During my four years of high school, I have encountered many problems that needed to
be solved for myself or others in need. One of these problems I faced felt more disheartening
than the others and was a problem that I knew I needed to solve for the better of this young
child.
I encountered this problem during a school induced program called Gifted Mentoring.
During this program, I visited an elementary school every Wednesday after my school day
ended and served as a mentor for this one child, Justin, who needed a tremendous amount of
help with his schoolwork, social problems, and problems he faced with adjusting to the school
since he was a new student at the school. Each one of those days I would help him with
homework he needed help with or problems he faced during his school day and on one of these
particular days, he had told me that he was getting bullied during his basketball class every day.
He had told me that he loved playing basketball and that he wanted to try out for the basketball
team in middle school but told me he was not going to try out since he was getting bullied.
When he broke this news to me, my heart truly broke for Justin because bullying is something
no kid should ever have to face but I knew immediately I had to try and help solve this problem
for him. The first step I took was talking to his teacher as she was the quickest option for me
and after talking to her I took it to administration where I had hoped they would fix the problem
at that moment. So after talking to the administration, I had gone to basketball class with Justin
myself and wanted to talk to the kids who were bullying him. When I got the chance to talk to
them, I had simply spoken to them about needing to treat others how they would want others to
treat them and I put Justin’s situation in perspective for them and felt that my message got to
them. So after addressing the problem myself, I was told that his teacher and the administrators
had talked to the students that were bullying him and was told that they would be in serious
trouble if it were to happen again, therefore signaling it was unlikely to happen again. For the
next couple weeks, I stayed updated on Justin’s situation and he reported only positive
feedback about the situation and he continuously thanked me for everything while I encouraged
him to try out for the basketball team. This was followed up with a big thank you from the