Bullying Is a Known Cycle of Life That Happens in Schools Everywhere. It May Not Be As

Julie Woodward

Kate Kimball

ENGL 1010-092

11/12/2012

Bullying is a known cycle of life that happens in schools everywhere. It may not be as big of a deal as people mature, but what I’m talking about is child bullying. Childhood between the ages of 6-12 is a very confusing time as it is; they are old enough to understand what’s going on, but not how to control their emotions. Being harassed opens children up to be vulnerable to many emotional disorders that may develop at a later stage. They start losing focus on their school work and start to become depressed.With new technologies, social networking sites, and cell phones it is just becoming another form of bullying. Although there are over 40 states that have anti-bullying laws that require schools to set policies to prevent bullying, I believe there is still not enough being done.

It is a controversial subject because it is hard to target who started the bullying, and hard to tell who saw the bullying, and it causes harm to ones psychological, social, and emotional well-being. The big concern is the repercussions of what come from what may seem like a juvenile behavior, has on the victim. There have been many instances of bullying being directly related to a drop in grades, poor attendance, and suicide being committed from trying to escape the torments of their bullies. Also the evidence that’s provided showing shootings, such as the Columbine shooting was a cause due to being treated poorly by his class-mates. Their self-esteem is being destroyed daily, yet they are forced to go to school and endure it every day. Victims of bullying are 2.5 times more likely to binge drink or abuse marijuana. Teachers and facilitators could make a huge difference if they put a stop to it when they recognize these actions going on.

What I am hoping to find out from researching this topic is to find out the true causes of this mistreatment, therefore how to put an end to it. How does bullying at different ages in a child’s life effect their growth? How intense is the bullying to the victim? Why aren’t teachers and facilitators recognizing, or doing anything about it? What is the relationship in adolescent cruelty and suicide? When do we know the difference between friendly teasing, and hurtful bullying? What causes the bullies to make fun of their classmates? What changes can be made to prevent this from growing? What consequences are being made, if any, to these children who provoke the innocent? If laws are in place for schools across America to prevent it, what action is being done to ensure its being enforced?

I have many questions that I am hoping to find the answer for. What more can be done, and how can we monitor it’s progress or penalize it’s failure?

Beane, Allan L. The Bully Free Classroom: Over 100 Tips and Strategies for Teachers K-8 Minneapolis: Free Spirit Publishing, 2009. Print.

This book had a lot of useful information on what teachers can look for in schools, which gave me a great comparison on what is really being done. There was a survey in the book used to determine who is a bully, who is being bullied, and what to look for. This book was divided into 3 major parts in creating a positive classroom, helping bullies and most important of all helping victims. It vastly distinguishes the difference in an emotional or verbal bully which explains that people don’t usually recognize in that sense. It has pages with lists and charts that teachers can use to identify the bully. It teaches that this is an increasing issue that convinces us it needs to be dealt with.

Beane shows his credibility in this book by the fact that he is a professor in the Department of Special Education at Murray State University in Kentucky. His specialty is to develop violence-preventative programs for public schools and teacher workshops. He explains that no anti-bullying program can initiate inside of schools without the help of the administration, teachers and parents working together. He seriously researched this information and put importance on the issue, just being aware is such a basic principle, so why aren’t we even capable of doing that?

This book gave some very good information for me about what to look for and what teachers are supposed to be looking for, but it didn’t go in depth to many of the effects of bullying. For example, are we really doing enough, what is really happening to these children that are frequently being bullied. It goes into that we all have the tools to know what to look for, but there is no incentive for pushing teachers to help stop this when they see it. It’s one thing to know, another to do.

Chuang, Stephanie “Controversial Humor or Cyber-Bullying on Facebook” NBC Bay AreaUpdated 8:52 AM PST. 2012 NBCUniveral, Inc. Friday Oct. 5, 2012. News clip.Accessed Nov.17, 2012.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, nearly 30% of children in the United States have been bullied or bullied someone else and is a growing concern as the popularity for websites like Facebook continue to increase. A 5 year old girl named Adalia loves playing dress up and performing for a crowd, sometimes around 5 million people. She was born with a condition called Progeria, which speeds up aging in children. As the parents try to spread support for her daughter, the cyber-bullying for her begins. They start aiming insults and sexual innuendos at her on a Facebook page about her appearance. Not only are there sexual captions on her pictures, but sayings about her dying or wanting to hurt her. Because of her public interest people are allowed to speak freely about her, although there is also a rule saying that it is not allowed to direct abusive behavior such as medical conditions to private individuals. This is a controversial topic because of those factors but since she has a “public figure” Facebook page, the company’s hands are tied.

I found this news clip to be very informative in stating facts about bullying and why this topic is controversial. They learned that these insult pages were created by teenager’s but with cyber-bullying it is to hard to put a target on anyone. The question remains, “What power do school districts have when it comes to cyber-bullying? The responsibility, her mom decides, falls on the parents to educate their children on this topic.

I liked this news clip because it gave a lot of hot topics concerning to laws on social networking sites that are popular right now, and what control they have. It didn’t go as deep as the other articles, although it did give some statistics, it didn’t seem like it answered too many of my questions. I agree with the fact that the parents have a responsibility to educate their children, but I don’t agree that they have a big say in what happens at schools, for they are not able to see what is happening in the classroom daily.

ProQuest Staff. "At Issue: Bullying." ProQuest LLC. 2012: n.pag. SIRS Issues Researcher.Web. 13

Nov 2012.

ProQuest Staff has brought up some very strong points on the issue of bullying. It describes bullying as a form of abuse that can be physical or emotional. It is happening at schools everyday whether we choose to acknowledge it or not. The consequences that come after are very unpleasant, even fatal. These children are becoming depressed at a very young age, and lose interest in their studies. A very traumatic story is brought up stating recently criminal charges were being filed against nine high-school students in Massachusetts after a 15-year-old girl they had harassed hung herself. By guess is that this wasn’t just a recent occurrence, that she had been continually bullied in the past. Decisions like those don’t usually come up from a one-time instance, but build up over time. There are over 40 states that have anti-bullying laws that require schools to set policies to prevent bullying, but this article states that many think more needs to be done. Demanding that teachers need to have more training on recognizing it, or even criminalize bullying behaviors and hold schools responsible if they fail to act when bullying occurs.

I felt that this was a reliable source and gave me a lot of the information I was looking for like how others feel on the issue, the consequences victims suffer, and studies are relations to depression and suicide. It not only talks about what happens psychologically, but what consequences come from the victims being bullied. There are additional quotes from teachers stating their opinion, which shows this article was credible in doing their research.

While it didn’t go in depth to many of the questions I had, it gave me a great starting point to help me understand the issue at hand. I was able to learn what laws are currently out there, and also what laws a lot of others believes there needs to be. Learning the take on the traumatic experience of the results bullying has, opened my eyes to what little attention this big issue is. The impact of such a “small” act is tremendous and should not be dealt with lightly. We need to think of what other factors contribute to this behavior and how to stop it.

Ronning, John A. Cross-informant agreement about bullying and victimization among 8-year-olds: whose information best predicts psychiatric caseness 10-15 years later? Andre Sourander, Kristi Kumpulainen, TuulaTamminen, SoljaNiemele. Social Psychiatry & Psychiatric Epidemiology; Jan2009, Vol. 44 Issue 1, p15-22, 8p, 2. Charts Article

This study gave information about whose information between the child, parent or teacher about childhood bullying and victimization carried the strongest weight to late adolescent psychiatric outcome. The predictions on the frequency of bullying made vast differences in how the correlations between how boys at 8 were matched up with disorders 10-15 years later. This study presented the effect of what was presented as “sometimes bullying” had to when it was labeled “frequent bullying” by the victim. While the ones who said they were bullied infrequently carried low results, the adverse outcome on those who said they were bullied frequently had direct associations with psychological disorders in later years. It is important for the education system to keep an eye on detecting bullying to prevent later adverse outcomes.

I thought this was a reliable source because of the studies they did and statistics they had proving their answers on the matter. It gave me information on the bullies themselves, that they are more rejected and less popular, making them bully to feel better about themselves. They tend to be more aggressive and are associated with depression and emotional disorders. While victims are more socially isolated and rejected, have fewer friends and show signs of helplessness. I thought this information would help with a few of my questions.

While this did have very useful information, it was kind of hard to follow with how many different authors they had participating in this study and all the different factors involved. It had many confusing statistics while showing how the teachers saw it, parents, then to children predicting the effects in later years made me confused with which meant what. It did not have direct correlation to what each factor meant to statistics. It did however give me a sureness on the question about whether children who were bullied had consequences in later years and the answer is yes. It says based on their studies, without a doubt bullying has both short-term and long-term effects on the victim. It effects their long-term psychological development and it is essential to give it the attention it deserves.

Weddle, Daniel B. "When Will Schools Take Bullying Seriously?." TRIAL. Oct. 2003: 18+. SIRS

Issues Researcher.Web. 18 Nov 2012.

Weddle’s writings on his facts of bullying are very enlightening and knowledgeable. He talks about what the schools influence has on the effects of bullying. Bullying does not start off as a “forest fire” he explains, it starts off as lighting a match to test the limits to see what the adults reactions is to it. Unfortunately, this act of mildly aggressive behavior returns little attention by school officials. Bullying can destroy the victims desire to learn or even live and can follow them into debilitation long into adulthood. They have the choice to continue to suffer, stay away from school or to retaliate, which aren’t healthy options. It is defined as persistent, persuasive harassment that may be emotional or physical. It harms not only the victim, but the bystanders and the one bullying-who has a remarkable high probability of criminal conviction in the future. He describes that the reason that prevention is not happening by teachers is because they are seldom held liable for serious outbreaks of violence among students, much less for the constant harassment happening daily in schools. The fact of the matter is, for any schools that do have to prevent bullying it is more of just a policy that requiring them to actually act on it when they see it. Therefore, holding them to no liability for continuing to let the harassment take place, there is little incentive to prevent this from happening, leaving the victims helpless for lifelong anguish.

I really liked Weddle’s article because of the different approach he was presenting than others I have read. He opened my eyes up to the fact that the reason teachers are doing nothing about this, is because they are not suffering the consequences when it reaches a point of violent outbreak.Most courts are reluctant to conclude that these acts are foreseeable, when the final acts might not have been, but the events leading up to it could’ve been prevented. He talks about what makes them want to harass their victims and that is because it makes them appear weak and vulnerable in front of their peers, making them look like the tough guy.

This article was written in a way that kept me continually interested and was extremely easy to follow. It added insight to various topics and research done in other states and their laws to bully prevention that made it clear on his approach to bullying. He tells about the effects, definition and prevention, while also going into his thoughts on the issue. He then put his thoughts on what strategy should be used to prevent bullying that demonstrate liability and incentive to facilitators. The benefits would be likeable for everyone in the schools if there was a way to enforce it and monitor it. This approach should be sent to court-rooms to go back to old-fashioned common sensed remedies, and most importantly to the classroom.