Ryan Van Meter's "If You Knew Then What I Know Now" : Bullying Dillema

The Short essay “If You Knew Then What I Know Now” by Ryan Van Meter is a first-hand account about a bullying experience in the sixth grade. Ryan has to go over to one of his classmate’s houses to do a school project. When Ryan arrives, he finds that his classmates have plotted to make fun of him. Immediately upon walking into the bedroom, he finds two boys in his class “making out”. They are kissing with their hand in between their mouths, they pretend to be surprised when he walks into the room and one of them says, “Ryan, you like to kiss boys right?”. They assume he is gay because, in the essay he describes that he feels awkward being friends with boys his own age and only is friends with girls. He is trying to hang out with boys his age, he is feeling pressures from society and peer groups to be “normal”, and have friends of the same sex, he also describes that his mother is also pressuring him to get more friends who are boys.

                Clearly, the societal pressures and family pressures did not work in his advantage, as he was bullied when he did try to hang out with classmates outside of school. And it turns out later in life, Ryan is gay. This “kiss” he saw, stays with him forever. Every time he sees a kiss, kisses his boyfriend and thinks about kissing he pictures this “fake bully kiss”. This “kiss” has obviously severely affected the way he thinks, and as a snowball effect, it has skewed his relationships and potential future relationships.

                If I were Ryan’s sixth grade guidance counselor, what would I have told him? How would we have nipped this in the bud before it escalated to the point where it is currently? The point that it is completely eating him up inside for years after the fact. If I were his counselor (let’s assume, for the sake of this argument, he told his parents and they called the counselor). First, I would not get the bullies involved. I feel that the more the bullying is talked about, the more the victim will dwell on it, thus making the issue worse. To make the student feel like they are not alone in being bullied. Though it may be unprofessional, I would share my own bullying experiences to make them trust me. Open lines of trust are crucial in any kind of relationship. It does not matter if it is a school relationship, a working relationship, a family relationship or a friend relationship, trust is critical!

 I would then ask him if he has any close friends he feels more comfortable talking with, or set them up with a peer who has had a similar experience, and they can offer tips on how they overcame how they were bullied. A thing that would be beneficial for schools to implement would be a voluntary program, where students who have been bullied join this group. They would meet on a scheduled basis, and discuss tips and ways to overcome bullying and prevent bullying in the future. The last thing a sixth grader wants is an adult trying to help them to conform and be normal, just like everyone else. At that age, it is important to discover their own identity. The less this topic is interfered with as an adult, the better. The reasoning for this thought is because kids don’t want adults in their own business. At this stage of development, preadolescents are trying to establish their place in the world, trying to find their social group. They are trying to define themselves, and figure out who they are; this includes maybe beginning to think about their sexuality.

This is a great plan to try to solve Ryan’s dilemma. Why? Personally, I have been bullied by friends and I have been the bully. I remember in high school, my mom called my guidance counselor and she called the bully and me into her office to ‘talk it out’. This “supervised talking it out” I experienced created more tension that anything. And I dwelled on that destroyed friendship until I graduated. I completely wasted the remainder of my high school career, looking back, it could have been better and I could have made the best out of the remainder of high school. Instead I dwelled on the fact that I had lost some friends because of the tension created by bullying. If there was a counselor who did things differently, I feel that things could have ended differently. I also wish there was a ‘bullied group’ that I could have participated in. Airing out problems with peers who have had the same experiences somehow seems to validate the anxieties and fears and problems that some are experiencing.

                                                           References

 Van Meter, R. (2005). If You Knew Then What I Know Now. In Williford, L and Martrone, M (Eds.), Touchstone anthology of contemporary and creative nonfiction: Work from 1970 to present (pp. 520-524).  New York, NY: Simon & Schuster, Inc.

A Vote For Reason and Escaping One's Own Shadow: compare and contrast rhetorical strategies

     After reading both of the essays: A Vote for Reason and Escaping One's Own Shadow, I feel that both authors have good rhetorical strategies. Both authors use Ethos, Pathos, and Logos when trying to convince their readers that their way of thinking is the best way of thinking. Ethos is the author's credibility; pathos is pulling at the emotion of the readers to get the audience to take the author's side of the argument. Finally Logos is logic-the author uses logic and reason as well as research to educate the reader of their argument as a final attempt to get the reader to accept their views.

     A Vote for Reason: by Michael Lynch, in my opinion, is a difficult article to read. This article is all about rhetorical strategies and how politicians use rhetorical strategies to try to convince the people to vote for them in the election. Such as, in his opening paragraph he states "What if I offer to drop a drug into the water supply that would cause everyone to vote the way you do this November, you would probably feel at least a bit tempted to take the deal" (Lynch 2012). Personally, I would not take the deal. Yes, I vote, and no, I do not feel it is a life or death fight that some people do believe it is. Further on in the article Lynch mentions that "To engage in democratic politics, means seeing your fellow citizens as equal autonomous agents capable of making up their own minds" (Lynch 2012). I also feel that this is a fallacy, considering this is a presidential election year, anyone who watches TV, reads the newspaper or listens to the radio are constantly bombarded with political campaigns, usually negative slander, trying to convince the people that one person is wrong. Trying to convince us that their opponent is not a good candidate, they are a liar and a big spender who is not going to help the economy. So, I think that people who participate in politics do not consider us their equals; it always seems as if they are talking down on us, thinking we are stupid enough to believe these negative advertisements.

     This article is not just about voting and elections; it is an article about reason. This, again, pulls us back to rhetorical strategies. Another article I found online, states that "A Vote For Reason comes at a time when advertising wants us to abandon reason and accept their version of reality, and a time when the future leader of our great empire is being sold to us as a product " (Schwartz 2012).  I believe this is a true statement...not only in politics, but in everyday life. We turn on the TV in the middle of the night, and what is on? All infomercials, which are trying to sell us their product that will miraculously make our lives easier and perfect.  Even political things, are all about advertising. The product they are selling is themselves. They are trying to make them seem like the best choice, over the cheaper, generic brand represented by their competition.

Rhetorical strategies used by Lynch are logos, he does extensive research with theorists, scientists and psychologists and confirms his ideas by using quotations from these people that back up his way of thinking. Ethos- he is a NY Times published author who seems knowledgeable about the ways that politics and politicians use rhetorical strategies and other ways they use to get voters to see their way of thinking.

     On the complete opposite end of thinking about reasoning, there is the article Escaping One's Own Shadow: by Michael Erard. Erard is trying to convince us that basically, the more writing you do, the better you get at writing. Regardless if it is writing a boring research paper or if it is writing the next new and hot novel. To put my two cents in, I think it is the same with reading. The more you read the better you get at it, as well as the better you will write. This is true because every time you read something like a scientific journal  article about the way bodies work on the cellular level, to reading 50 Shades of Grey to reading the latest issue of Vogue, even Facebook and Twitter feeds; you learn different styles of writing, thus improving the readers writing and reading skills. Like Erard says "I'm a dancer who walks for a living" (Erard 2012). Basically saying, he is a writer who writes boring things for his job (or as he says 'less juicy') than the things he likes to write in his everyday life. Is this why throughout school, as long as I can remember, we have been forced to read and test on 'required reading'? So that we can develop our own style of writing and find out what we like to read. No matter how much you like to write, you must get used to the fact that writing is part of everyday life. No matter what type of job you do, you will be writing at some time, and if not writing, you will be speaking to other people, and you don't want to sound like you do not know how to form a basic sentence, do you? The very first tip on this online newspaper article about how to improve your writing is "good news, writing makes you a better writer" (Jaksch 2010).

     Immediately upon opening the article, Erard establishes his Ethos by stating “before we get started, there is something you should know about me. I've written news articles, essays, reviews and a couple of non-fiction books" (Erard 2012) He is credible that he knows about writing because he is a professional writer, as well as being a published NY Times author. He establishes his Logos by writing in a logical and flowing format that makes it easy to read, as well as interviewing different people who are expert writers. As well as using Pathos to almost make you feel sorry for him, as he cannot write the way he dreams about writing, it appears he is trapped in this bubble of writing for his job, that he hates; but is somehow thankful for all of the practice writing he gets.

So who did a better job at getting me, the reader to take on their views and accept them as my own? Michael Erard, in Escaping One's Own Shadow. It could be that I am biased, I have always believed that writing and reading and even speaking properly helps to improve your writing skills. When you are introduced to new styles of writing in doing different types of reading, you are expanding your knowledge, and thus help to broaden the vocabulary, which will improve both your speaking ability and your writing skills. I also think politics are boring and reading about them and how they crudely attempt to convince us that they are the right choice, is even more boring.

References

Erard, M. 2012. Escaping one's own shadow. NY Times Opinionator. Retrieved from:

     http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/09/29/escaping-ones-own-shadow-in-writing/

Jaksch, M. 2010. Writer Wednesday: 73 ways to improve your writing. Huff Post Books. Retrieved from:

     http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/07/21/writer-wednesday-73-ways_n_651065.html

Lynch, M. 2012. A vote for reason. NY Times Opinionator. Retrieved from:

     http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/09/03/hope-for-reason/

Schwartz, S. 2012. A vote for reason-The stone. OpEdNews. Retrieved from:

     http://www.opednews.com/Quicklink/A-Vote-for-Reason--THE-ST-in-Best_Web_OpEds-121001-

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