I am a seventh-grader in Finley Middle School. The incident that occurred on one of our school buses last week made many people wonder about their children's safety. I can tell you that when we heard what happened, we were all devastated but not surprised. However, we never thought people we knew would act in such a violent way and send one of us to the hospital in serious condition. The reason my friends and I are not surprised is because we see a lot of bullying and tormenting in our school every day-especially after the bell rings and we are in the hallway and stairway on our way to the next class. Students gather in what they call social groups and push and shove other students up against lockers. Some students block the stairways; they scream and curse and make it difficult for other students to pass and continue on their way to class. Lunchtime is a whole other story.

Personally, I don't think the bullying workshops are working the way parents think they are. I have an idea. I noticed that when the high school students came to our school to discuss AIDS, we middle school students listened carefully. The high school students were talking with us, not down to us they way parents and adults sometimes do. I think we should ask high school students who were bullied or were bullies at one time to come to middle school and stress how serious this problem is. We all know that when someone our age or close to our age is talking to us we listen more than if it's an adult with the same old bully talk.

We are all upset that this happened to the girl and we hope she gets better soon. This incident made our school look really bad and made people think we are all out of control. Only a few of us are out of control and they are ruining our education. I hope this problem is addressed soon while we still have time to change the situation and prevent it from ever happening again.

Sofia Christopoulos