Do I have to be a jock or a cheerleader to be noticed?

No. You just have to be a horrible nazi of a person who gets off sending people to psychiatric hospitals. Then everyone will love you, you'll get all the girls.

The True Hero of LOST (somehow): http://www.lostpedia.com/images/c/c1/NewNaomi3x21.jpg

I'm Canadian, so I'm sure it's a little bit different up here than in the States. But I go to a pretty big school (about 1,900 of us). In my experience, there's never really been a hierarchy at school. Some people are, of course, more popular than others. But they don’t go around throwing people into trash cans and shoving them into lockers.

There are some kids who are just stupid and mean but I’ve never actually witnessed bullying taken to any extreme. For the most part, people will stop when told to stop. Plus, there are a lot of good students and teachers to turn to for help.

I have a hard time imagining events like those in the movie happening in real life. But I guess it has.

As far as being noticed… it doesn’t so much matter who sees you or pays attention to you as long as you’ve got someone you can turn to and talk to, be it a friend, a teacher, some kind of support group. And in my experience, someone like that has always been around.

I think it depends on the school, and since I didn't go to a typical high school with tons of kids and therefore can't really judge from person experience... I'm not sure what real schools are like.

In mine, it was more the really talented people in general who were popular; people who could sing, act, play music, play sports, etc. instead of just the jocks. My school was really small so everyone knew about everything and tehre was always someone to look out for the "outcasts" but I know from what my sisters told me that it is worse at bigger schools... but I haven't heard of people getting trashcanned.

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http://uk.youtube.com/DelaneWazHere

I can answer this question, having gone to five diferent High Schools and having friends and siblings in at least seven others.

To be popular in High School you mostly have to be an Athlete of some sort, cheerleaders count in this. Now, "popular" in American culture does not mean "everyone likes you". Rather it means "you have power over others". Bullying is a very common thing, and the majority of the time nothing is done. If you go to a teacher about a swirlie, they tell you to buck it up or ignore it. If you get in a fight, whoever has less friends, less money, or someone in the administration that doesn't like them will get the full blame.

This movie didn't exaggerate things, it's actually pretty accurate, which is a rather depressing thing. Bully victims in schools don't get support, the second they try to stand up for themselves they get in trouble for it either from their peers, parents, or teachers.

What drives most school shooters is that they have literally been backed into a wall - no one is trying to help them anymore. And, they don't even want help anymore, they just want it to stop. Of course, not all school shooters have just bullying to lead to it, some of it is mental issues and other emotional/psychological obsticules.

In High School, the only ones you have watching your back are your friends and yourself. If they leave you or are taken from you...bad things can happen.

I am an American and I went to a high school that held over 5,000 students. Since there were so many of us, it was almost impossible for there to be such a hierarchy. That stereotype of the popular clique consisting of the jocks and the cheerleaders tends to exist more in small town USA than in metropolitan cities across the US (although there are always exceptions).

But the movie deals with the stress of being bullied and how far a young teen can be pushed. While I was never bullied in school, there were students in my school who were. There was one girl in particular, she wasn't really bullied so much as she made herself an outcast by behaving very strangely (apparently her parents had made her seek counseling from a psychiatrist). She ended up trying to blow up the school, just a few days after the Virginia Tech incident.

My family has moved around a bit, so I spent freshman year in a huge high school in Arizona, and this year I am graduating from a much smaller school in Minnesota. I didn't witness bullying at either school.
The worst cases in AZ were usually between two people; personal issues that led to fistfights in the lunchroom. There was no social heirarchy, kids of all "labels" found groups of friends for themselves and groups intermingled constantly.
In MN, the only signs of social issues come from the freshmen, and they learn pretty quickly to accept everyone. As kids get older they become friends with everyone. The biggest issue is gossip, but that's something that will occur anywhere.
Maybe I was just lucky enough to move to schools where violence and bullying never occurred, or maybe I just never knew about it. Either way, I think everyone's experience in high school has its ups and downs but the thing that keeps most of us going is the thought of graduation.
I wish that all kids could realize that life gets way better after high school.

"You are the reason that I still believe"