Elementary School = College

In the nearly two years of collegiate life I've led, nothing can compare to this experience other than the activities and mentalities of elementary school life. Now, I understand that we didn't exactly live away from our parents then but today we most certainly share attitudes and actions similar to the past. Along with a care-free attitude and a love of simple activities there comes the dark side of these two genres in life.

Let's take, for example, picking on someone. First, find someone that's not "normal" — either because of their looks or their communication skills or their inability to appease someone. Next, single out these differences and exploit them in front of a circle of friends so as to amplify and humiliate these "abnormalities". If all goes well, multiple parties will join in the fun and the crowd will go wild #&0151; all while that one person shrinks to the size of an easily stomped-upon insect. And what's better than that? If they don't notice or (and probably more likely) are good at ignoring it. This way there are absolutely no consequences for the distortions being applied by the normal people and the party is in full swing!

The other approach is to use this activity to cover up one's own insecurities, hoping to draw attention away from their abnormalities. Any way you slice it, the fun is never ending.

Well, if you think this is childish and rude and absurd, think again. I've done it and I'm sure you have too. What I sometimes realize is that when I put my thoughts on that "abnormal" person and imagine what they're probably like just behind their shy, slumped demeanor I start to fall apart inside. I can't imagine exactly what they must be going through inside and the effects the group bashing must have on that one soul. I've honestly found myself wanting to cry because I want them to just be treated as normal.

Now comes the shocking part: it happens at a university level. Not one facet of picking on someone changes from elementary school to now. It happens less often, but it happens in settings that the majority of people would last think. How difficult is it to treat someone like everyone else? If someone "weird" sits down near you for a meal, can't a normal conversation be carried out? Just think about it. Look on someone that might normally be made fun of and understand that they're a person on the same Earth as you. Let them live. Because, I guarantee, every minute they're made fun of is a minute or more taken off their meaningful life.

Comments (2) | To Top

7/14/2006 @ 9:31am

i was wondering if you could help me find this girl that i really liked when we went up camping and now she goes to a school in tacoma please help me find her

by Sir Not-Appearing-In-This-Flim

7/14/2006 @ 9:32am

i was wondering if you could help me find this girl that i really liked when we went up camping and now she goes to a school in tacoma please help me find her

by jimmy jackson