Friday, December 9, 2011

School is not a Bed of Roses for Some Students



Watch this video and read the text below -written by the boy in the video (spelling mistakes included -sorry, the language teacher in me makes me point these things out):


To all my friends and supporters,
I made this video 4 months ago just before school was about to start. I was 13. It was a very emotionally dark time in my life. I made the video at 4:00am in the morning; I hadn't been sleeping at night for a long time, too many things going on in my head. I was dreading going back to school and I had not come out to my family yet. Only my closest friends knew. I didn't know how to say what I needed to say. All I could think about were all the bad things that had been happening at school last year, every year for that matter. I just couldn't bare to go through that anymore. I was done being fake happy, pretending hateful words didn't hurt, done hiding it from my family.
So this video was made for my friends that had moved on to High School who were worried for me, to say to them that I was going to take a stand, and to the haters at my middle school that I'm not going anywhere. I am who I am. I posted the video here and told people were to find it. That was it.
My friends were moved by the video and thought I did something important. I was encouraged to upload it to my Facebook page so more people could see it. Maybe it could help someone else going through the same thing. So I linked it Dec. 1st. My Parents saw it for the first time Dec, 2nd.
Then..... all this happened.
I never expected in a million years that it would have such a wonderful impact on so many people. I am truly humbled and truly thankful for all the love, encouragement and support from people all over the world. It's been incredibly overwhelming. I don't know what to say. Thank you so, so much!
Lastly, yes you have seen me happy in a couple short videos replies I posted; I would think that would be a good thing , and yes I do have friends, my High School friends, and I have made friends because when I came out they realized that they had hurt me and that they fealt sorry. The video is real, and true.
In the last few months everything eventually came out in the open, I felt a huge weight off my shoulders; I'm happy, I'm excepted for who I am, I'm more confident and feel stronger every day.
Thank you all, Love and peace to all who are hurting.
Jonah Mowry


The response he refers to came from videos like this

As a teacher, I feel really bad when I hear about situations like the one mentioned here because I think it is our responsibility to notice them; it is not easy, though,  when you are in a school with over 700 students and, in some cases, with 35 students per class. I do hope none of my students has ever felt like this but, if you have, please, accept my apologies and, believe me when I say there are quite a few teachers in our school willing and able to help in cases like this. So, don´t keep it to yourselves, speak out, get help. As you can see, it works.

As students, would you like to share any comments? any thoughts? 



8 comments:

  1. Me ha emocionado tu publicación y me ha parecido interesantísima tu reflexión,con la que estoy plenamente de acuerdo.Gracias,Rosa,tu blog es ,para mí toda una referencia.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Loli, Thank YOU for your nice words!

    ReplyDelete
  3. First, I think this video is very striking. He did a enormous effort to do it, but I think he needed to express their feelings and to tell somebody, even if using a computer.
    In the second place, I want to say that it´s difficult for a teacher notices these things, but I think the 17-year-old students are very mature and this is very strange in our school, or, at least, this is my opinion.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Iago, it´s nice to know that you appreciate how hard it must have been for him to ask for help this way.
    I thank you for your words about the difficulty to notice these problems; it´s comforting to know students find this kind of bullying uncommon in our school

    ReplyDelete
  5. Things like this guy happen.
    This is the fault of SOCIETY n people who dont appreciate another,thats intolerant.
    This video its interesting for us and for everyone.
    As for Jonah, he must be STRONG and fight against bullying.

    ReplyDelete
  6. I agree we should blame society but we are all part of it so it is in our hands to change it.
    As a first step, I think we should all talk about it, say what we think, stand on the side of those who are "different" from the vast majority to prove we care and, definitely, defend them in the case of bullying.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Alba Vázquez López14 December, 2011

    When I saw this video, I really felt sad about Johan, because getting bullying must be really hard, and after watching things like this, you realised how lucky you are for beeing in a high school like ours, where at least, in the BAC, I think this things don't happen. We are mature enough to behave ourselves in a good way with the others and to respect them, no matter how they are.
    In my opinion, he was very brave to put this video on Facebook.In the philosophy lesson we talked today about who thinks men are good and if they aren't, it's because they don't know how to do things better. Johan's words, after the video was publish, reminded me that, because everybody realised how bad they were with him, and they tried to help him. It's better late then never.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Alba, I like your comment, especially the part about our school.

    ReplyDelete

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...