{"id":16,"date":"2007-06-16T03:55:25","date_gmt":"2007-06-16T03:55:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nicksenger.com\/blog\/teen-literacy-and-bullying-prepared-to-be-blown-away"},"modified":"2016-10-02T13:05:18","modified_gmt":"2016-10-02T20:05:18","slug":"teen-literacy-and-bullying-prepared-to-be-blown-away","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.nicksenger.com\/blog\/teen-literacy-and-bullying-prepared-to-be-blown-away","title":{"rendered":"Teen Literacy and Bullying &#8211; Prepare to Be Blown Away"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>You never know where talent hides. How many shy, reserved students get bullied or shamed into silence by those who don&#8217;t understand them? Literate teens are young adults who read enough books to appreciate differences and celebrate them, rather than ridicule them.<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;d like to introduce you to <a href=\"http:\/\/www.myspace.com\/paul_potts\">Paul Potts<\/a>, a mobile phone salesman from South Wales. Paul was bullied as a child, but he found a way through it:<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153My voice has always been my best friend, if I was having problems with bullies at school. I always had my voice to fall back on. I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t really know why people bullied me, I was always a little bit different, so I think that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s the reason sometimes that I struggle with self confidence.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Paul is now a contestant on <em>Britain&#8217;s Got Talent<\/em>. Prepare to be blown away:<\/p>\n<div class=\"video-container\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Paul Potts sings Nessun Dorma\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/1k08yxu57NA?feature=oembed&#038;wmode=opaque\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/div>\n<p>I think Paul&#8217;s confidence just got a major boost, don&#8217;t you? Here&#8217;s to you, Paul, and here&#8217;s to putting an end to bullying. We have to help teens become literate, because literacy leads to understanding, and understanding leads to a world where everyone feels comfortable enough to explore and develop their talents. Thank God Paul Potts finally gets to develop his talent.<\/p>\n<p>Don&#8217;t let the Paul Potts of the world wait until they&#8217;re 40 years old to get enough confidence to pursue their dreams. Let&#8217;s work to improve teen literacy and help our teenagers see the world from a broader perspective.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>You never know where talent hides. How many shy, reserved students get bullied or shamed into silence by those who don&#8217;t understand them? Literate teens are young adults who read enough books to appreciate&#46;&#46;&#46;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"video","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":true,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[34],"tags":[406,408,278,407],"class_list":["post-16","post","type-post","status-publish","format-video","hentry","category-inspiration","tag-anti-bullying","tag-britains-got-talent","tag-nessum-dorma","tag-paul-potts","post_format-post-format-video"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pPveS-g","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.nicksenger.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.nicksenger.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.nicksenger.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.nicksenger.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.nicksenger.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.nicksenger.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":713,"href":"http:\/\/www.nicksenger.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16\/revisions\/713"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.nicksenger.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.nicksenger.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.nicksenger.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}