As part of our recent Student Journals project we spoke with a couple of students from Cheektowaga Central High School. WBFO's senior reporter Eileen Buckley says they described bullying.
“My name is Natalia Merukeb. Ehete Mehert,” responded the Cheektowaga students. Both be seniors this coming school year at Cheektowaga High School.
They first had some fun playing around with our digital recording equipment.
“Testing, one – two,” checked Merukeb.
When we sat down with them at the school they decided to ask one another about bullying. Merukeb began the questioning.
“How do you feel about bullying, especially being that you are a student in high school?” asked Merukeb.
“I feel like it should be stopped. I don’t know how,” responded Mehert.
“Have you ever experience bullying yourself?” Merukeb followed up.
“Not as much as some might say they have, but yea, yea,” Merhert replied.
Then Merukeb was asked the same question by Mehert.
“I was in a situation where a student was being kind of picked on for her religion and I kind of stood up for her,” Merukeb explained.
Merukeb's response brought up an interesting aspect of bullying – how to reach out for help.
“They say you’re supposed to stay out of things like that and talk to a teacher, but being a student, I don’t think that teachers do much about situations like that, so I think students should actually get involved – not too involved to where you are going to get into trouble and put it on yourself, but at least enough so that it won’t happen again because then the person will know if I try to be mean that person this person is going to give me a problem,” Merukeb replied.