Courage Connection

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My earliest memory of bullying was in Grade 1 at my old school. It was the first day in a new school for all of us in Grade 1. There was a boy - I call him Billy - who made fun of the kids that cried. He laughed at them and teased them. You wouldn't expect Billy to be a bully. He was a little plump and wore spectacles, and his mother walked with him to our classroom every morning! I mean, he looked like a geek and a mummy's boy!Billy terrorised almost everyone in our class. He would push other kids' books off their desks, or throw their schoolbags out of the classroom. Sometimes he would trip someone who walked past him. He didn't care whether you were a boy or a girl. He didn't care whether you were bigger than him. He just bullied everyone.But Billy had a favourite victim, Julian, who sat beside me. He bullied Julian more than anyone else.


 One day some classmates and I were playing hide and seek after school. I was looking for a hiding place when I heard someone scream. I went to check what happened. I saw Julian lying on the ground with Billy standing over him. Billy was stamping on him and I could see blood on Julian's face. I quickly hid behind a wall because I was afraid that I would get beaten up too. I wanted to help Julian but my body didn't move at all. The only thing I could do was stand there like a statue.Eventually Billy walked away. I went to Julian and helped him up and asked him what had happened. He told me he had tripped and injured his face. Julian didn't come to school for the next few days. When he came back to school, I went up to him and told him I had seen what happened. I apologized for not doing anything. I thought he would get angry and wouldn't want to be my friend but I was totally wrong. He just said "don't worry about it". I felt so guilty.I think if that incident happened today, I would have stopped Billy from beating up Julian. But maybe the incident happened because Julian or other people didn't speak up against Billy before the bullying got that bad. Maybe not speaking up or fighting back gives the bully the confidence to do worse things. I think that today I would join forces with Julian and the other kids to tell Billy to stop being so mean. If a bully sees that other people are ready to stand up to him, he will stop bullying them.

My two goals are to help whenever I see someone getting bullied and to always defend my friends. I would never want to see someone in that situation ever again, I will always save anyone who needs help. But bullying can happen in many different ways, not just fighting, and can happen to anyone, not just the smaller kids. We must recognize when someone is being bullied and then do something to help the victim.

The time to face my fears!!!!!

Since I have to write about my fears, I guess I have no choice but to confess how terrified I used to be of spiders. Yes I know what you are probably thinking right now - how can a big boy like me be scared of little spiders? But it's true, and this is how it all started.

Fear of Spiders

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One day, when I was about five years old, I was playing as usual in my toy room alone. I was sitting in one corner playing with my action figures when I suddenly felt an itch behind my left shoulder. Automatically, I reached back to scratch it. Then I felt an itch on the back of my right hand. But before I could scratch it, I saw something that looked like a little black spot at the itchy area. When I looked at it closely, I saw a bug with many eyes and 8 legs. It was the ugliest and scariest thing I had ever seen. (At the time I didn't know it was a spider.) As quick as lightning, I brushed it off my hand and ran off screaming like a little baby to my mummy.

For days after that, I could still feel the creepy-crawly feeling on my hand. I had nightmares about bugs crawling all over me. I was paranoid and jumped whenever I saw spiders. I hated all spiders. I know most people are afraid of the big hairy striped spiders like Tarantulas, but to me they weren't as scary as the tiny little black spiders. They were the worst.

It turns out that I wasn't the only one scared of spiders. Lots of people everywhere are afraid of them. There is even a word which means the fear of spiders: Arachnophobia.


One day a few years later, when I was playing video games at my neighbor's house, I saw a little bug crawling on the floor near us. Guess what, it was a spider. I started to panic and shouted to him to squash it. He started to laugh and said "How can you be scared of a spider? I mean, it's such a little thing after all and it can hardly do anything to you."

Of course, I didn't listen to him. He kept laughing and refused to kill the spider. I couldn't concentrate on the game because I kept watching out for the spider. Predictably, he beat me in the game.

Later on I thought about what my neighbor had said. It was really embarrassing. I thought about my hero Spider-man who became a superhero because of a spider. I thought it was weird that I was scared of spiders yet I wanted to be bitten by a radioactive spider so I could become like Spider-man.

From that day, I decided that I should try to control my fear of spiders. Now when I see a spider, I say to myself that it really is not harmful and I'm much bigger than it and I could squash it with my pinky. It's not always easy to do and sometimes I still feel like dying when I see a tiny spider crawling near me.

I know it seems silly that a big boy like me can have this fear but I think that everyone has weaknesses. Even Superman can be weakened by Kryptonite. The important thing, which I have learned, is not to fear it.