BULLYING

        Bullying is never the way to solve anything for any reason! If you have ever witnessed bullying, then do something about it next time. Or at least try because I know it's hard to get up the guts to face a bully. Standing up might be easy for some people, but really hard for others! Just remember to try to stay nice and positive.J

        Once there was a time when I witnessed bullying and didn't do anything about it. There were two girls, let's call them Student 1 and Student 2. The story began when these two girls were sitting in the cafeteria during lunch break. Student 1 would always pack her lunch and sometimes she disliked it. Whenever Student 1 wasn't pleased with her food, she would throw it in the bin and explained to Student 2 that she would tell her mom she ate it all. Do you see where I'm going with this? Student 1 and 2 normally sat together with a couple more friends and since Student 1 no longer had anything to eat, she was starving. So this was where the bullying came in. Student 1 just grabbed food that belonged to someone else. She sometimes asked, but if Student 2 said no, it wouldn't be a pretty scene. She went around telling people not to talk to Student 2 because she said that Student 2 was really mean. That was verbal bullying! But there was more. Student 1 elbowed Student 2 really hard and got some other people to do that too. There was the physical bullying! Sometimes if she sat close to Student 2, she would send her unkind notes over and over again. There was the non-verbal bullying. Last, if Student 1 knew that she couldn't win the fight, she went up to Student 2 and said I FORGIVE you. Not I'm sorry! I considered her a big bully.

        Something I would have done differently to stand up for myself, since I was Student 2, would have been to actually tell her something. I should heve told her that nobody had the right to take the lunch of someone else away just because she disliked her own food. And physical bullying is not the way to settle anything! I would like to tell her all that, but what I actually did was hang around silently and tried to avoid her. After a while, it kept happening and I kind of got used to it. Now, when I look back on all this drama, I don't understand why I didn't say anything to her. I had the words, but they just didn't come out of my mouth! Why? I really don't have a clue...

        I now have two goals for this year, so that the situation would never happen in ISKL! The goals are to never solve something with verbal or physical bullying. This is one goal because I already know that it does not solve a single thing! The other goal is to try to stand up for myself and others. Hopefully I won't have to that because I would prefer that there would be no bullying in the first place! I hope I can contribute to making ISKL a better place!

Thanks for reading my blog! Don't be a bully and stay positive.

~ NatalieJ

Courage

When Did I Show Courage?

        A time I showed courage was when I learned to swim. I chose this specific moment because this was something that impacted my life in many ways. There have been a few other times when I might have shown courage, but this moment stood out in my mind.

What Happened?

When I was about three years old, my mom decided to have someone teach me how to swim. I wasn't as interested in the idea as my mom. Actually, I screamed like there was no tomorrow because I was terrified! Could you blame me? I was a small three years old girl, who had never ever dunked her head into water before. But of course my mom took me anyways and tried to convince me that everything was going to be fine. For a bit, I believed her. But that was before I stepped into that cold baby pool with my swim teacher …

Why didn't I like swimming classes?

        I could sit here and read you a whole list, but I'll just point out a few main facts. One of them is that I disliked my teacher! I don't think she understood how I felt about water and wasn't very encouraging. Sometimes she would yell at me to do things around the end of class and she would also pull me down to sit in the water or blow bubbles. She hardly noticed that I cried throughout half the class! Another reason why I absolutely hated the classes was because I was trying to swim for my very first time and I didn't know how to respond to floating in water. At the end of the day I was completely scared of the cold pool.

How Did I Show Courage?

        I showed courage by continuing with the lessons, which I feared, and not backing out. Maybe there was a bit of tears and wailing along the way, but I managed to make it through each day! For me that took quite a bit of courage. Eventually I got better in swimming and overcame my fear of water. I think I might have also shown courage by facing my teacher each day because I was quite scared of her.

 

How Did It Benefit Me In The End?

        By showing courage and proving to myself I could make it through the classes, I was able to participate in many things! Like swim carnivals, pool parties, a section in P.E., and I even joined one of my school’s swim team! I'm not afraid of water anymore. Not bad for somebody who used to be terrified of pool water. This might not be a huge achievement in some people's eyes, but it's a giant achievement to me and I'm really proud to be able to say: I SWIM WELL!!!

Thanks for reading!

~ Natalie