Classmate Response

After looking through a few blogs, I decided to take a quote from a freshman that I honestly don't know very well, but I found Stan's blog interesting, and found good quotes that related to the ASTI Constitution a lot.

"When you are the one bullying you feel powerful and you feel very that you are in control of what ever it is that is going on. Sometimes you feel like you have to bully to fit in with a certain group of friends and in this situation your options are limited because if you bully them then you are friends with the new people but then you feel bad because you hurt the feelings of the kids who were being bullied, and then if you don’t bully them you feel good because you did the right thing but then you are the one who is bullied."

"When you are the one bullying you feel powerful and you feel very that you are in control of what ever it is that is going on. Sometimes you feel like you have to bully to fit in with a certain group of friends and in this situation your options are limited because if you bully them then you are friends with the new people but then you feel bad because you hurt the feelings of the kids who were being bullied, and then if you don’t bully them you feel good because you did the right thing but then you are the one who is bullied."

What Stan says connects to the ASTI Constitution in a few ways.  The ASTI Constitution reminds us to include, not exclude other students, and when Stan talks about how you feel like you need to bully others to fit in with some groups of people at times, you are not included in the group unless you decide to join the group and bully others.  To make the ASTI environment more friendly and inviting, we need to accept other for who they are, and like them for their perfection and their flaws.  We should learn to utilize each other’s differences to make friendships stronger, because that is also what brings us closer together, and makes us more diverse and unique. 

At ASTI, we also need to accept others for who they are, instead of trying to change them, so they aren’t themselves, or excluding them for being different.  We need to accept that everyone is different and can’t always be what you want them to be: nobody’s perfect.  We shouldn’t have to do things (especially mean things) to gain acceptance into a group.  We should be accepted for who we are and not who we try to be or act like we are.  Each and every one of our personalities are unique, and if one characteristic is changed so you can fit into a group, we are not being truthful to ourselves or others.

Another way that Stan’s blog post relates to the ASTI Constitution is that he talks about how others feel when people bully them, and he understands the view of where other people are coming from, and are empathetic to how they feel in situations where they are bullied by others or when someone is in the predicament where they have to choose between bulling others to impress a group of people, or to be nice to others and not bully them, but often times become a victim of bulling themselves.  

P.S. my internet crashed, so I'm posting this at Borders >.<

:]

I <3 Tiffy Cow. :D

‘Just Kidding’ and ‘Ganging Up’ from Odd Girl Out by Rachel Simmons

A time when I was part of an alliance that made someone feel bad was when my friends and I were picking on a classmate.  We threw small insults at him, and we would be exclusive, and be mean to him whenever he tried to sit with or near us at lunch.  We were nice to his friends, but to him, we were mean.  Acting like this made me feel powerful and in control of him.  I felt like I had power over him, and I was able to influence him, and make him feel bad, which also made me feel like I was better than him, and much more powerful.  My options in the situation was to either bully him with my friends, ignore him and what my friends were doing, or stepping up to my friends and telling them to stop.  Most of the time, I bullied him with my friends, or ignored him, because I wanted to prove to my friends that I was just as cool as them and had power in situations with “annoying guys”.  I never stepped up and told my friends to stop bothering him, until two years after we bullied him, and we became good friends.  Now, whenever I tell my friends that he and I are really good friends, and are best friends, they are still surprised.  They stopped bullying him, but still talked about him behind his back, and complained about how rude and annoying he was, but they respect him and stopped bulling him whenever I am around.  People probably bully others because they want to feel like they are in control of the situation and want to feel like they are more powerful than others, and also because they want to make others look bad, making themselves look and seem better.  They want to hurt their peers because they want to point out the flaws of their peers that they do not have, and show others that the person isn’t as good as they are, and that they are better.  They demonstrate power when they can intimidate others and show that they are “better” than the people they insult, harass, and bully.  Bullies might not want to hurt their peers necessarily, but just want to prove to others that they are powerful and “cool”.