Lindsey Bell Editor-in-Chief   I must first confess that I have only experienced high school as a Latin student, so it’s not like I can speak much on what it’s like to go to another type of high school. My perceptions and conclusions are based on what I’ve seen and heard from various sources. When I watch TV shows and movies like High School Musical, Gossip Girl, Glee, and others about “high school” kids, it makes me wonder if I am having a “traditional” high school experience. Although I think I am most certainly not (jocks don’t walk around in their varsity letter jackets, cheerleaders don’t even exist, and there is no Regina George or Blaire Waldorf who runs the school), there are certain consistencies that I am sure exist. One of them is bullying. While I recognize that no one is getting shoved into lockers (our lockers aren’t big enough for that sort of thing), strung up by their trousers on the flag pole (do we even have a flag pole?), swirlies (the only kind of swirling we’re familiar with is the kind from Pinkberry) or any other “traditional” senses of bullying, I do think it is safe to say that bullying does have a presence in our community. Bullying can simply be considered actions that put someone down. As Lady Gaga pointed out, “You don’t have to be the loser kid in high school to be bullied.” Furthermore, it’s not always the things we do, but the things we don’t do. More often than not, exclusion is the primary form of bullying at Latin. I know it’s high school, and this is just how things are supposed to be, but I fail to accept the reality that “boys will be boys, and girls will be girls” as it relates to high school interactions. There was an article written by a 15 year old for the Huffington Post about bullying. The author commented, “…Humans can be really stupid and cruel, and pretty much everyone has bullied another person at some point. Out of insecurity, out of pressure, for so many reasons. I have. You have. If you deny it, you are either lying or an infant.” It reminds me of that scene in Mean Girls when Tina Fey asks the girls to raise their hand if they’ve ever talked about a friend behind their back. Once everyone opens their eyes, they realize every person in the room is raising their hand. But that doesn’t necessarily make it right. It just means we have to keep working to eliminate that sort of behavior. Between our own personal insecurities, pressure from parents, school, and the college process, life is already pretty difficult and we don’t need to make it any harder for one another. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/11/17/tavi-gevinson-an-earnest-_n_1099735.html?icid=maing-grid7%7Cmain5%7Cdl11%7Csec1_lnk3%7C114002]]>