Teen-Bullying

In Jamie Nabozny case the rash amount of bullying made him want to take his own life. Jamie decided in seventh grade, that only way to escape the bullying, was to kill himself by taking a number of different pills. After rethinking what he had done, he told his mother, who then rushed him to the hospital and had Jamie’s stomach pumped. Still in High School, Jamie was being bullied because he was gay, and the started to become physical. On day while Jamie was doing his homework he was beaten so badly that he needed to be rushed to the hospital, and have surgery. One of the students stated that he would kill Jamie if, he were to tell who beat him up. In Jamie’s case the court held that the school district did not do enough, or anything at all to stop the bullying. The school district was found guilty, and Jamie was awarded 900,000 dollars from the case, which in reality is not enough for what Jamie had experience on a day to day basis. At Deerfield, there does not seem to be a bullying problem because, our school has enforced many rules that cover harassment, and bullying. Due to the numerous rules and restrictions, I feel students do not bully others because they realize that the consequences are severe for simply saying something inappropriate or beating another student up.  I do not think bullying is a problem a Deerfield High School, but it does occur here in smaller cases. Bullying can occur in many different ways, such as physical abuse, verbal abuse, cyber bullying, and texting, which my make a student feel that he or she cannot escape the abuse no matter where they go. At Deerfield there are some traditions like homecoming week, in which the senior class hazes the underclass men, which to supervisors and deans at the school may seem like bullying, but in reality it is nothing more than some harsh verbal exchanges, and maybe some physical abuse if things get out of hand. Truly these are the only time where Deerfield may consider bullying as a problem, because otherwise I feel that the students have respect for each other, and know their limits in certain situations. For other schools around the country and world that experiences sever cases of bullying, new programs and ideas should be considered in order to stop bullying. In the television show If You Really Knew me, I felt by taking the students out of school and exploiting them to the program, it made the students more aware of the problem, and made the students more aware of what they were doing to one another.

Purple Heart

Matt who is suffering from traumatic brain injury, is having trouble remembering specific events from the past, but is able to remember certain details. Typically when someone has traumatic brain injury, they have trouble remembering specific events, have trouble remembering certain words, have trouble understanding certain gestures, and facial expressions, so the nurse is not allowing Matt to join his troops in combat until she has decided that he is well. In war there are many different types of injuries besides the physical wounds, which may also be permanent depending on how bad the case may be. Matt has experienced sharp pains running to his skull, which causes him to cry out in agony, and yet he does not know what he has, which is driving him insane. New tactics are being developed in the Iraqi war, because searches are being performed allowing, “Their squad to conduct searches of females after the army found out that some of the enemy soldiers were dressing as women to avoid being searched” (Purple Heart 30). In war people will do anything to survive and make it back home to their loved ones. Each individual soldiers’ has their own life, that may not appear on the battle field but shows in their facial expressions and in their heart. These soldiers are fighting for their country so that their family can be safe, and so that their children do not have to face the tragic event in which they have faced. Every soldier out there has different cooping mechanisms to deal with the emotional and physical aspects of war. Some soldiers take pills such as oxy cotton in order to block out the pain. There is a pain that every soldiers has in common which is the longing for their loved ones, which in some cases is the worst pain. When Matt began thinking about how he got to Iraq, and why he was there in the first place, he began thinking about why counties go to war. “It wasn’t about fighting the enemy. It wasn’t about politics or oil or even about terrorists. It was about your buddies; it was about fighting for the guy next to you. And knowing he was fighting for you” (Purple Heart). The soldiers didn’t know why or what they were fighting for, all they knew was that the members in my troop are protecting me so I have to protect them. War is about protecting ones countries interests, and making sure that good is safe. It didn’t matter who the enemy was, or what the enemy was doing, if he or she was threatening American troops he or she would be under fire and wounded or killed for no reason. Innocent people are dying for their country, and yet what do they get in return a badge that reminds one of all the horrible event and actions he or she once experienced.

Students and the Fourth Amendment

I am completely against student drug testing in school, because it completely violates a student’s constitutional rights. Once you enter a school facility you surrounded certain right on order to abide by the school rules, so there aren’t many more rights that a school can legally take from the student body. Random drug is unconstitutional because a school administrator cannot force a student to take a drug test just because he or she looks or acts suspicious. If a student is a member of a sports team for a school, then the student might have to take a drug test, because the school is now responsible for the student and the students’ health. I feel that only students who are evolved in school activities may have to take a drug test, in order to prove to prove that the student is health and obeying the school rules. School administrators cannot force students who don’t participate in school activities to take a drug test because those students are not involved in any activity outside of school. “respondents argue that because children participating in nonathletic extracurricular activities are not subject to regular physicals and communal undress, they have a stronger expectation of privacy than the athletes tested in Vernonia.” If a student is not active in a school activity then the school has no rights to invade that specific student’s privacy. Unless a administrator has suspicion to believe that a student has drugs, weapons, or anything that will seriously harm the student body or the school, the school has no legal rights to search a persons’ personal belongings. I feel that students who participate in activities sponsored by the school will either decide to stop doing drugs and focus on his or her sport, or will decide to drop the sport because they realized that the sport didn’t mean that much to him or her, and it isn’t worth getting drug tested and getting caught by the school for using drugs. It has been proven that schools forcing drug tests on all students in school’s where drugs have been a problem in the past has improved students’ grade, reduced the amount of violence in a school, and has increased the amount of student athletes.  

Purple Heart Chapters 1-4

Matt Duffy an eighteen year old boy who is in the Iraq war, woke up to a throbbing pain in his foot in the Green Zone which was now a medical center. "The famous Green Zone. The walled compounded inside Baghdad where Saddam Hussein had once lived. Now it was occupied by the central Provisional Authority. The brass" (pg11).  It is ironic that a medical center for America is in Saddam Husseins' old house. The doctor said that Matt has TBI, or Traumatic brain injury, which he should recover from over time. The last thing that Matt saw was a young Iraqi boy at the end on an alley way before the blast hit. The blast threw the boy into the air like a rag doll, far above the burning city. Matt awoke again in the medical hospital, to a officer and a lieutenant colonel who awarded him the Purple  Heart, which is a medal that soldiers are awarded for wounds sustained in combat. At first Matt did not want the medal, he just wanted to know what was wrong with him, and what had happened to the Iraqi boy. Many soldiers die for the Purple Heart, and yet Matt did not seem to care about the award. Matt is recovering from a battle wound, which was bigger than himself. Matt was trying to figure out what had happened to his troops, as well as himself because everything was now a blur to him. These battle wounds have shaped Matt into a different person, which will change his perspective on the war as he continues to recover from his injury.