By the First Stage Children's Theater WITNESS task forceHave you had a moment in your life when you witnessed something that you wanted to change, and found yourself no longer wanting to just bear witness to what was happening, but took a risk and stepped in to make the change? How did you feel? Why did you decide to take a risk and make change happen? How was the situation resolved? What did you learn from your experience?
For example, you witnessed the new kid at school sitting alone at lunch, felt it wasn’t right that she wasn’t being included by anyone else, and asked her to sit with you and your friends. You may have worried your other friends wouldn’t have wanted to include the new student, but took a chance anyways. You felt good to make someone’s day, and possibly made a new friend.
Leave a comment* below and describe a situation that you wanted to change for a chance to win great prizes like season tickets for the 2009-2010 season, fun gift certificates and more!
*Thank you to everyone that participated in the contest - congratulations to our winner Katie O.
10 comments:
A couple years ago, I was walking out of the lunch room. Suddenly, I heard the "thunk!" of a trash can. As I turned around, this guy yelled, "YEAH, I TRASHED THE EMO!" I walked towards the sound I heard, and saw a small freshman climb out of the trash can. He had a banana peel on his sholder, and was dirtied with garbage. This kid was probably a fifth of the size of the guy who had "trashed" him. All I could do was give the kid a hug. I didn't know him, but I wanted him to know that not everybody was like that guy.
Early in the fall i went canvassing for Barack Obama. I found a woman who had been voting Rebublican her whole life. I wanted to change that. The woman was very interested in a teenager canvassing. She asked me many questions, and I answered them as best I could. When she was done she told me that I had changed her vote. I was very happy to see that I had been able to make such a difference.
I walked into the woods while I was waiting for Kellie. I walked into the spot where I always like to explore by the huge tree that was on the ground. I was so shocked and scared of what it is I saw. It was three girls about 15 or 16 years old smoking cigarettes.
I started to rush to the other side of the woods doing nothing but running when I got to the other side. I took some deep breaths and knew what those kids were doing was wrong but I was too afraid to do anything about it because they were much older than me and could do a lot of things to hurt me.
I was trying to be brave so I walked out of the woods and thought about what I should do and how. I didn’t know if I should either tell somebody or try to work this out for myself.
I thought about stuff I could do to stop them. I could tell them that smoking is bad for your health and lungs but I was still too afraid. Telling someone would probably be a better idea for me but I knew I wasn’t satisfied. So I went back into the woods to the huge tree that was on the ground to tell them that smoking is the wrong choice and it was very bad for your lungs and health. I saw them and I looked them straight in the eyes and told them “ Smoking is the wrong choice and it’s bad for your lungs and your health!” They ignored me and kept smoking. I ran away feeling very good about myself because I know I did the right thing.
Once I saw one of my classmates get bullied. I saw him get punched by two bullies so I told them to stop two times. They didn’t stop and I went to tell the teacher and they got in trouble.
For the next two days I saw those same bullies telling someone else to punch my classmate that got punched earlier. I felt really bad for him when I heard them say that. So I told the kid they were trying to get to punch my classmate not do it. The bullies left my classmate alone because they knew they would get in trouble.
When I was 6-years-old my parents were going out to dinner and my older brother was babysitting me and my 7-year-old sister Andria. After they left for dinner my brother let us eat dinner and he yelled at us to go in the basement. So we ran down stairs as fast as we could. After we ran he locked us in the basement! Then he turned on his loud music as loud as the speaker could go.
Andria and I heard the doorbell ring and we looked out the little opening on the bottom of the door. We saw feet go past the door. “Didn’t mom and dad say no one could be in the house,” Andria asked me. “Andria. You’re right.” I’ll sneak in the living room and get the phone to call Mom and Dad,” I said.
I crawled under the curtains of the washing machine. I reached for the phone and I Andria dialed the number. “It’s ringing it’s ringing.” She said with delight. “Hello?” my mother said, “Mom it’s me Andria. Ryan locked us down in the basement! Oh and he also has friends over.” In a mad voice my mom said, “We are almost done with dinner. We will be there in 25 minutes ok?” 25 minutes past until they came home and then my mom and dad got very mad and talked to him and they told him he was grounded for a week.
One day I was at school and someone was being bulling. I went over there and I said, “Hey what’s going on?” The student said they were getting bullied and then I went to go tell an adult and the adult said, “show me who is getting bullied and I will help you out.”
So when I brought the teacher over the bully left because he new that he was going to get in trouble. Later that day I told that teacher who the bully was. The teacher took care of the bully and sent him to the principal’s office. The bully stared to cry because he was in big trouble. I told the person that was getting picked on that I did the right thing and it was all taken care of.
One time I saw my brother Gunnar getting teased by a boy in his class and he was telling my brother to do something inappropriate because my brother has Autism and I was very mad. I asked the bully what he was telling Gunnar and he wouldn’t tell me. Then I told him to leave him alone and he bully did leave him alone. And I was glad I did it.
Another thing I saw was at the homecoming game this school year. A group of friends were hanging out and called this other girl a name that was just mean. The girl that got called the bad name, along with her friends, were so mad they started kicking and harassing the other group of friends so badly that they left crying.
I just happened to be related to one of the girls that got hurt, so my family and I helped her decide that she should tell Officer R. about the fight and apologize to the girl that she called a name.
I was in my backyard playing baseball with my friends (who are sisters) and my brother. The sisters usually got along. One of my friends ran to the tree that was first base. My brother threw the ball to the tree as the runner approached the tree. Immediately that close of a call tuned into an argument.
“You are out!” shouted my friend Sammy. “ No, I am safe!” shouted Ally. It went on like that for what seemed like forever. I was very unhappy and was about to tell them to stop when Ally picked up the kickball we were using and threw it at Sammy with all her might! I was shocked. After I got over the shock I yelled “Stop!!” at the top of my lungs. Even over their yelling they heard me. “Let’s play something else.” And that’s what we did.
As I stood in line for the big ride I heard a teenage boy harassing a little girl. “Let me skip you or give me a dollar!” said the boy. “I’ve been waiting in this line for a long time but I don’t have any money,” explained the little girl. “Well to bad,” the boy said.
I was in front of then so it didn’t matter to me. Something in me felt wrong though. “Should I do something?” I thought to myself.
After a while, still hearing the poor little girl almost in tears, I got the courage to go up to the boy and tell him to stop! I took a deep breath and walked to the boy. “Um, this girl was in line first and just because she’s smaller than you doesn’t mean you can harass her.”
I felt awesome to get that out of me.
The boy gave me a dirty look. “And what can you do about it?” sneered the boy. “I can’t really, but what you did was wrong.” The boy just started to walk away. As I went to take my place back in line I heard a faint “Thank you,” behind me. “You’re very welcome,” I said back to her.
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