Bullying in schools is the greatest pandemic that has never been effectively addressed. I believe that what you are about to read will address it as never before. Implement a nationwide anti-bullying program as follows: Create an online forum for children starting in the 3rd grade. Give them 2 topics to write about per month. After they post their thoughts on the topic they can then see the responses that others have made on the topic. They will then be required to respond to no less than 3 posts. After the topic closes and after classroom discussion, they can then go back and add to their posts as to why their thoughts and feelings have or have not changed and why or why not. The idea is to keep these bullying topics in the forefront of their minds to have them think more critically about bullying and the negative ripple effect that bullying has. Older students will be required to do 1 paper per semester on a bully topic of their choosing so as to gain greater insight to the cancer that bullying is so we can more effectively cut it out of the hearts and minds of our young people. Maybe then 5000 American children won’t commit suicide over it every year and the devastating effects that it can have won’t carry on throughout their lives as they enter society.
What Is Bullying
Bullying is unwanted, aggressive behavior among school aged children that involves a real or perceived power imbalance. The behavior is repeated, or has the potential to be repeated, over time. Both kids who are bullied and who bully others may have serious, lasting problems.
In order to be considered bullying, the behavior must be aggressive and include:
- An Imbalance of Power: Kids who bully use their power—such as physical strength, access to embarrassing information, or popularity—to control or harm others. Power imbalances can change over time and in different situations, even if they involve the same people.
- Repetition: Bullying behaviors happen more than once or have the potential to happen more than once.
Bullying includes actions such as making threats, spreading rumors, attacking someone physically or verbally, and excluding someone from a group on purpose.
| I. | About thirty percent of students in the United States are involved in bullying on a regular basis either as a victim, bully or both. In about 85 percent of bullying cases, no intervention or effort is made by a teacher or administrator. For every suicide among young people, there are at least 100 suicide attempts (bullyingstatistics.org). Now, if you will, picture society at large as a pond and then picture bullying as being everything from pebbles to boulders being dropped in the pond. Stop dropping them in the pond and the waters, society, will calm. |
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| II. | So what makes me an authority on bullying? The Jim Crow laws were abolished in the South the same year I started the first grade. My hometown of Michigan City, Indiana, was rife with racial tensions and gang violence by the time I was in the sixth grade, I also have 7 brothers and sisters – I’m the third youngest. As a police officer I was often witness to criminal actions by other police officers. I made the unfortunate mistake of reporting one of my fellow officers for a blatant civil rights violation and as a result had to fight my way through an 18 month long Code Red against other fellow officers. That ended 35 years ago, that’s a lot of time to think. |
| III. | One way or another everyone in this room has been affected, directly or otherwise, by bullying. One way or another everyone in this room has been a bully at one time or another, even if it’s being a bully by proxy when you see bullying occur and turn a blind eye to it. One way or another, it’s got to stop. |
| IV. | Bullying is a preventable tragedy that affects everyone, directly or otherwise, and institutes of higher learning have both a responsibility and an obligation to address it in all its forms in order to raise awareness in regard to both its long and short term effects. Classroom discussions coupled with a grading and reward system attached to an online forum that requires students to post and do peer reviews can focus for an entire school year on the most pressing issues faced by students today. |
- Bullying is unwanted, aggressive behavior that involves a real or perceived power imbalance. The behavior is also repeated, or has the potential to be repeated, over time.
a. Bullying includes actions such as making threats, spreading rumors, attacking someone physically or verbally, or excluding someone from a group on purpose (What Is Bullying | StopBullying.gov). - Bullying is anything that one person does that diminishes, demeans, or degrades, or humiliates another.
a. It might be in the form of a joke or a prank, a common disguise for the bully is to mask their intentions under the auspices of “just having a little fun.” - Bullying is anything that causes another person feel unwanted, unloved, unneeded, intimidated, or afraid.
a. It’s anything that causes another to feel isolated, picked on, hated or disliked; it’s anything that pushes someone to a breaking point that makes them want to push back – and it’s here that the bully meme begins to create what ripples through the societal structures we inhabit.
This year alone it is reported that over 13 million American children will be bullied at school, on the bus, online, at home, on their cell phones, on the streets, making bullying the most common form of violence that children face today in America (http://smith3176.hubpages.com).
When it comes to verbal bullying, this type of bullying is the most common type with about 77 percent of all students being bullied verbally in some way or another including mental bullying or even verbal abuse. These types of bullying can also include spreading rumors, yelling obscenities or other derogatory terms based on an individual’s race, gender, sexual orientation, religion, etc. Out of the 77 percent of those bullied, 14 percent have a severe or bad reaction to the abuse, according to recent school bullying statistics. These numbers make up the students that experience poor self-esteem, depression, anxiety about going to school and even suicidal thoughts (bullycide) as a result of being bullied by their peers. Also as part of this study, about one in five students admitted they are responsible for bullying their peers. Almost half of all students fear harassment or bullying in the bathroom at school, according to these school bullying statistics. As a result of this fear and anxiety of being bullied, many students will make excuses or find ways around going to school. School bullying statistics also reveal that teens ages 12-17 believe they have seen violence increase at their schools. In fact, these numbers also show that most violent altercations between students are more likely to occur on school grounds than on the way to school for many teens.
One of the most unfortunate parts of these school bullying statistics is that in about 85 percent of bullying cases, no intervention or effort is made by a teacher or administration member of the school to stop the bullying from taking place. However, now that more and more schools are taking an active approach to cut down on the number of students that live in fear of being bullied, the numbers will go down.
The statistics on bullying and suicide are alarming:
- Suicide is the third leading cause of death among young people, resulting in about 4,400 deaths per year, according to the CDC. For every suicide among young people, there are at least 100 suicide attempts. Over 14 percent of high school students have considered suicide, and almost 7 percent have attempted it.
- Bully victims are between 2 to 9 times more likely to consider suicide than non-victims, according to studies by Yale University
- A study in Britain found that at least half of suicides among young people are related to bullying
- 10 to 14 year old girls may be at even higher risk for suicide, according to the study above
- According to statistics reported by ABC News, nearly 30 percent of students are either bullies or victims of bullying, and 160,000 kids stay home from school every day because of fear of bullying
Bully-related suicide can be connected to any type of bullying, including physical bullying, emotional bullying, cyberbullying, and sexting, or circulating suggestive or nude photos or messages about a person.
Some schools or regions have more serious problems with bullying and suicide related to bullying. This may be due to an excessive problem with bullying at the school. It could also be related to the tendency of students who are exposed to suicide to consider suicide themselves.
Some of the warning signs of suicide can include:
- Showing signs of depression, like ongoing sadness, withdrawal from others, losing interest in favorite activities, or trouble sleeping or eating
- Talking about or showing an interest in death or dying
- Engaging in dangerous or harmful activities, including reckless behavior, substance abuse, or self injury
- Giving away favorite possessions and saying goodbye to people
- Saying or expressing that they can’t handle things anymore
- Making comments that things would be better without them
If a person is displaying these symptoms, talk to them about your concerns and get them help right away, such as from a counselor, doctor, or at the emergency room.
Types of Bullying
There are three types of bullying:
- Verbal bullying is saying or writing mean things. Verbal bullying includes:
- Teasing
- Name-calling
- Inappropriate sexual comments
- Taunting
- Threatening to cause harm
- Social bullying, sometimes referred to as relational bullying, involves hurting someone’s reputation or relationships. Social bullying includes:
- Leaving someone out on purpose
- Telling other children not to be friends with someone
- Spreading rumors about someone
- Embarrassing someone in public
- Physical bullying involves hurting a person’s body or possessions. Physical bullying includes:
- Hitting/kicking/pinching
- Spitting
- Tripping/pushing
- Taking or breaking someone’s things
- Making mean or rude hand gestures
- 40% of young people were bullied in the last 12 months
- 6% of all young people had experienced bullying daily. 9% between once a week and once a month.
- Most common form of bullying was name calling (including via text and email) at 26%, followed by exclusion from social groups at 18%
- 21% of children who had experienced bullying daily had truanted in the last 12 months - 3 times the proportion of those who were not bullied. Young people who had experienced bullying daily also most likely to truant for the longest period of time. Girls almost twice a likely to truant because of bullying than boys.
- 24% of children bullied most days also most likely to be kept off school by their parents.
- 15% of children who had experienced bullying daily had been excluded from school in the last 12 months (compared to 5% of children not bullied)
- 1 in 4 young people with SEN (special educational needs) experienced violence (actual or threatened)
- Actual violence was more likely to always take place at school compared to other forms of bullying
- Almost 1 in 4 pupils reported they were bullied a lot or always
- Pupils in receipt of Free School Meals (FSM) (28%) and those with special educational needs or disabilities (SEND) (29%) are significantly more likely to be frequently bullied.
- 6% of pupils report frequently bullying others.
- 5% of pupils report frequently being bullied online.
- Pupils who report being bullied, either face to face or online, have poorer experiences at school than those not being bullied.
- Pupils who report bullying others, either face to face or online, are the most likely to report poor experiences at school.
- Disabled children and those with SEN were around twice as likely to be bullied.
- The risk of being frequently bullied declined with age.
- Males were more likely to be victimised than females.
- Disabled children and those with SEN were three times more likely to both be bullied and bully others (‘bully-victims).
- Pupils at secondary schools are significantly more likely to report having poor school experiences than primary, infant and other schools.
- Both pupils that are bullied and those that report bullying others are significantly more likely to report that they don’t feel they belong at school, they don’t get on with their teachers, they don’t feel safe at school and they don’t like going to school.
- Pupils who have been bullied and those who bully others (both face to face and online) are significantly more likely to report poor wellbeing – with those who bully the most likely to report poor wellbeing.
- Pupils at secondary school have the poorest wellbeing compared to those at primary, infant and other schools.