Alye Pollack’s Poignant Anti-Bullying Clip [VIDEO]

13 year old Alye Pollack says she’s bullied regularly at school. Actually, she doesn’t say it – she’s made a video on YouTube where she holds up a series of signs expressing her plight. It’s going viral:

One of the interesting points is that she likes school – just not the kids in it.

We really don’t have any clue what goes on in Alye Pollack’s world, so it’s probably a mistake to read too much into what the video is or isn’t. Perhaps we’ll find out; maybe we won’t. mydaily has an interview with a classmate who backs up what Alye says in the video about her treatment at school.

We’ve got three takeaways independent of the details:

1) This is another case of a student making known their perception of their school environment. Whether it’s accurate or not almost doesn’t matter; what matters is how the student is processing it. In this case, Alye says she’s in trouble, spends significant time in therapy, and on the brink of hurting herself. It doesn’t matter whether she’s overreacting or finally breaking from tremendous stress – she needs support either way.

2) Schools can’t talk about individual cases. Every time there’s a news story involving students – whether it’s something like Alye Pollack’s video or the Christmas Sweater Club controversy – schools just can’t talk about kids. Sometimes parents will talk, but schools can’t because of privacy concerns. We can’t forget that.

3) Any tragedy aside, Pollack’s YouTube video is significant in that it’s a unique use of social media to self-advocate. She decided to set a series of placards up to music and remain silent rather than just give a monologue – and then she posted it for the world to see. What would she have done 30 years ago?