Rick's rant - Why standing up matters

If you were on Facebook this week, listened to the radio or watched TV, you probably heard that Rick Mercer did a rant on teen suicide.  If you haven't seen it, you can watch it below. 

Rick talks about a young gay man dealing with depression, who was also the victim of bullying.  But Jamie is just one of 300 young people who will commit suicide in this country this year. 

Why do kids kill themselves?  The reasons are far too complex to go into here.  What we can say is that they're all in pain, and they want the pain to stop.  Often, they're different.  Usually, they feel alone.

I have ranted about bullying here before.  I don't want to any more.  What I'd like to see is a complete shakeup in our schools.  Why are there so many social pressures in junior high and high school, and what can we do to change it?  Why is university or college so much less socially stressful (usually) than high school? 

Until we figure that out, let's try to live by Rick Mercer's words: "It's no longer good enough for us to tell kids who are different it's gonna get better.  We have to make it better now.  That's every single one of us.  Every teacher, every student, every adult has to step up to the plate."

Three hundred kids is definitely 300 too many.