Making the Grade

5 personal Stories

FACEBOOK
‘FRENEMIES’//
Victim of social media attack still questions why In the spring of 2010, a group of Pinnacle High School students created a group on Facebook about junior Aubrey Stecher*. She discovered it a week after its creation and found it filled with cruel comments that insulted her physical appearance and made violent threats against her.“I found out about the group because my supposed ‘best friend’ told me about it and acted as if she had nothing to do with it,” Stecher says. Stecher told the vice principal because the group was still on the site days later. Once notified of the situation, he and Stecher immediately called her parents and, because threats were made, the police. Shortly after, the school administration questioned several students to find out where the page originated.“To this day, I have no clue why the group was created. I question it a lot and wonder about it. Looking back, the kids who were involved must have been very insecure to have done something like that,” Stecher says. Stecher thinks that the best thing to do in a situation like hers is to tell a trusted adult. She advises other victims to be strong and use kindness to diffuse the situation rather than escalating it by fighting back. – Hailee Pallas

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Making the Grade

The most recognized form of bullying in elementary school is physical violence—such as hitting, punching, pushing or taking another student’s belongings. However, as prevalent as physical violence is, verbal bullying is more common and can be even more damaging as its physical counterpart. Verbal bullying comes in many forms, including taunting, threatening or making fun of a student’s gender, religion, appearance, socioeconomic status or mannerisms. This type of bullying tends to spread quickly among students, who “follow” without thinking of the harm or consequences of what they’re doing. Verbal bullying can also lead to social alienation, which happens when a student is excluded from the group or rest of the class and made to feel inferior or different from everyone else. The bully’s unspoken message is that for others to avoid becoming his/her next target, the bystander should ignore their conscience and join in the isolate-the-victim game. According to recent studies, elementary school bullying is most commonly perpetrated by boys, who look for opportunities to take part in physical bullying when teachers and adults aren’t present or paying close enough attention, such as on the playground, in bathrooms, or in crowded hallways. They’re also most likely to pick on younger children. Bullying that occurs among girls deals mostly with social exclusion. Girls gang up against a victim as way of exerting control. Verbal bullying can also lead to social alienation, which happens when a student is excluded from the group or rest of the class and made to feel inferior or different from everyone else.

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S.A.T (Student Awareness Tools)

Synthetic Evolution‘Designer’ drugs quickly becoming the new norm for high school students.
Story // Preslie Hirsch and Sarah Dinell

An epidemic permeating high schools is sweeping the nation:synthetic drug use. Made chemically, synthetic drugs include Spice, K2, methamphetamine, amphetamine, Ecstasy, LSD, synthetic marijuana, synthetic cocaine, synthetic heroin and most prescription drugs. These types of drugs are growing in popularity because—unlike natural substances like marijuana, cocaine and heroin—the production of synthetic drugs isn’t limited to various agricultural and geographical regions.

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