Bullying in Schools

Practice What you Preach

The three critical attributes of bullying are acknowledging: the power struggles, the self esteem levels, and the 3 time of bullying “golden rule”.

Throughout history and movie plots society has created this generalization that bullying is strictly a “bigger” kid beating up a “little” kid. That generalization has evolved over the past several years as children became more mature at a younger age and had technology placed at their fingertips. The “bigger” kid bullying the “little” kid has now become the “mean girl” generalization. More often groups of children are bullying a specific peer because he/she looks, acts or is different than them. These groups bully by starting rumors or talking negativity behind his/her back. In most cases these rumors or negative conversations stem out of jealousy from the bullies towards the bullied victim. Then those ignited rumors create a power boundary between the bullies and the victim; the bullies rise in popularity over the victim. For instance, Phoebe Prince, who was originally from Ireland, was bullied by girls in high school because she dated a senior football player. The new girl Phoebe was gaining popularity as she began dating a senior football player and the girls that bullied her, the “original popular girls” were feeling threatened by her, so they began to bully her. And their bullying Phoebe ensured their “popularity/power” over Phoebe. Therefore, as the first critical attribute of bullying, attention must be paid to the power struggles and popularity structures in schools.

The final critical attribute of bullying is acknowledging the golden rule of bullying. The rule of thumb is if bullying incidents with a child occurs in three similar situations then he/she must be reprimanded as a bully. In some scenarios in which a child is accused of bullying another child are not accurate. That child could be defending him/herself. Therefore, the three chances before punishment it vital. This attribute needs special attention from school administrative figures and teachers. As we already learned, bullied students are not likely to act out against being bullied. In other words, they are not likely to tattle-tale on the bully. So it is up to the teachers and administrative figures to observe bully-like situations. Serious punishments are not necessary until the child is accused of a bullying situation three times. But after that first bully-like situation that child needs to be carefully watched for the safety of the other children. As the final critical attribute of bullying, the three times golden rule pinpoints the most harmful bullies in schools. Those three chances allow the “bullying” children to start behaving correctly before punishments. But in many cases the students do not start behaving correctly. This critical attribute needs to be observed by the school administrators and teachers; after all the bullied children cannot hand out the punishments. And if the school administrators and teachers start paying a close eye of attention to the students accused of bullying once or twice before serious punishments bullying could be reduced.

The second critical attribute to bullying is located within the self-esteem of children. Children bullying other children physically or mentally have a high self-esteem level than the other children. On the other end of the spectrum the children that are being bullied have a significantly lower self-esteem level than the rest of the children in school. The bully’s self-esteem levels rise because they are rough-housing another child physically or mentally and getting away with it. The bully gets away with such rough-housing because he/she creates the situation in which the victim is too afraid to tell an adult what is going on. And it is that same situation created by the bully that causes the self-esteem of the victim to drop severely. The victim is being mentally and/or physically abused and cannot do anything about it because it will probably get worse. Bringing Phoebe Prince back into the picture, she was bullied for months upon the beginning of her relationship with the football player immediately after she arrived from Ireland. But she did not act out against the bullying. She let it keep going, probably out of fear that it would get worse if she told. And by letting the bullying continue day after day, her self-esteem level dropped so low that she committed suicide. As her self-esteem level dropped rapidly, the self-esteem of the girls that bullied her rose. Nevertheless, as the second critical attribute of bullying, the self-esteem levels of children need to me acknowledged. For it is those self-esteem levels that will indicate if a child is bullying another or if a child is being bullied.

Informational and Procedural Knowledge

In order to stop bullying from occurring in schools, students must first learn what it means to be a good student, friend and peer.  Teachers, parents, and staff should provide students with the key ingredients to being a good person; this includes anti-bullying notions.  In doing this, students will gain the informational knowledge that they need to maintain in order to reduce and eventually stop bullying in all schools.

Although, having these ingredients does not mean students will practice what they have learned.  In order to ensure that students have all of the necessary procedural information about bullying, teachers, parents and staff must assign students to different roles—acting out the good behaviors that all students should follow.  The goal in acting out the different roles is to ensure that if students do not have this procedural knowledge, they will obtain it through role playing.

See what S. Hadley is doing to stop bullying:  http://www.gazettenet.com/2010/06/24/anti-bullying-recommendations-hailed?SESS37d9ba501fcd32b4158cc614f0247243=gnews