GLSEN and Bullying

Reflection:

Bullying is one of my biggest pet peeves, so reading this article was really upsetting to me. To know that kids as young as kindergarden are showing signs of bullying and name calling just disgusts me. As teachers, we like to think that kids are all pure and they're like minds to mold. Clearly that is not the case and I have experienced this first hand.
I volunteered at my dance school to be a teacher's aid and I loved it. The kids were great to me and they were a lot of fun. However, they weren't always great to each other. There were these two girls who always picked on and made fun of this one girl. I don't know if her race had anything to do with the bullying, but she was in fact Middle Eastern. Watching this made me flashback to when there were two girls who did the exact thing to me in my dance class. However, I was the kind of kid who never let bullies bother me and I always gave it back to them. Unfortunately, this young girl was just so shy that she never really said anything to them because she didn't want to cause trouble. The instructor never said anything about it either and I don't know if it was because she didn't know it was happening or if she didn't want to get involved.
I know there are teachers who will completely ignore the fact that bullying is happening and this makes me so upset. I always promised myself that I would never be that teacher and I would always be the kind of teacher who kids can come and talk to with any problems they are having. If kids can't trust you, then how do you expect them to learn from and respect you?
The other problem with this is the fact that teachers are using the kind of language that we don't our students to use. We have to teach our students the problems with using these kinds of words because these words can really hurt people. They're the next generation and we want them to live in a society where everyone can respect each other andnot feel alone and isolated.
The whole bullying thing is just a sensitive subject for me. I was glad I was able to read this article and able to talk about my experiences with bullying. I can promise you I will never be that teacher who pretends that bullying doesn't really happen and it's not our main concern. It affects our students in so many ways that we don't even know and if we don't stop it now, things are never going to get better.