What makes a presentation good? Is it believability? Is it proper portrayal? Is it a few good speakers? Yes. It’s all of these and more. But it was not the cyber bullying presentation held in the media center on January 27th. At least, it wasn’t the entire presentation.

The cyber bullying presentation began with a movie that had been aired as a drama on ABC Family, a movie which would have helped us understand cyber bullying more if it wasn’t so mal-representative of the teenage population. In fact, the most frustrating thing about this movie, from a student perspective, was how stereotypically most of the characters in the story addressed their problems. Most students at this school would not act the way the people in the story did. In fact, the movie  should have been a documentary instead of a fictional drama, following real people, and handling real problems. The majority of the populous of this fine school would not act in such ways, or want to be set on the same level as the characters in this movie.  Nevertheless, the movie missed the mark, and tried to make use of too many cliches and stereotypes, making it unrealistic as well.

The group talks that took place afterward, however, were better.  The one that stood out the most was Mr. Erlendson’s. He gave us a recount of his younger days, when he was shoved into lockers, and made fun of constantly. We then heard from crime prevention expert Sandra Avila.  Finally, we heard from a young community member who had been both bullied and cyber bullied. These were all nice experiences, and they all offered some insight on how to deal with bullying.

Nevertheless, a proper review of the presentation would be: good, could be better. I wasn’t impressed, and I didn’t feel like going to this presentation enhanced my knowledge about the cyber bullying problem. The movie was uninteresting and the speakers, with their stories, failed in trying to focus our attention on the bullying and prevention aspect, except for one presentation.  They were mostly stories about the presenter’s experiences being bullied, and weren’t really all that captivating.