Have You Ever Been Bullied?

I’ve been told before that me being bullied as a kid was a right of passage. That every child goes through a period on their life where they experience bullying, and it helps shape them into the person they become. While I do disagree with that sentiment, because I feel it excuses the problem of bullying in our schools, I do think that it is important kids get the support they need to be able to grow from such an awful experience. Take the story in the news this week about a young boy from Florida, who was bullied because of a shirt he created for “College Colors Day” at his school. He loves the University of Tennessee, so he took an orange shirt, wrote U.T. on a piece of paper, and taped it to the front of him. I think it’s pretty unique and creative, but kids can be pretty cruel sometimes, and he was bullied for it. That’s where his amazing teacher, Laura Snyder comes in. She also thought that her student’s solution to representing his favorite college was creative, so she took to social media to see if someone had contacts to the University of Tennessee, and could do something special for him. The response on social media was amazing. Not only did she get a cool box of swag from the University of Tennessee for her student, but the University decided to turn his homemade shirt, into an actual shirt you can buy!

That’s how you do it folks. It’s not the bullying that helps shape who you are. It’s the support you are given to help overcome those obstacles, the help you turn those negative into a positive. Support each other.

The Florida student was teased by other students for his makeshift University of Tennessee t-shirt. Now his design is being used on official UT t-shirts.https://t.co/xmgwdg9QBl

— WXYZ Detroit (@wxyzdetroit) September 10, 2019