Impromptu Essay This essay “Tiffany Stephenson—An Apology,” by Bjorn Skoquist is a story that dates back to Skoquist’s younger years and how he eventually found out how and where he fit in, in his new school. Unfortunately, the way he found himself making friends was at the expense of a young girl, Tiffany Stephenson. The bullying started out as threats and mean jokes, but as time went on and the other children in the class felt more power over Tiffany, things got worse. Skoquist described their actions towards the end of the year as, “weren’t especially foul, but they were inhuman” (Skoquist 13). Reading that sentence made me cringe, because I feel as if I have seen and been in situations like that. The bright side to this depressing story, …show more content…
My answer is not yes for the reasons you may think, like how I can tell he is very sorry from the essay he wrote and how I am sure he really wishes he wouldn’t have done what he did. Though those things may be true, my reason for forgiving him would be because he was ignorant. He was just a child, he didn’t realize how bad his words could really affect someone, or really even have a good concept of what bullying can do to a person’s mental and physical health. I would forgive him, only because he did what he felt like he had to in order to make friends. He was scared, coming from a small school of 100, to a much bigger sized public school. I understand transitioning is hard, and moving to somewhere where you know nobody, you are basically ready to mold yourself into whatever people want you to be in order to fit in to the community. I also would say to him, that I forgive him because if the class had decided to pick on someone else, I may have been in the same positon he was.
Though his apology came later in life, and the bullying may have made it hard for me growing up, it shaped me as a person. Although bullying is a terrible and awful thing, it often makes a person stronger if they are able to rise above all the hatred and be true to themselves, no matter what others may think. So once again, if I was Tiffany Stephenson, I would whole-heartedly accept the apology from Bjorn