(Response)"School taught me how to cry and how to run really fast"-By Emily Goldin

Almost everyone goes through bullying sometime in there life. Some have gotten bullied, some are getting bullied, and there are the few who are part of the “pretty” group of girls/boys and just by chance did not get bullied. I understand what Emily did but I believe that she could have done more. She did not have to run away from her problems but instead she could have stuck up for herself. It is hard to get bullied for 8 years in your life but don’t you think there will be a point and time where you reach your breaking point? Where you feel like you’ve just had enough? I can’t say that I have been bullied. I’ve been made fun of a couple of times but it didn’t take an effect on me.

To tell the truth, I was sort of the bully. A lot of people were intimated by my size and by my looks. Back in grades 4-7 I was pretty tall for my age so people were afraid of me. I told people what to do and made fun of them to get what I wanted. I shortly learned in grade 7 that, that’s just not how things are suppose to go. It’s because a certain incident occurred amongst the group I was with. One day I was just merely walking with a few friends and they decided to beat up a little innocent 11 year old child who was new to the school. I told them to just leave the child alone but they gave me a look and went about there business. I just stood back and watch everything happen. They bothered the child so much that they ran away crying towards a teacher who later told the principal. The next day the mother of the child came to the school because of course the parent was worried. Ever since that day I have not bullied another person.

The reason I started bullying people in the first place was because I knew I could. Now that I’ve realized how wrong it is to bully people, I’ve stopped. A few of my friends had different reasons on why they bullied people. Some because they’ve been bullied, some who had problems going on at home and couldn’t do anything about, and then the ones who were like me and just bullied people because they looked like a typical bully themselves. Seeing that one kid get bullied by my friends took a toll on my life. I’ve never experienced that kid’s pain but just to see the way he reacted got to me.

Bullying is very wrong and people do need to come to realization what they do and how they react towards people. As Charles Horton Cooley examined and explained his thoughts on the looking-glass self, he clearly states that we react to the perception with the feeling of pride and embarrassment. Which sums up to say that we sometimes as well react to what people say towards us and decide to take out our anger in another way.

"Wilhelm" by Gabrielle Roy (Journal 3)

“ It was the mother's responsibility to intervene in her daughter's life as she did."

I believe that there is a fine line between being protective and intervening. Now the mother of the main character in “Wilhelm” was not trying to be protective at all. She was trying to tell her daughter what she needs and wants in her life. I can say that the mother as well was bit more then controlling. Cutting off all communication towards him and her should of not been something she should have done. Even though later on in the book the main character did find out that Wilhelm just wasn’t the right guy for her, her mother should of just let her find out for herself. If her mother continues to do such things then her daughter will not be able to function on her own when she does get older and into the real world.

I strongly do feel that her mother shouldn’t be intervening in her life. Yes it is her daughter and in the end she does want her to make the right choices, she should still let the child grow and find out things for herself. Yes protecting your child is always something that you want to do but yet still certain things children do have to learn on there own. Parents don’t know but children now a day a very sneaky. They will try whatsoever they can just to get what they want. Hence why kids are very rebellious now a days, just like the main character. Once her mother forbade her to walk on the same sidewalk as him and also to write letters towards him she found out a way that she can communicate with Wilhelm which was the telephone.

I understand the fact that her mother is just watching out but she also needs to let the child nature and find out things on her own. It isn’t her responsibility to be in everything that she does. So I find she needed to step back and give her time to let things processes. Another thing that comes to mind is that I understand that he had a different nationality and that could be also why she was so overprotective. This shows that back in those days, people were much more judgemental and prejudice. I still believe that the mother should have not put her own concerns of what she thinks of the young man unto her daughter and step back to let the scenery take place. In conclusion, I do strongly believe that it is not the mother’s responsibility to intervene into her child’s life the way she did but she does have a right to be protective.

Our Generation Today

As a teenager in this day and age, I believe the obstacles I would have to face that my parents didn’t are homosexuality, racial comments, a lot of teenage pregnancies and gun violence well violence in general. Now my parents are both from Jamaica so I mean this is kind of rigid but yet still I’m going to go about based on them. With homosexuality, in Jamaica it wasn’t so out there because it thereby wrong. In the bible it does state that homosexuality was wrong. God did create Adam and Eve not Adam and Steve so I mean I think it should stay the way that it all began. Man with women and women with men. Now a day people are coming to comfortable with the fact of being with the same sex and that is a big hindrance because that make you question what you really are and what is that you stand for in the end. It questions your sexuality as also the fact that being born in sin if you were actually born that way. In my perspective homosexuality is that there is every man for a women out there so going about with the same gender shouldn’t be done. With racial slurs again now a days Canada as a country is more interracial then Jamaica ever was. Even though it was more drastic before people still do make there jokes towards other people of different ethnical backgrounds. People shouldn’t be made fun on just on the color of there skin or the thinnest of there eyelids. If God can love us for who we are then why are we being the total opposite and making fun of each other and where we are from? Now day’s teenage girls decide from the age of 13 that they must be sexually active and feel that they want children because they might have little cousins that they watch or even see once a week and find that adorable. They don’t know the extent on how it is to have a child at such a young age and they things that you have to go through. When my parents went to school they didn’t even think about sex much less even bothered much about they opposite sex. What they mostly always did was go outside and play. It’s what they always love to do but this generation is too expose to more things so they have others on there mind. Last but not least, violence. Now my mother use to always say to me how my generation is so dangerous because back in her day they use to always use there fist and fight. They didn’t ever use to use guns, knifes, stick, any sort of weapon that wasn’t part of your body wasn’t used. She is even afraid for me to get into the littlest arguments because of how people are now a days. This world has gone so corrupt to the fact like even 10 year olds bring pocket knifes to school. We can’t even go to school without fearing our life’s anymore. Kids will bring guns, knifes, any sort of weapon to harm you or the show that they are big and bad and fearless which is wrong. In conclusion this generation faces many obstacles to the fact that fearing our lives is somewhat a comfort to us

By: Christine Kerr