Imagine walking down a hallway at school talking to your friends when suddenly you hear a group of people whispering your name and laughing you don’t think anything about it, until you hear the crude remarks. This is bullying. It happens to everyone, everywhere, around the world. The scenario I gave is light verbal bullying, but it isn’t always this way. I have been to three different schools during my high school education, and I found that this is a very prominent situation that is not being taken very seriously.

Being a junior in high school I see bullying happen every single day. When you hear the word bullying most people think of the little kid being beaten up for his lunch money, this is what movies have made bullying out to be. This is not the case. I witness people being bullied everyday without any physical contact at all. There was a girl I used to know who got harassed every day, by a group of people who would gather in the hallway and make rude remarks as she’d walk by. They would laugh at her and even post stuff on Facebook about her. People do this all the time because they don’t have enough courage to address the person. They sit behind their computer screens and they feel they are invincible.

The thing that bothers me most is there have been teachers who would witness bullying and do nothing about what these people say. In this case the teacher is being the bully too. By neglecting to take care of the issue they are taking part passively.

Schools need to take all types of bullying seriously. There are people who actually hurt themselves because of what people say to them and about them. The first offenses for bullying at many schools is practically a slap on the wrist. I don’t understand how schools can say they have a zero tolerance for bullying when it happen every day, and nothing is being done about it. There needs to be a change so students can feel safe in their school with teachers who care enough to stop bullying.