Jensen Curtiss, who graduated from Alliance High School in May, said she was bullied a lot during her elementary school years, and she didn’t have many close friends in middle school or high school. However, she never let herself get down because of that, and she set some lofty goals for herself academically and career-wise. She ended up graduating at the top of her class with a 4.0 GPA, and now she’s attending MIT, a prestigious college in Massachusetts, with the goal of earning a degree that will help her “try to make the world a better place in my own way.”
JEFF FIELDER Editor
ALLIANCE – Jensen Curtiss remembers going to dance lessons when she was about 5 years old. But it wasn’t always a fun experience for her. A few of the other kids, she said, would sometimes make her feel bad.
“Sometimes I would be called a crybaby until I cried,” said Jensen, who graduated from Alliance High School in May. “It made me a very anxious child.”
Later in elementary school, Curtiss said she was bullied again by other kids.
“I was bullied pretty hard-core,” she said. “Some kids would make hurtful comments to me, and other things would happen to me. Like one time, a girl tripped me on the playground for no reason, and there was another time when another girl wanted to fight me, just because she was bigger than I was. I was awkward and sensitive, and those are pretty exploitable traits for a kid to be bullied for.”
Things did get better for Curtiss in middle school and high school. She wasn’t bullied anymore, but she still felt like an outcast.
“In middle school I kind of established myself as the awkward loner, so there really was no point in bullying me,” she said. “I just did my own thing most of the time. No one really wanted to be around me, so I never had super close friends in high school other than a couple exceptions, and I still treasure those friendships greatly.”
Although Curtiss said she didn’t have a great experience socially in middle school or high school, she didn’t let that get her down.
“I just latched on to the joys in my life, like my family, and I focused on that rather than focusing on the negatives,” she said. “That’s what got me through it.”
The full story is in the October issue of Nspire Today! magazine. A one-year subscription (12 issues) is only $15. You may sign up for a subscription by sending $15 to Nspire Today!, P.O. Box 454, Scottsbluff, NE 69363, or you may pay with a credit card by calling 308-220-8865. If you would like to increase your subscription to $20, Nspire Today! will donate the extra $5 in November to the Veterans & Military Families Emergency Relief Organization.
Nspire Today! magazine is also available at locations listed below.
