Photo courtesy of Working Word

Bullying is a sore subject to most people. Most of us have been either the victims of a bully, or have been a bully ourselves. Either way, people just don’t like to talk about it.

This was brought to the forefront of many media outlets last week as a viral video depicted a disturbing case of bullying. Karen Klein, a 68-year-old public school bus monitor, was shown trying to ignore the vicious taunts of a bus load of middle school students. Klein chose not to press charges against the 12 and 13-year-old offenders because, after all, they are just children.

This instance has had its fair share of media coverage and will soon fade form the national spotlight. Bullying in Columbia is a problem. Or is it? Instances of violence in our public schools have been significant enough to draw some media attention. Luckily none of them come anywhere close to deserving national attention.

The Columbia Public School system has been proactive in its efforts to curb bullying in its schools. One of these programs is called U Matter, a website used to educate Columbia’s youth about bullying, drugs, tobacco and other problems children face.