Students show concern

Casey Ressler

Working in the newspaper business, I get asked to talk to a lot of classes. Last week, a presentation I did stood out among many of the others I've done in the past.

At Wasilla Middle School, the students got a firsthand look at bullying in schools a few weeks ago. Two students brought guns to school, apparently because they were sick and tired of being bullied at school. An after-school fight was broken up, and the weapons were found.

Students at the school are looking at the issue of bullying, and that's a good thing. We all should be looking at the issue. We only have to turn on the news to see the horror of school shootings, many of which have reportedly been caused by constant bullying.

As the incident at WMS shows, bullying is an issue every school faces, and must deal with somehow.

As part of the bullying presentations, different people gave the students information on different aspects of bullying.

School counselors presented statistics that showed how big of an issue it really is. My presentation, which was relatively inconsequential to the issue really, was to show the students how to write stories about bullying for a newsletter they will be preparing for other students and parents.

We talked about how to do a number of different stories. Some were interested in the discipline end of things, and I told them to talk to their principal and the school district to find out how bullying is dealt with. A few more were interested in national trends, and I told them the Internet is a good place to do some of that research. But mostly, they were interested in talking to students who were victims of bullying.

That, too, was encouraging for me. It showed that while they were interested in every aspect of the issue, they were mostly concerned with how it affects them.

If they follow through with the story and prepare a newsletter, the students will be better prepared to face bullying, regardless of the angle they took. If anything, it could lead to more awareness, which in turn leads to prevention.

As an outsider looking in, it is nice to see the school taking an active approach to such an important issue. Bullying may not sound like a big issue, but it often leads to violence in our schools.

Casey Ressler (valleylife@frontiersman.com) is the Frontiersman Valley Life editor.