Ridiculed by teacher and basketball rival

EXCERPTS FROM THE BOOK

CASE 1

Jeremy, now a university graduate, suffered in primary school because of a speech impediment. The words sounded normal to him, but mangled to others, so he was made fun of in school.

'The kids would laugh at me and mimic my speech problems. So I tended not to talk...

'The worst was Primary 3. The English teacher caused the most trauma to me because she did nothing to discourage my classmates when they ridiculed me.'

In one incident, she read aloud a composition to the class.

'One student had written that I spoke like Donald Duck and that my words all sounded very weird. She read out the whole paragraph in class and the whole class laughed loudly. And she reiterated that it was the funniest thing she had ever read in her teaching career.

'I just sat in my seat, stunned... She was supposed to be a teacher!'

Jeremy said the fear affected his schoolwork. 'I hated going to school, to face the jibes.'

CASE 2

Eleven-year-old Vera came home one day to discover that a girl from another school, Laurie, had sent her several voice messages telling her that she was fat and to 'go and die'.

The same hate messages appeared on the blogs of Laurie and Laurie's friends.

Laurie was upset that Vera's team had beaten hers in a basketball match.

As a result of the messages, Vera's behaviour changed. She became thinner and often ran to the toilet. She also would sit in her room and cry.

Her mother suspected she had become bulimic because of the comments about her weight, and she would throw up the food she had eaten after meal-times.

This article was first published in The Straits Times.