GIST_WITH_CHADELE: UNIDENTIFIED BULLIES

“When I got to JSS3, I told myself I was going to be a prefect when I entered Senior Secondary so I would be able to stop other seniors from unnecessarily punishing juniors. This was as a result of what happened in my second year in secondary school. There was an incident where a junior student was coming down the staircase and a senior student was going up. Apparently, the junior student had been sent on an errand by another senior student to go get snacks from the cafeteria and the student was rushing to go there before bumping into this senior student. 

Because this new senior student had seen money with the junior student, he assumed it belonged to the student and asked the student to get food for him, though the money was not even enough for a meal ticket. The junior student tried to explain to the senior that he had been sent on an errand by another senior but was given no chance to explain. Not only was the money collected from him, he was flogged and also asked to kneel down by the restroom. The other senior who had been waiting for his snack searched for him and found him in tears by the restroom but had mercy and released him to go back to his class.” 

These are the type of stories we hear every day from students in secondary school especially those who are timid. A child comes home with bruises or marks or in tears and cannot explain what happened to him/her. That is enough reason to go to the school and find out from his/her friends if there was anything wrong in the school previously or if the child is having a hard time in school. These days, not being close to your children or even having the time to listen to them talk about their experiences at school could cause a lot of damage but do people want to hear this? They know but will they listen?

Bullying isn’t only done in schools by the way. You can also find bullies at the offices and even at the supermarkets. The young ones are not the only ones who get bullied. Older people can get bullied too. The earlier we realize this and get rid of the misconception that bullies are found in school and also realize that those “seniors” who took your things in school or punished you unnecessarily are bullies, the earlier we can start work on making our society a better place.