i am writing 2 stories for english a level, on hurt(bulling etc) like on a charity appeal. any ideas?

Answer 1

have a look on websites for people who have been bulliedand thier opinions, or look at ur own experiences of bullying with ur own school or what you have seen on television

Answer 2

* I just heard a story on KPFT Pacifica Radio about a young Muslim girl who was ostracized by her teacher and bullied by classmates, who labeled her a "Loser Muslim," after a brochure was passed out at school blaming Muslim beliefs for 9/11. She was even told by the teacher in front of the class that she needed to move to a different class, and her classmates were told she was no longer welcome. By the time the school was made to correct its policies, the student had already been traumatized and transferred, and her family was torn apart by the betrayal of the American promise of religious freedom and diversity. You can find this story at "This American Life" http://www.thislife.org in the recent archives for 2006:
"Shouting Across the Divide"
12/15/06
Episode 322

"A Muslim woman persuades her husband that their family would be happier if they left the West Bank and moved to America. They do, and things are good, until September 11. After that, the elementary school their daughter goes to begins using a textbook that says Muslims want to kill Christians. This and other stories of what happens when Muslims and non-Muslims try to communicate, and misfire.
.... Serry and her husband's love story began in a place not usually associated with romance: the West Bank. That was where the couple met, fell in love and decided to get married. Then Serry, who was American, convinced her Palestinian husband to move to America. She promised him that in America their children would never encounter prejudice or strife of any kind. But things didn't quite work out that way. This American Life producer Alix Spiegel tells the story. (33 minutes)"

If you search online for "Serry" "Muslim" "Palestinian" there
are other links:
http://www.onlinegreensboro.com/~spirit/

* I understand that in the Columbine shooting, the gunmen had been bullied or rejected by athletes and other more popular students. So I would look online for more information on bullying, gangs, and school violence.

http://www.keepschoolssafe.org/books/columbine.php
http://denver.rockymountainnews.com/shooting/1003col4.shtml

* If you need links or examples of solutions to bullying
look online for "Conflict Resolution" / "Peer Mediation"

http://www.csmp.org/programs/peer_med.htm

Other nonprofit groups that offer good resources:

"Alternatives to Violence Project" facilitates workshops and training both inside prisons and for the general public
http://www.avpusa.org

"Center for the Healing of Racism"
http://www.centerhealingracism.org
facilitates forums for dialogue and healing
and distributes a very helpful guideline for discussion:
http://www.houstonprogressive.org/CHRguide.html

* I live in a national historic African American Freed Slave district in Houston, which is unfortunately located near prime downtown real estate. The public school in the neighborhood is a "magnet" school for students bussed in from other areas, where the administration is so hostile to local residents and students, there have been many instances of bullying both the students and their families. (1) A teacher I met who was trained at that school was instructed NOT to visit or work with the local families, contradicting our training program that advised new teachers to become familiar with the community.
(2) One young boy was physically held down by a teacher until he passed out. The mother tried to seek legal action, but was evicted from her home and is still looking for help. (3) The public school district seized local property by eminent domain and evicted a local youth center that was providing after-school services and computer access to neighborhood children. This was done to plan a new facility for an outside school, which they have started building on the site of historic gravesites that the community argued to preserve. The new construction has shut down and destroyed historic brick streets hand laid by the ministers who founded Freedmen's Town, which is the last Freed Slave settlement of its kind left in the United States. All the others have been destroyed despite local protests.

So while our public schools claim to promote a "no-bullying" policy, the administration and city have effectively been "bullying" low-income minority and elderly residents out of this neighborhood community in favor of corporate developers with more power to sue if they don't get their way. Despite the ongoing protests of volunteers, residents, and advocates for historic preservation, corporate "bullies" are allowed to continue since the community does not have equal defenses to sue to stop the violations.

My argument is that if corporate developers are allowed to "bully" people to give up their property rights, community, and history, how can teachers or police do their jobs of stopping bullies in schools or criminals in the streets from taking property and disrespecting other people the same way?

For poems and published letters and reports on Freedmen's Town, please visit these links:

http://www.houstonprogressive.org/mathpoem.html
http://www.houstonprogressive.org/reporter.html
http://www.houstonprogressive.org/4d-index.html
http://www.houstonprogressive.org/letters.html#4D_HISD

For a similar case of abusing eminent domain by city officials in favor of corporate interests, please also see
http://www.scandalinfreeport.com

In this case, a wealthy businessman in Freeport is also "bullying" smaller family businesses into giving up their property so he can build a marina for yachts. "Eminent domain" is abused to justify this bullying, both in Freeport, and in the case of Freedmen's Town, where poor homeowners and business owners were forced to give up their property for the government to build public housing (which excluded African Americans until the Civil Rights Act ended segregation 30 years later).
See also: http://www.houstonprogressive.org/apvstory.html

So both cases show that bullying can happen to all classes and races of people, rich or poor, white or black.