Posts tagged with day.

Nobody thinks it's cool to call people names in university

Jenny Mitchell, November 6, 2009 at 11:26 AM

Jenny Mitchell

 

My brother David is in Grade 8. As my mother already mentioned in her post below, this week his school participated in Pink Shirt Day, a global anti-bullying event that's celebrated across Canada.

"Will you be wearing a pink shirt, too?" David asked me.

When I told him that, as far as I know, the University of Waterloo doesn't have an official Pink Shirt Day, he looked surprised.

"Really? Why not?" 

I admit, I hadn't really thought about it. Why doesn't Waterloo have a Pink Shirt Day? I did a quick search and according to pinkshirtday.ca, Lakehead University is the only one in Canada that does. Pink Shirt Day is supposed to represent taking a stance against bullying everywhere. In the workplace. On the Internet. And in schools.

I've never heard the words "fag," "retard," or "that's so welfare!" said even once yet in university - words I heard on a regular basis in high school. Of course, that doesn't mean those words are never spoken on campus. But the difference is that, unlike in high school, no one would pretend to think it's cool if they heard someone else talking like that.

No one would laugh.

And, unlike in high school, it would probably earn you at least a few looks of contempt as a minimum. In university, it's no longer cool to be insensitive. Homophobic. Or to bully other people.

"Why can't high school be like that?" asked David.

I don't know. But it is one of the things I love about university. All the bullies are in the closet.

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Can a pink shirt put an end to bullying?

Kathy Dobson, November 5, 2009 at 2:41 PM

Kathy Dobson

Last night my son David asked if he could borrow my pink, striped, button-up shirt. I admit, I was surprised. Why would a 13-year-old boy want to wear his mother's bright pink shirt to school?

 

"It's Pink Shirt Day at my school," explained David.

 

Oh. Right.

 

For those who missed the story, a couple of years ago in Nova Scotia, a group of bullies threatened to beat up a new student on his first day of school. He was in Grade 9. They taunted him, calling him a "fag."

 

This 13-year-old boy's crime? Daring to show up at school wearing a pink polo shirt.

 

There's nothing new about bullying in our schools, of course. But what made this story different is what happened next.

 

The next morning, a dozen Grade 12 students showed up with a bag of dollar-store pink shirts and handed them out. In solidarity with the bullied student, these kids took a stand against bullying when they each pulled on their pink shirts and wore them proudly for the rest of the day. Many schools have been celebrating and recognizing that stand ever since, with Pink Shirt Day now being celebrated as a symbol of anti-bullying across Canada, on different dates.

 

Who knew that something as simple as a pink shirt could raise so much awareness?

 

Travis Price, the Grade 12 student who, along with his friend David Shepherd, helped start the pink shirt campaign, explained later that he had been bullied so much in grade school, he used to fake being sick so he could stay home. Travis never forgot the horror of those early years at school, when he dreaded the bullies so much he would have done almost anything to avoid going to school.

 

"I always felt alone," said Travis, "that I had nobody to turn to."

 

Travis decided he wasn't going to stand by and do nothing that day. Or allow that bullied Grade 9 student to feel alone, with nobody to turn to.

 

Fellow student David Shepherd said he decided it was time for him (in his final year of high school) to try and make a difference as well .

 

"My whole life I said I should do something, and I never did."

 

I'm proud of what David Sheppard and all of those other Grade 12 students did that day. It's a solid message to all students that, yes, they can make a difference, an importance difference, no matter what grade they're in.

 

Pink Shirt Day is a powerful step toward helping to end the bullying that goes on in all of our schools to some degree. Wouldn't it be great, though, if simply wearing a pink shirt could stop kids from being bullied every single day of the year?

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