It was on a Friday. We were all gathered on the pitch after closing time and getting ready for a football match. The boy just came out of nowhere and gave me a resounding slap. I was discombobulated. I held my face and I started crying. I was very upset not because he slapped me but because this boy was my class mate but yet I couldn’t hit him back. Even if I wanted to, I wouldn’t have because he was like a feet taller than me, considerably bigger than me and reasonably stronger than me. Hitting him back was definitely not the right option. On the contrary, what I thought was the right thing to do is what I did earlier…



I had always been the object of ridicule in my class. I was the shortest and judging by facial appearance; the youngest. Everyone thought I was supposed to be their junior brother and thus treated me that way. During the third period that Friday, the boy had come to ask for the solution to the math assignment given the previous day. He hadn’t done it. When he realized I wasn’t going to give it to him, he tried to force it from me and we started struggling for the book, my book. Eventually, I left the book for him as I didn’t want it to cringe beyond repair. So he had the book but instead of just copying what he wanted to copy, he opened the book to like the half page, tore it and threw it away. I was enraged and immediately, I stormed off to the staff room to report the ordeal. The boy was punished for what he did of course but that only made things worse. Almost the whole class hated me for what I did. And that led to the event that happened after school that day.



…That wasn’t the first time I was bullied, it wasn’t the second neither was it the third. And that wasn’t the worst I have experienced. This is what I passed through throughout my secondary education and by the time I got to college, it affected me in ways I couldn’t imagine. Making friends became a difficult thing, involving in arguments became something that I dread. I started living with the apprehension that everyone I met was looking for a way to exploit me because of my stature. And – as I always thought – since everyone wanted me to be their younger brother, I thought I’d be better off making no friends.



Bullying in secondary education is a prominent, incessant and overlooked phenomenon. Most of the victims don’t report to their teachers and those that report eventually got tired of reporting since no action is taken. These only underscore the need for an intervention. This issue is to be discussed among the teachers and then be discussed in the Parents Teachers Association meetings so as to decide on a course of action. It is noticed also that students tend to tell their parents about what happened to them in school, no wonder many parents follow their children to school to discuss whatever happened in the previous day with the school authority. In light of this, teachers should have an accommodating attitude to students so that they can report any form of bully suffered at the hands of their fellow students with the hope that they won’t be ignored and that something will definitely be done.

Culled from:

http://gospelhub.ng/my-most-challenging-experience-in-secondary-school-bullying/