iReporters Share Their Experiences With Bullies
HOLMES: Well, 24 minutes past the hour now. CNN has been looking at the impact of bullying in our schools. We've been taking a look at this all week. And for some children, the torment begins as early as kindergarten. In some cases, it has led some people to contemplate suicide. It has led others, as we know, in some cases to actually take that step and kill themselves. CNN iReporters, victims and former bullies themselves, sharing their stories.</s>JOSH LEVS, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: I'm going to start off with an interesting one. This is David Goldthorpe (ph) of Astoria, Oregon. He says, as a father, he is learning this starts as early as kindergarten. His daughter has been coming home about what's been happening to her classmates.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: One instance involved a good friend of hers having his pants pulled down by another student. And another student, a friend of hers, was pushed down the slide, and then laughed at while he was on the ground crying. It shocked me when I was told that these things happened already at age five.</s>LEVS: Age five. Well, here's someone else. Colin Wynn (ph), of West Palm Beach, Florida, described his experiences with bullying as he's been growing up.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: In elementary school, they would call me Chinese boy. And for some reason, in middle school, they would call me a terrorist.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: How were you bullied physically?</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Well, when I was sitting on my bus in middle school, and they punched me in my private area. And they were throwing stuff in the back of the bus, and they hit me in the head with a glass bottle, and had got minor head trauma.</s>LEVS: And he says he was confused. Now, he didn't even know who these kids were that were bullying him, what happened to him. Here's something else: A group of students at a middle in schools in Bryan, Ohio, got together and talked about how they have bullied other kids.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Everyone has bullied someone at some point in time, whether it's shoving someone in a locker, or calling somebody a name. So yes, I have bullied someone.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I bullied someone just walking through the hallways, stepping on people's heels. I've seen kids drop people's books down.</s>LEVS: All right. And we have time for one more. This is something a little different here. Jason Donit (ph), who is one of our frequent iReporters, points to the recent suicides of - of young gay students, and he says that he once considered suicide, and that he has a message for others out there who are having those thoughts.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Something went off in my head and said, the pain of me committing suicide would be so much worse than the - quote - what I thought the pain of me being gay would be. And I just want to share that message, that in my experience, my family was extremely accepting.</s>LEVS: Now, we encourage you to share your thoughts, your stories, your videos, your photos, whatever you got, at iReport.com. And I also want you all to know that we have links at my Facebook page and Twitter page there, joshlevscnn. I've provided you with a list of - of websites that are there as resources for kids, for teens and for parents. Also teach you to look out for warning signs that your kid might be bullied, or that your kid might be a bully. And those pages have now begun conversation pages, where a lot of the people around the country, you're weighing in, you're saying which sites work out well for you.</s>HOLMES: Well, and coming up tonight, a special town hall featuring a block of conversation around what needs to be done to stop bullying and protect children. An "AC 360" special report: "Bullying: No Escape," tonight at 8:00 Eastern time. Now, one of the stories we're keeping a close eye on today, and we told you there would be developments on this - those trapped Chilean miners, those 33 miners who have been trapped since August 5. We're told now that the hole that's being drilled, that's going to bring them up, they're going to escape through - they're only about 20 feet to drilling through to the area where these miners are. Thirty- three of them. Now, this is a long tunnel, folks. We're talking about a tunnel that is as long as a couple of Empire State Buildings stacked on top of each other. These guys are 2,300 feet below ground, but the update we just got is that they're only about 20 feet away from finally drilling the hole completely and breaking through to where these 33 miners are. We are following this story; live updates from the scene coming as well. We're coming up on the bottom of the hour here on this CNN SATURDAY MORNING.