Although it’s been nearly 30 years since Jodee Blanco graduated from Carl Sandburg High School in Orland Park she readily admits the pain of bullying experienced from fifth grade through high school persists to this day.
But Blanco also turned torment into triumph as a best-selling author and anti-bullying activist who travels the nation carrying a message of hope to students, parents and teachers.
The 46-year-old southwest suburban resident told 500 local educators that they can help kids avoid Blanco’s experiences during an appearance Oct. 19 at Aurora University’s Crimi Auditorium.
“Bullying is not just acts of cruelty,” Blanco said. “It’s the subtle, chronic, deliberate omission of kindness and compassion … I tell kids if you and your group of friends go out of your way to exclude someone, if you never invite them to anything, if they are invisible to you in the hall, you are a bully.
“If we don’t take this subject seriously, we are sending wounded people into the world every year in June on graduation day.”
Blanco is the author of “Please Stop Laughing at Me, ” her New York Times bestselling autobiography. A sequel – “Please Stop Laughing at Us” — has accounts of speaking about her experiences and offers suggestions for kids and families similarly afflicted.
During her two-hour appearance, Blanco told a wrenching tale of how bullying intensified in middle school and continued through her high school days until her 2002 graduation.
An successful entertainment industry publicist and author, Blanco said she was shaken by the 1999 school shootings at Colorado’s Columbine High School where two students killed 12 classmates, a teacher and themselves.
“I didn’t just feel my heart going out to those innocent victims; for a split second I felt my heart going out to the killers, too,” she said. “What they did was wrong, what they did was unspeakable. But I understood what could have driven those two already mentally ill boys to such a desperate place inside of their heads.
“Because exactly 20 years earlier, I tried to do something similar. I was so tired of being called ugly and stupid … I just wanted it to stop.”
Blanco said she never acted on her frustration. A knife she tried to take to school was discovered by her mother.
And her story eventually had a happy ending. Blanco married a fellow classmate she had admired from afar. And at her 20th high school reunion, former tormentors finally accepted her and some even apologized for their behavior.
“My story has an amazing ending, but there are kids in your lives, in your futures, whose stories won’t unless you take action,” she said. “Don’t be a bystander.”
Blanco’s appearance and book signings were sponsored by Aurora University’s College of Education as part of National Bullying Prevention Month.
