In a scenario, four guys have been sitting at the same lunch table throughout high school. One day, someone comes up to sit and one of the guys tells the visitor he can’t sit with them. Another guy spoke up and said, “Get out of here, loser.”
He just wanted a place to sit, Chris Martin, a twenty-something co-founder of Reaction Cards, a company started to bring back conversation by creating a unique way to open up. Martin is a graduate of Logansport High School.
Martin spoke Friday on the issue of bullying at Lincoln Middle School and then Columbia Middle School.
Different scenarios were given to the students of Lincoln Middle School Friday morning and they were asked to decide which scenario was bullying and which was an example of someone horsing around. After all of the scenarios were given, student Alyssa Tincher said friendship was the difference between the two.
Cyber bullying and rumors were another type of bullying brought up during the convocation.
”Once you post it, it is forever in the system,” Martin said. “Because of the new bullying law in Indiana, law enforcement has the right to have you punished.”
The Indiana Code, Martin is referring to, requires schools to provide information about bullying to students, staff and parents. Bullying, according to IC 20-33-8-0.2, is unwanted, repeated acts or gestures or any other behaviors committed by a student or group of students with the intent to harass, ridicule, humiliate, intimidate or harm the target and create a hostile school environment.
Martin told the students he had trouble throughout middle and high school with bullying. Due to those experiences, Martin was able to help create the questions found in Teen Reaction, a presentation based on the thought-provoking cards created by Reaction Cards. The company has produced 22 decks of cards on a range of topics.