Think of a poster-child for bullying. Glasses, acne, unfashionable and shy. That was me, and bullying was something I dealt with on a daily basis from the moment I entered public education. Now, in my junior year of school, I’ve witnessed a change.

    One specific incident I recall happened in a sixth grade gym class. Playing soccer, I missed a pass, not like it was anything new, but one of the “sport kids” said, “Why don’t you just go pop some pimples?”  Eventually I just got used to the intense teasing and shut down. I did what I had to and nothing else. Teasing was an every day occurrence and many nights I would go home crying.

I’ll admit being bullied turned me into a bit of a bully myself. I went into protection mode and started the altercations, mostly on the bus, instead of waiting for it to happen. After getting into some trouble with the principal, I snapped out of it.

Recently another event that happened in gym class brought tears to my eyes, but this time, something was different. We were playing football and I totally missed a pass. This time the “sport kid” ran up and I was ready for him to start ripping into me, but instead he said, “It’s okay – you’ll get it next time.” That was when I started to look at our school in a different way.

I figure, most people know that bullying is bad, but many may not know how much it affects the victim. Having been a victim, I now feel hopeful. I want to compliment everyone who reaches out to the different, uncoordinated, the not-so-fashionable, the not-so-skinny and even the pimple-faced. I know that I’m not the only one who feels grateful for the change I feel in our school.

Bullying happens in every school and ours is no exception. You can’t stop people from being mean to others, they just have that mean gene wound into their DNA. What I have seen lately is kindness spreading faster than I have ever seen before. The caring, thought and compassion that I see makes me feel our school is changing little by little for the good.