In honor of October, National Bullying Prevention Month, MVHS students provide their opinions on the subject. They explore how age factors in and what makes our campus different in terms of bullying.

Sophomore Monica Polgar: I think high school students can be meaner, just because they have more stuff on people. Also, when high school students bully, they would know better, but they still choose to bully. I think younger kids don’t really know better, so they just are mean without a reason.
Senior Beverly Yu: Well, for my middle school I went to Kennedy, and from Kennedy to Monta Vista, in that transition, there wasn’t a lot of difference, because in middle school I didn’t see a lot of bullying either. Based on outside knowledge, I think that bullying might get worse. People start to form their own biases, and they start to really form strong opinions about who they like and who they don’t like.
French teacher Melanie Barker Lhomme: I think bullying is probably present anywhere, especially any high school campus. I definitely think at Monta Vista, probably a lot of cyberbullying and physical, yeah. Maybe just has to do with the changes in your body and coming into your identity. It still continues later on, but it’s definitely less prevalent.
Freshman Aidan Gottlieb: In younger grades it’s just excluding, and it’s older grades it’s more serious.
Freshman Nikash Narula: I feel like people are judged a lot more in high school. From what I hear from my friends, I think that we have a little less bullying which is good, but it’s still present.
Junior Eric Tan: As people get to high school, they start bullying other people just to gain authority, not to feel that they are too weak themselves.

El Estoque: How is MVHS unique in terms of bullying?
Sophomore Jimmy Li: Now, in high school, it became more focused on academics. We focus less on the athletics part, so maybe in other schools they would haze each other. They’re less aggressive.
Sophomore Momoko Ueda: I actually think we don’t really have physical bullying as much as other schools. I’ve never actually seen a physical fight.
Polgar: We’re more involved in grades than actually fighting with each other.
Ueda: I think bullying is present at Monta Vista, because there’s a lot of cyberbullying especially on ask.fm.
Lhomme: I think you guys bully each other more about grades and performance than maybe other schools would. It might be the opposite situation in other schools. People might be more embarrassed if they’re doing well in a class, or if they’re too much of a goody two shoes, whereas at Monta Vista, it’s cool to be that.
Freshman Derek Mactal: I’ve seen some schools that have some serious bullying issues. I’m not going to say any examples, because it’s kind of weird. We’re in our own little bubble of Cupertino.
Tan: In here, everyone is actually pretty respectful. We actually take bullying seriously, because we have presentations where people come into classrooms and make powerpoint lectures on the disadvantages of bullying.
Gottlieb: Bullying can make people have a more negative attitude about life, and when someone has people bullying them, the less they want to interact with society and they become a more sheltered person.

El Estoque: October is National Bullying Prevention Month.
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