Harrison Paxton had never heard of Tourette syndrome before Tuesday afternoon. Yet the fifth-grader knows what teasing feels like.
“When I first came to this school, I got bullied a little bit,” said Harrison, a 10-year-old with crew-cut blond hair. “I came in third grade (and was bullied) because I was new and sometimes I didn’t know what to do.”
Harrison could only imagine the cruelty he might face if he had uncontrollable body movements, like Jaylen Arnold, the 9-year-old boy who stood Tuesday before 400 or so students at Bartow Elementary Academy and described life with Tourette syndrome.
Jaylen appeared during a presentation along with actor Dash Mihok, who also has Tourette’s. The assembly, covered by a crew from the CBS Evening News for future broadcast, was the first in what Jaylen hopes will be many anti-bullying appearances at local schools.
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