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An outlier is a number that doesn’t match the rest of the data points from the set. so if we have 1, 3, 5, 7, and 39122, the final number is the outlier. Regrettably, Phoebe Prince, a fifteen year old girl who killed herself in January, is that type of outlier, a number that doesn’t match the rest of the set.
The girl, who allegedly took her own life in response to bullying, (way to let them win,) has cropped up in the media a lot recently because her bullies have been charged with all sorts of things, mainly charges revolving around harassment andstocking. This, in the main, is right and proper, serious bullying should be dealt with.
The thing that interests me is Phoebe’s unorthodox reaction to being bullied. A lot of people are bullied, and most of them are, luckily, still alive. Some tiny proportion kill themselves, some tiny portion go columbine and shoot up a school, but most come through the experience.
When I read about Phoebe prince in the news, my first question was, “why couldn’t she hack it?” Sure, the bullying was more intense than usual, but still. I’m not trying to come off as an ass hole, although some will see this post as assholish in the extreme, I’m just wondering why some people have thinner skins than others.
I think a little bullying is good for a person. I don’t think teachers should ignore bullying when they see it, but when someone walks up to you and calls you an ugly freak, or something like that, it strengthens you, lets you know the world isn’t full of puppy dogs and butterflies. I find this situation regrettable, but sad on so many levels. Bullying is a phase, a run through fire. Talk to most people who finished high school and they’ll tell you it sucked. No one ever feels like they fit in, and life in high school is skewed towards the now, it feels more important than it really is.
While bully prevention is the rage in the media and among educators, teaching kids how to react to bullying should be just as important, the message should be, “it really won’t matter. In less than four years, it’ll all be over.”
The major reason I can’t summon up waves of sympathy for this girl like so many others can is that she was an outlier, she couldn’t deal with something that thousands of kids find a way to deal with every day. If every kid who was bullied shot there tormentor or committed suicide, we’d have a lot less bullies and a lot fewer kids alive to be bullied, but that doesn’t happen.

for an impartial summary of recent events, and the things which led up to the suicide, see this link. http://tinyurl.com/yzjn6me