her book.
Her useless shield.

There is one more flash of that gloating smile before it rounds the stairs.

A few kids glance at her. One hands her book to her and gives her a hand up. The girl takes a quick inventory. Her hand hurts, head is throbbing, and ankle is on fire.

Nothing broken.

She is pushed forward by the teacher behind her, her voice chiming “Time to get to class,” methodically.
This girl is me. Just another student. Just another victim.

For 8 years, this is the world I have lived in. For 8 years, I have skipped lunch to get to the safety of the library, bury myself in books, and count the days till graduation. As of today, it is 64. I used to have five ve   hjyhjkhhjhjhjhjry close friends, friends who endured the same Hell as I did. Every day. Words like bullets, raining down upon you till there is nothing left. Those words hurt me worse than getting shoved down a flight of stairs ever did. Those words, that smile.. those are whereherehat make me wake up at night screaming. Those are what I see when I look in the mirror. Nothing. Worthless. Loser.

Sometimes they told us we were better off dead.

Two of my friends followed their advice. One never saw the age of 14, the other never got his license.
Never say that they are just words. Don’t think it’s our confidence that is the problem. It is the bullies.

It’s too late for me. Too late for a lot of kids. Nothing will undo the years I have spent questioning what I did wrong.
But for millions of other kids, it isn’t too late.

Bullying starts early and gets worse. Tackle it in elementary school. It isn’t cute. It doesn’t mean hereherethat the girl likes that boy or vice versa. It is bullying. It is dangerous. And it needs to be stopped. Before it’s too late.

My Hurt
By Madison Jaronski, 15, New Hope, Penn.

Tears have been flooding down my face; breathing is a task that now seems impossible. I draw my legs closer and closer into my chest as I try to transform the pressure into reassuring comfort. I begin to slowly rock myself and by now my tears have colored my pillow black. The lights are off and no one is home to hear my helpless cries. Thoughts are running mindlessly through my brain but the only word I manage to creathereheree is why. Why me? Why has this happened to me? Why has all of this happened in one year? One year. Those thoughts only seem to make me cry even louder. All the memories from past incidents now rush to my mind and I am now consumed, lost in my own sea of tears with nothing or no one to be my boat to take me to shore.

I honestly can’t recall how long I lay there that night. Any sense of time has vanished months ago for me because it does not matter what time or day it is: I knew I would be bullied. As I reflect upon this year, all of my accomplishments and enjoyable moments are overshadowed by the pain and harassment that was thrust upon me. Just looking at my surface, you would see, a confident young woman, as sturdy as a rock. You would never think that I was broken, broken into a million pieces like shattered glass, all because of the work of a group of sherehereenior boys. You would never think that I have starved myself multiple times due to my desire to fade into the backdrop of the world.

Whenever I build up the strength to tell someone about this year, I get the same old fake response “Oh my, how horrible, I am so sorry. But don’t worry, I have been bullied too so I understand.” The thing is though; that statement is never comforting because right then I think “Really… You have been verbally attacked while walking in your hometown and school? You have been betrayed by some of your closest friends? Spent many late nights to early mornings crying yourself to sleep? You have been publicly harassed? And still at the end of all of it, got blamed for every last thing too?” Nobody ever answers “yes” back. Never.

I hope I just took some of you back and made you realize that bullying is specific. No two acts of bullying are the same because bullying is always personal, always meant to strike home with that individual person, to make that individual feel as if she is completely worthless to the world. That is what a group of senior boys did to me this year, and I only got through this year because I had my closest friend right by my side, a beacon through this storm.

3. Answer the following questions and post them into the blog:

• From “Teenagers Tell Researchers It’s a Cruel, Cruel Online World”:
  • Have you witnessed “people being mean or cruel” online, as 88 percent of teens say they have? Have you joined in?
  • How can the use of social media “echo and amplify” bullying?
  From “Bullying Law Puts New Jersey Schools on Spot”:
  • Do you agree with the statement, “There is no such thing as an innocent bystander when it comes to bullying”?
  • Are laws like New Jersey’s Anti-Bullying Bill of Rights necessary, or do they go too far?
  From “Gossip Girls and Boys Get Lessons in Empathy”:
  • Can empathy be taught?
  From an Op-Ed, “Bullying as True Drama”:
  • Would you say there is bullying in your school, or would you just say there is “drama”?
  • What’s the difference between “drama” and behavior that is more serious?
  • Why might the language adults use to talk about bullying (“victim” and ” perpetrator,” for instance) be alienating to young adults?
  From “Behind Every Harassed Child? A Whole Lot of Clueless Adults,” A.O. Scott’s review of the movie “Bully”:
  • How can adults — often unwittingly — contribute to the problem of bullying?
  • To what extent do you think cruelty is “embedded” in our schools and in our society as a whole?
  From “The Bleakness of the Bullied,” Charles M. Blow’s column about the bullying he endured at age 8:
  • How does it feel to a child to be bullied?
  From our lesson plan, ‘A Troubling Trend’: Discussing Bullying and Anti-Gay Attitudes:
  • What, if anything, can be done to make schools safer and more inclusive?
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