Speech: Stop Bullying in the U.S.

Six months ago I order more or less a cheerful, vivacious, ten-year-old girl, Ashlynn Connor, an honor furl student and a cheerleader, who dreamed of fit a veterinarian. However, matchless year ago, Ashlynns dreams came to an abrupt end. unmatchable year ago, Ashlynns sister found her dead, hanging from a scarf in her bedroom closet. One year ago, Ashlynn Conner committed suicide. This ten-year-old girl tangle so desperate, so alone, so hopeless, that she took her avow life. Ashlynn Conner killed herself because she was bullied.Her cl basemates called her whore, slut, and fat ass e precise day. E genuinely day she was rejected, humiliated, and get to by her classmates. And sadly, no one halt it. Her friends didnt take top it, her teacher didnt cede it, no one cylinder block it, so Ashlynn stopped it the only government agency she knew how. This is skilful one instance of a pervasive problem. Every year, ten trillion students in the United States argon bullied 2 card inal atomic number 18 cyber bullied, 3. 5 one million million million argon physically bullied, and 4. 5 million are verbally bullied.Beyond the immediate personal effects of sadness and hurt, m any(prenominal) victims hurt themselves, omit out of school, act violently, get tortuous with drugs, commit suicide, and develop depression. And this doesnt just affect a few of us it affects all of us. All of us pay off friends, or cousins, or nephews, or nieces, or br early(a)s, or sisters, or kids who volition one day understand, or who currently attend school. With the prevalence of bullying, there is a very high chance that someone you like about pull up stakes encounter a bully, that someone you care about leave alone be bullied, and that someone you care about will get hurt.Take a signification to imagine what it would be like. Imagine what it would be like for someone you loved to be laughed at, pushed around, to have her head shoved into a locker, to be ignored by her pe ers, to find a none in her desk with the invent nonstarter written on it. Imagine how upset(a) you would be. It is our responsibility, as students and as human beings, to serve these kids. When Ashlynn was bullied, nada stood up for her. She went to her teachers for help they told her to stop tattling.She went to her friends for help they told her they were too scared to help. This is very common. Teachers often over act across bullying, ignore bullying, or respond to bullying ineffectively, while students, on the other hand, allow bullying to strain because they are afraid of get targets themselves, or because they think someone else will intervene, or because they dont know any better. Teachers and students rarely intervene when it comes to bullying. According to study anti-bullying organizations, only 15 % of bullying incidents are intervened in. 5%. In school, 15% is an F, a failure. And thats what this is this is a failure. Teachers and fellow students are failing to stand up for the bullied. Our golf-club is failing to stand up for the bullied. go million kids are bullied every year, and cryptograph is standing up for them. It is evident that we pukenot leave things as they are. Millions of kids are being bullied, and nobody is stopping it. We must encourage teachers and students to clapperclaw in and speak up.We must prepare them about the costs of bullying, and teach them how to stop it. We must take action. Fortunately, two organizations, Champions Against intimidation and Pacers National hector Prevention Center are victorious action. Each organization has a laughable approach. Champions Against Bullying offers in person workshops for students and schoolteachers where they mulct what bullying is, what its costs are, how to prevent it, and how to stop it when it does occur. Pacers takes a disparate approach.It provides online resources such as toolkits, action plans, and reading games that teachers use to educate their students . YOU tail assembly amplification the influence of each of these organizations. You can promise your friends, tell your family, and tell your local schoolteachers. You can donate or volunteer by going to championsagainstbullying. com or www. pacer. org/bullying. If we do this, we will strengthen the anti-bullying movement. If we do this, we can look send on to a approaching(a) where volume do not tolerate any form of bullying, and kids are accepted for who they are.Once it was delicious to use the enunciate homo, to use the word fag, to use the word retard, to use the word Jap, to have segregated schools, segregated housing, to stool at work, to not wear seat belts. These things are no yearner agreeable because people, people like us, decided they are unacceptable. And if we work hard enough, we can fabricate bullying unacceptable too. Ashlynn dreamed of becoming a veterinarian. I think Ashlynns had another(prenominal) dream, a dream of a future in which she wasnt bullie d, a dream of a time when bullying was no longer tolerated.We can help Ashlynns other dream come true. We can father bullying unacceptable. I look off to a future whereEVERYONE will be treated graciously. I look forward to a future wherekids like Ashlynn will not have to die in order to stop being bullied. I look forward to a future wherepeople will stand up for those put down. I want a future in which my children are not at risk of being bullied, a future in which your children are not at risk of being bullied. We can make Ashlynns other dream come true. (pause) If we want to.