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When hearing a tragic story of the life of a bullied child, the first thing that pops into many people’s minds are: how could it have been prevented? In many cases, the bullying occurs primarily at school, so why didn’t the teachers see this and step in? There seems to be a prevalent assumption that it is a normal occurrence and “just kids being kids” amongst teachers and parents alike, and this is extraordinarily frightening for youth. Bullying is not a normal part of life, and it’s not simply teasing and messing around with each other. In its true form, bullying is child abuse, whether it manifests as physical or psychological attacks by their surrounding community. Teachers and parents need to learn to recognize and put a stop to this the moment it is observed inside and outside of schools because bullying can cause higher rates of mental health issues, sudden and strong personality alterations, and it also sticks with a person for the rest of his or her life.
One of the biggest reasons why bullying needs to be taken care of before it goes on too long is because bullied children are at a higher risk of suffering from mental illnesses such as depression and generalized anxiety disorder, and suicide. Some individuals have responded violently, and in 12 out of the 15 school shootings in the 1990s, the shooter was said to have conflicts with bullies (“Effects”). Mental illness combined with bullying becomes a major risk factor for suicide (“Effects”). It’s no wonder that bullied adolescents dread coming to school each day, and that needs to change. For example, on September 10, 2013, a 12 year old girl committed suicide by jumping off a tower onto concrete (Liston). She dealt with two years of extensive bullying and stalking by a...
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...cal effects on bullying are extremely severe and should under no circumstances be looked down upon. Schools and communities too often stand idly by while people struggle, sometimes outright mocking the victim, or, in some cases, being told to suck it up. How can we as a society allow these children to abuse one another? Is that what we want people to grow up to think is somehow how the real world works? The real world does not work like school, and the bully and bullied alike are going to run into severe trouble down the line for what they experienced since no one ever taught them any better. Teachers, parents, and the community need to learn the signs of bullying and the ways to effectively handle bullying the moment it is spotted, or only more and more children are going to come out scarred and unprepared for reality, if they are lucky enough to make it out alive.
As shown as a real issue within high school through television’s Freaks and Geeks, bullying is something that needs to be understood and dealt with. In an age with more resources for bullies to use, the consequences are too severe not to do anything about it. Bullying is now stretching beyond the school hallways and has invaded students in their own homes. There needs to be more awareness on what the actual effects of bullying are and that bullied victims are not alone.
Bullying has become a major problem facing the United States today. The American Psychological Association reports that roughly 40% to 80% of children are involved in bullying on some level during their time in school. (APA, 2014) The magnitude of the problem can be observed in the statistics. In the United States, a total of 4,080,879 children between the ages of five and 18 have been the victims of bullying compared to 3,892,199 who have reported that they have engaged in bullying someone else. Additionally, 851,755 said that they have been both the victim and the bully. That's a whopping 8,824,833 people in the United States that have been involved in bullying behavior on one level or another. (High, B., 2000 Census)
My friend, Kevin, was just two short months away from graduating high school, but he never got to see that day because of bullies. No one had a clue; he had a remarkable family and a great group of friends. He did everything he could to leave a smile on everyone’s face, and he earned the nickname, “Cheeks,” because of his huge, friendly smile. No one understood why such a cheerful person would want to take his own life, but it was because bullies harassed him for months, and no one knew. According to the Center for Disease Control, “Suicide is the third leading cause of death among young people, resulting in about 4,400 deaths per year” (Bullying and Suicide). Bullying is an ongoing issue that seems to evolve rapidly, and the world of
Have you ever been teased? Maybe even pushed around like a rag doll? Bullying is a nationwide problem. It affects people of all ages. About 90% of 4th through 8th graders have experienced bullying in the U.S.. Bullying has caused many issues, such as depression, anxiety, or even suicide. Nevertheless, even in bullying you have players, or roles you could say. Dealing with bullying is a very hard thing to do, but with each role in a bullying situation, there are dragons to slay. In every bullying situation you have three players; the bully, the victim, and the bystander.
Over 3.2 million students are victims of bullying each year. Schools are suppose to be a safe haven for children, a place to go to be taught and to learn, but when someone is constantly
Bullying has been around for decades and yet it is still a reoccurring problem, and it is only getting worse. The National Center for Educational Statistics, in 2009, said nearly 1 in 3 students between the ages of 12 and 18 reported being bullied in school. Eight years earlier, only 14 percent of that population said they had experienced bullying(Ollove,2014). There are two types of bullying the direct form and indirect form, in the direct form the victim receives physical harm example kicking pushing shoving. In the indirect form the victim receives emotional or mental harm by name-calling, rejection, gossip, threats, or insults(Green,2007). It doesn’t matter which way the victim was bullied it still causes
Why do people bully? Some people bully because they are afraid. When people are afraid of something or someone, they decide to bully. People choose to bully, because they think it make them cool. They think if they bully people, others would want to be like them. They believe it would help them fit in with the people around. They think it would help them be like someone who everyone else look up too. They want their friends to see how bad they are or how bad they try to be. Bullies are not as bad as most people think they are. Some people bully only on small people. You don’t see to many bullies bullying on each other. Even bullies are afraid of each other. The bully think since they are bigger than another person, they have more power. Some people even bully others because they may be getting bullied somewhere else. They may come to school and bully someone else to get their mind off of what some else are doing to them.
What is Cyber bullying? Cyber bullying is just like regular bullying but instead of bullying face to face, it’s done on the internet. In America, cyber bullying has gotten out of hand during the past year. Unfortunately kids who are bullied through the internet have a difficult time getting away from the bullying. Children today walk the street while thinking or knowing they will get picked on. This has also caused teens to commit suicide. Usually teens that are the bullies have a lower self-esteem than the person they’re bulling. Teens today use the internet more than anything excluding sleep. In two thousand and eight young teens ages 12-17 had access to the internet. Cyber bullying needs to stop before more of our children hurt themselves. Studies show that most likely a female would be the most bullied. A high percent of teens have been angry, frustrated, sad, embarrassed, scared and shockingly a small percent weren't even bothered.
On the afternoon of April 9, 2010 I found myself in a meeting with Kerri Evans, the assistant principal of Pleasant Ridge Middle School, and my son Nicholas. I was there because my son had become a victim of verbal abuse. It was shocking to learn that bullying has become such an epidemic in our school system. “Nearly 1 in 3 students is involved in bullying” (Hertzog, 2010). In a perfect world there would be no bullying. Kids wouldn’t get shoved into lockers, and they wouldn’t be beat up in the hallway. Students wouldn’t talk about another student behind their back because of their shape, size, race, or religion. In a perfect world this wouldn’t happen, but at that moment in our imperfect world it was happening to my son. The question is, why does it happen and what can we do to stop it? “According to a 2009 federal survey of school crime and safety, 32 percent of middle and high school students said they'd been victimized during the academic year, compared with 14 percent in 2001” (Tyre, 2010). Bullying was making its way into my home and affecting my life. It was then that I realized that bullying was a problem that needed to stop. Bullying in schools is escalating and becoming a bigger and bigger issue, and we must take action to eliminate it.
“Researchers have conducted that at least 25% of all children will be affected by bullying at some point during their school years, and many of these children miss significant numbers of school days each year owing to fear of being bullied” (Bray, M., Kehle, T., Sassu, K. (2003). Bullying has become a major problem for our students and our schools. Children are missing educational time and are losing self-confidence because they are afraid or intimidated by other students. We, as teachers, need to reduce bullying in our schools and prevent bullying from being a reoccurring issue in the lives of our students in order for them to learn, grow and develop. Our goal as teachers should be “to reduce as much as possible-ideally to eliminate completely- existing bully/victim problems in and out of the school setting and to prevent the development of new problems” (Olweus, D. (1993).
Bullying has always been present within the United States. Although the issue has been around for a long time, it continues to grow and become more of problem. It is said that about 160,000 children within the United States are refusing to go to school because of bullying. Another statistic is that within American schools alone, there are an estimated 2.1 billion bullies and 2.7 billion victims (Dan Olewus, MBNBD). The numbers presented here are outrageous and although there are organizations to stop bullying, obviously there needs to be a new set of solutions. Any type of bullying presents problems to children, “Suicide, depression, anxiety, substance abuse, trouble with the law, poor performance in school and work, and lack of involvement in socially accepted activities are some of the difficulties resulting from bullying (Austin, Reynolds, Barnes, Shirley). Of course, there is more than just a single type of bullying. Feeding ground for bullies can range anywhere from text-message or cyberbullying to physical bullying in schools. Also, bullies can begin to strike at a young age and could also be; teenage, middle-age, or even the elderly. Even though there are these many versions of problematic bullies, the largest bullying problems take place within the school setting: a place that is supposed to be safe for children rather than harmful. Although it seems impossible to completely get rid of bullying, these are a few suggested solutions; making the school informed on bullying issues, schools implementing rules on bullying, and having students positively use electronics to stop bullying.
Bullying against teens is still happening even though there are various awareness programs to try to prevent it. I want to create awareness of bullying against teens of all religions, race, and sexual orientation. Even with the various attention to bullying, the problem still persists despite the school providing awareness, students are still afraid to say anything. Societal patterns today make bullying a difficult issue to eliminate. Starting in 2007, a total of 35 states made laws to go against bullying at school. These laws consisted of a clear definition of bullying, and how schools will be required to enforce uniform standards of conduct. The reason bullying comes as such an issue to me is because I actually know friends that have been suicidal and have caused themselves harm due to being bullied every day, in school and at home.
Bullying is something that is not something new and is actually something that society continues to face. Over the years, bullying has been looked at as being so ordinary in schools that it is continuously overlooked as an emanate threat to students and has been lowered to a belief that bullying is a part of the developmental stage that most young children will experience then overcome (Allebeck, 2005, p. 129). Not everyone gets over the extreme hurt that can come as an effect from bullying, for both the bully and the victim. Because of this, we now see bullying affecting places such as the workplace, social events and even the home. The issue of bullying is not only experienced in schools, but the school environment is one of the best places
Problems usually have solutions. Solutions could be extremely easy to find, or the process of finding one could be problematic. One worldly issue that does not have a solution yet is bullying. Bullying is present in schools world-wide, and it has been this way since there have been schools. This horrible act is accepted as part of life. People are used to bullying, that it almost seems normal. This should not be the case. Bullying is a horrific act that needs to be stopped, but is that possible? Three specific ways people have proposed to stop bullying is to criminalize bully in an attempt to deter any further bullying, to assign bullies student mentors in order to have someone guide them, or to force school or parental figures to be more active in trying to prevent bullying. Each of these methods has its advantages and disadvantages, but which is the best method to effectively stop bullying?
Bullying has become a serious problem in public schools systems. Being a victim of bullying is a daily struggle for some students. The issue continues to grow, but the question is how to stop bullying from occurring. Many ways have been attempted to stop bullying, but some are more effective than others. Having the students get involved seems to have the most positive effect on the bullying issue in public school systems.