Phoebe Prince, 15 May Have Committed Suicide Because of Cyber Bullying

Bullied to Death

This is the story out of South Hadley, MA. This girl was bullied to the point of committing suicide. This is a true testament to the hurtful things that people can do to others.

Jaylen's Challenge

Jaylen is a 10 year old boy who is in the fourth grade. Jaylen suffers from Tourette's syndrome, Asperger's syndrome and Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. Jaylen has faced his fair share of bullying by the kids at his school and he wants to put a stop to bullying of students...especially students who are disabled.

I discovered Jaylen's story one night when I was watching a show on the Discovery Health Channel called Tourette's Uncovered where Jaylen shared his story about his disability. During his segment of the one hour show he showed how he goes around to other schools and talks to students about bullying and how he wants it to stop. Once I saw that I thought that his efforts would be perfect for mine and Jessica's service plan on bullying.

Take a look at Jaylen's project for yourself....

Bully is NOT a word in our vocabulary

When Nicole and I started to think about ideas for what we wanted to do our service learning project on I had a few large scale ideas. Nicole came up with the idea to look into bullying. We both agreed that it seemed like a great idea. Neither of us are very confrontational or mean spirited people. I know speaking for myself that bullying was a huge issue for me in elementary school all the way through high school. Nicole knows a lot about my past because we are such good friends and I think this topic is a great fit not only just for us but for the age group we want to work with. I think it goes without saying that bullying is a huge issue not just in our community but in the state and even all over the world. There are many places now that have strong anti-bullying campaigns including Boston Public Schools http://www.bostonpublicschools.org/antibullying. Teen sucicide has been on the rise for the past few years which is a direct result of bullying. This topic is something that we both are very interested in. Its more than just who is being bullied but also about what is causing a bully to do what they are doing. I know that while I was going through what I went through many people told me that the girls were doing it because they were insecure. I wonder even to this day if thats just and old wives tale or if it is valid. A huge new development in bullying is the introduction of cyber bullying. The amount of drama that arises between children online is mind boggling. We tossed around a few project ideas on what we can do to raise awareness and even help. Im sure there will be much more to come on the topic. Well we wish you all the best of luck on your topics. HAPPY BLOGGING!