School Boy Intimidation Turns Into Respect

Throughout my primrary school days, I was small for my age and being skinny left me very vulnerable to the bigger boys who enjoyed picking on the smaller boys like myself. And so I like most boys in my position felt vulnerable and dreaded going to school.

At break time I would hang out with my friends but mostly with my one friend Bryce, who was the complete opposite of me as he was big for his age, and whenever I was with Bryce I had no problems with the bigger boys trying to intimidate me, but as soon as Bryce wasn't around I was picked on and laughed at for my size and my physique.

These boys intimidated me so much that i lost all my self confidence and I was scared to do anything, such as answer or ask questions in class, as I was scared of being laughed at and mocked which has made me a very shy person, until it got so bad that I just wanted to cry sometimes, but I knew that if I did that would just give them more reason to mock me and lower my self confidence even more. No matter how hard i tried to not let them get to me, I was just to vulnerable and cried myself to sleep some nights.

Until the day I was one of the stars in my schools cricket team, which included most of the boys who were intimidating me, they tried many things to try knock my confidence I had while playing cricket, but when they realised that there was nothing that could stop me from enjoying and loving cricket so much, as I was playing with such confidence, all of a sudden all of the intimidating, mocking and jeering stopped because they respected me as a star sportsman and they treated me like a normal person.

It really amazes me that people can't treat others with respect and as equals until they succeed in something.

Althouth all the mocking and jeering stopped i am still shy as they really dented my self confidence so much, and it makes me wonder wheather the intimidation and mocking would have ever stopped if it wasn't for me doing well at sport!

''DIGNITY''

To me inherent human dignity means the right of each person to be respected as a human being, regardless of their skin colour, nationality, culture, physical appearance, physical capabilities, way of speaking and their beliefs. The world would be a far better place to be in if we all lived by this. There would be tolerance of each other.

Human dignity covers every aspect of our lives and i believe all of us at some point have failed. From an early age we are taught by our parents ''not to stare'' at someone who is physically disabled or ''not to mock'' at how someone speaks or acts but still we do this, usually when we are in a crowd no two people are alike and there is certainly no ''perfect person''. we say we accept this, but when we come across someone who is ''different'' we treat them differently, and as not always with dignity. (Not treating people with dignity can range from ignoring them, talking down to them, physically hurting them, verbally abusing them, mocking them ect)

An example of someone demonstrating human dignity would be the carers or nurses in an old age home, where my great gran was being looked after as she was too frail to stay with us at home. The nurses not only cared for her health but made sure she was bathed and dressed properly. They would listen to her ''ramblings'' and take interest in her as a person. They showed patience and understanding when she would try and get out of bed and attempt to walk unaided and became angry when she couldn't. Yes, these people are trained (and paid) to do this, but if everyone could show tolerance and understanding instead of intolerance and an unrealistic expectation of how the ''ideal'' person should b, then perhaps we would have more peace and happiness in the world.