I have recognized over the years that Generations Against Bullying has a great relevance. I have been apart of GAB for approximately 5 years now. There are many aspects to learning about bullying but a portion that I have learned that has affected me greatly is about being an upstander. Throughout my life, bullying has been extremely prominent especially through elementary school.

I was a victim of bullying but it actually impacted me in a positive way today. Throughout 5th grade, I was bullied by multiple individuals who I thought were my friends. These people were said to be the typical “popular” kids, which gave them the perfect opportunity to control the underdogs.

Unfortunately for me, I was an underdog. The individual bullied me passive aggressively and straightforward with sly comments about how I looked, dressed and even acted. This all came into play when a new process called PRIDE meetings were introduced to the classroom. The teachers believed that this would help make the school issue free but it actually created more issues for targeted kids like me. Almost every single PRIDE meeting, I was targeted by a group of boys. They would lie to the teacher and say that I was mean, sassy and that I bullied them but it was really the other way around. This drove the teacher to believe that I needed to be punished, which is why I was constantly watched because she never believed my side of the story.

I believed deep down that if I stood up for myself, they would stop so I continued to do so and they took a great offense to this. At that time I was a young girl who didn’t know how to handle the situation until GAB came into my life. This was around the end of 5th grade. I was taught how to be an upstander for not only other individuals but for myself.

A miracle happened during the last PRIDE meeting to ever happen. I unintentionally began to cry and even though it was embarrassing to an extent, it helped me. I told the teacher how these boys were targeting me and that I was only trying to stand up for myself, which is why I may have come off as mean to them. I told her that the rush of mean comments all at once made me completely lose my voice. Lastly, I told her that they were lying and how my self esteem was brought down due to the laughs, the names and the comments that were said behind my back. At this point in time, everyone in the classroom realized that it wasn’t me who was the bully; it was them.

That was the last time I was bullied and today, I am friends with those who were bullies because I truly believe that everyone deserves a second chance and that bullying is always caused by an event.

Today, I upstand for kids who are getting bullied because no one did the same for me and that is significant. Another time I stood was when there was a child being bullied on Twitter so I direct messaged the bully and asked them nicely to stop. This made the person feel terrible and they eventually stopped.
I have been extremely committed to school throughout my life.

It is my goal to never have a missing assignment or a grade below a B average. I turn in all my work in on time no matter what the consequence is and put in my best effort in order to become successful. I would treat my role as a peer ambassador the same way. I want to make sure that we promote awareness for bullying as much as possible and in the best way possible. I would also love to come up with fun ways to teach others about bullying where they actually commit to upstanding or decreasing the amount of bullying. For example, my friends and I love to include messages in videos, skits and even fun games.

Time management is crucial in situations throughout life. It is important to be on time to every event or deadline because if you let responsibilities pass you by, they will catch up your success rate will decrease. An example of how I use time management is during school, work and social events. In order to continue my job at Cousins, I need to be on time.

This proves to my boss that I care about my job and am responsible, which allows me to make money. The fact that I turn my assignments is relevant because without this I wouldn’t be able to receive full credit for my effort, which would cause my grades to decrease. Lastly, time management is important throughout GAB because we need to make sure every meeting is as great as it can be. We need to engage kids our age because often times, no one really takes bullying seriously. My motivation to engage kids our age would force the lesson plans for club meetings to be different and interesting every time.

I have many commitments outside of GAB. I am involved in soccer, HOSA and I even work at Cousins. I balance my responsibilities by setting a certain time to work on certain things. For example, I balance work and school by doing homework before I go to Cousins Subs and then working on any leftover homework after. As soon as soccer comes into play, I will set up certain days I am able to work. I would do the same thing for GAB; there would be a certain day I would set aside to work on GAB lessons and activities.

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