Bullying: The Unaddressed Epidemic in American Schools

The Rwandan survivor, Paul Rusesabagina, once said, “If we want to change things, we must first change ourselves. If we want to play-- if we want to change the world-- we must first show up on the field to score”. Kids are constantly being mean to each other, whether it is verbally, physically, or through their phone screen. As Rusesabagina said, if people want to make a positive change, it is important to make the effort to make the change. According to dosomething.org, over 3.2 million students are victims of bullying each year. Approximately 160,000 teens skip school every day because of bullying. 17% of American students report being bullied 2 to 3 times a month or more within a school semester. These numbers are way too high, and schools need to find a way to reduce them. Students who are victimized are not receiving enough help from the people who are supposed to be the most influential people in their

"Is Technology Ruining Our Kids?" CDC, American Psychological Association, Oct. 2011. Web. 12 Dec. 2015. This article talks about how upset students get from getting bullied at school. They become more upset from getting bullied at school than getting cyberbullied. It is one of the worst forms of bullying and causes students to not perform as well as they can at school. It is a useful source to use to understand the different forms of bullying and was able to use for support in my essay. Stock, Mr. "Mr. Stock Interview." Personal interview. 9 Dec. 2015.

Mr. Stock is a dean at Naperville Central who talked about ways our school is trying to cut down the bullying. He was a great source to interview because he is so well educated on topics such as these. It is very useful to compare such a broad topic on a smaller scale. Naperville Central has problems of its own, just like any other high school in the country. I got to use the interview as one of my main points as an example of what high schools are dealing