In the past 10 years the suicide rate in the United States has risen. In a study from 2012, statistics showed that 1 in 6 teens have thought about suicide and 1 in 12 have attempted to commit suicide.

One of the main reasons that a teenager might commit suicide is due to bullying. Not every single case is reported, and some students might not even realize when an individual is being bullied. This is why there should be a class or semester anti-bullying seminar instilled in every school in the United States.

It should include learning about both face-to-face bullying and cyberbullying. It can help students be aware of when they are witnessing bullying or if they are bullying an individual. By doing this it could potentially help save lives and even prevent permanent physical and emotional scarring.

Recently we learned about how bullying can be taken to extremely troubling levels. Two teenage girls in southern Maryland bullied an autistic 16-year-old boy into performing sexual acts with an animal and forced him to walk on thin ice resulting in him falling through multiple times. They did not help him out of the water and they captured all the events on video on a cellphone. They also stabbed him during these disturbing acts of violence and bullying.

Seventeen-year-old Lauren A. Bush, of Mechanicsville, was charged as an adult about two weeks ago with first- and second-degree assault, false imprisonment and solicitation for child pornography. She was released on her own recognizance. The other girl, a 15-year-old who is unnamed, was charged as a juvenile with the same offenses and referred to the state department of juvenile services. All three teens attended Chopticon High School in Morganza.

Police learned of what happened from a parent of the younger girl who had seen the video on her daughter’s phone. The parent showed it to a sheriff’s deputy who works in the school. The authorities said that there is no evidence other students were not involved.

This is a horrible and unthinkable deed that these girls did. Thankfully it was brought into the public eye to show how bullying is such an issue in today’s society. Not every case has a parent who would turn his or her own child in for such acts and not every act of abuse is known to someone who can help end the bullying taking place. That is why there needs to be better communication about accepting others and how to prevent bullying.

No child should be scared about going to school because they fear for their own safety. When students know the impact of bullying, there is a higher chance that another student might stick up for the individual on the receiving end of bullying. It also teaches students about treating others with respect in the future, because bullying can still happen in college and in the workplace.

By enforcing a class about cyberbullying and face-to-face bullying it can help save people’s lives and help them enjoy their lives. The topic of bullying is not addressed as much as it should be in the United States education system.