I found this great quote from Billy's response to odd girl out, that I think relates to the ASTI constitution.

"During elementary school, I had a friend who was very bossy. He had to have everything his way, and had to make everyone listen to him. One day, this friend got mad because another kid pushed him and called him stupid, and he came running to me. He told me that he wanted to start a group so that he can get back at him. He also said whoever joined gets a cookie everyday at lunchtime. I joined and so did a whole bunch of people. Everyday we had to make fun of the other kid and not let him play with us, to get a free cookie. The kid soon started to cry and everyone left the group hoping not to get in trouble."

I think that this fits into the ASTI constitution very well, especially the "Take responsibility for your actions" part.  This is an excellent example of the kind of bullying that occurs when you are younger: someone gets aggravated by someone else, someone persuades others to not like the person, they pick on him until he cries, then once he cries everyone is worried that they will get the person in trouble and act like it never happened.  This fits in so well with taking responsibility for your actions because once a situation goes to far, then no one wants to take responsibility for their actions so they all just blame their part on someone else.  A lot of bulling in elementary school happens because it is the best and most entertaining way to use your time.  You can't do your homework at recess because you don't really have any, you can't play sports because they can get old really fast, and you can't socialize because you just don't do that very much in elementary school.  So when all the bored and immature elementary schoolers see an annoying person that everyone has a problem with walking by it is pretty obvious what they will do with their time.  This also has a lot to do with including others.  Maybe the kid pushed Billy's friend because that was the only way he knew how to socialize, he might just want to make a new friend.  You must try to include someone before you start to bully them.

Bullying and Ganging Up

13. Just Kidding and Ganging Up from Odd Girl Out By Rachel Simmons

            I have experiences being part of an alliance, as well as being the victim of an alliance; surprisingly the one that had the worst effect on me was being part of an alliance.  When I was part of an alliance, it took a while to affect me, but a couple months after what happened, I realized that because of my actions that person will think badly of me for a long time, and possibly the rest of their life.  I had a chance to get their respect, and I blew it because we were a little different and I felt like making fun of their differences.  Unlike most people doing this same assignment, I have the shame to say that it was I who started the alliance.  After a while a started to have regrets about what I was doing, I wanted to start to be nicer, but the people who I dragged into the situation made me believe that the cool thing to do was to continue to gang up on the person.

            The reason people bully others is that bullies feel it is the only way for them to fit in.  What many people don’t realize is that you can get even more respect making friends then you can bullying.  The reason bullies choose not to make friends is because when they see someone that is different they don’t try to be friends with them because they don’t know how to make friends, so they bully them because it amuses their peers.  This form f respect that they get from bullying does not last very long, once the bully stops being mean to the person for the shortest amount of time, nobody has any respect for them because they didn’t care about the bully, they only thought what he was doing was funny.

            The reason people want to hurt their peers is that they feel like they are better and want to prove it to everyone.  When someone sees someone doing something that they think is strange they try to make them stop doing it by making them feel insecure about what they are doing.  What many people don’t realize is that the best way to look cool is to get along with others and respect what they do.