People are awful. Very awful. Different variations of that statement was all that was going through my head as a I watched the film, Bully, a documentary on the bullying that is going on at schools all around the nation.

The film focused on two families whose children had committed suicide because of bullying, two students who were being bullied at school and one student who was being tried for bringing a gun to school.

In the case of the girl with the gun, I think that if a girl feels so desperate that she thinks she has no other choice than to bring a gun on the bus to her, it is sad. Sad that she feels that threatened in a place that is supposed to be safe for everyone.

It’s sad that anyone feels that way. Parents let their children out of their care and send them to school hoping they will be safe there too. But many don’t.

Bullying is a problem, a problem many people don’t think is there. In schools, it is ignored or administrators will just look over it, telling parents that the kids will handle it themselves, or that the parents are blowing it out of proportion.

Let’s face it, administrators can’t do anything about it. Of course kids are going to behave in front of them. In the movie, the vice-principal of one of the student’s schools said she went on the bus and watched and said that the kids didn’t do anything out of the ordinary or anything remotely violent, that they were perfect angels.

Well of course they were. They’re not going to bully anyone when their vice-principal is sitting right there.

But when she left the bus, the bullying continued.

Of the two kids in the movie who committed suicide because of bullying, one was 17 and the other was 11. Eleven. How does an 11 year old feel so scared and threatened and hurt that he feels that he has to take his own life. No one should have to go through that, especially not when they’re that young.

One of the girls who were bullied was gay and that was the only reason she was bullied. Even the teachers started judging her for it, making snide comments about her sexuality. Yeah that’s right, the teacher’s were in on it too. Someone there to protect students, to be the ones stopping the bullying, they were the ones doing it.

People make excuses for their actions, say that everyone does it. But that shouldn’t be true. No one should do it.

If teens are committing suicide all the time because their so called friends are being so mean to them that they feel they have no other choice, that’s not right. If students are scared to go to school or ride the bus every day, that’s not right.

Stop being mean to other people. Maybe that’s just one of those solutions that are too simple to actually be able to happen. But I know one thing: no one should have to feel unsafe at school, or anywhere for that matter.

Just stop. Bullying.