Have you ever felt invisible to the world or wanted to be invisible? We all have those moments when we feel outcasted by the rest of the group. Sometimes we are picked on and treated unfairly which causes these feelings of wanting to become invisible. Other times, we are the ones that are causing people to feel like this. In a recent study, 77% of students are bullied either physically, mentally, and/or verbally. Then on the other hand, 1 out of 5 students admitted to being a bully to their peers or have at least picked on someone once or twice. These small acts of bullying are responsible for the increase of much more dangerous violence to occur such as knife attacks, gun shootings, and suicide pacts. These are serious problems that are occurring in schools and they need to be stopped.
Besides the obvious pushing, shoving, punching, etc., bullying can be more than just physical attacks. With all the new technology, there are so many ways to be bullied or to bully someone else. Not only do we see our classmates almost every day for nine months, at school and at after school activities, there are also internet social networks on the computer such as Facebook, Myspace, and Twitter that contribute to more ways of bullying. This way of using the internet to pick on others is called cyber bullying. If you have not personally had someone use the internet to bully you, then you have at least seen someone else do this. I see it everyday and have experienced this myself. Not only do people use these social networks for just back and forth typings, they also can post pictures and videos making fun of others. These acts of bullying can be even more painful than physical violence.
Along with personal contact and social networks, there is also bullying through phones. This type of harassment is also referred to as cyber bullying. There are multiple ways to use a cellular phone for bullying. Prank calls are often a popular way to call someone and say whatever cruel things without the person actually knowing who is calling. Along with phone calls are texting. Not only can you send regular texts but you can also send picture and video texts. With all these different ways to bully someone, it’s surprising there isn’t even more than there already is.
Recently in the news, we have learned about the many suicides of teenagers that could not endure the bullying they received for being open about their homosexuality. A fifteen year old boy named Billy Lucas hanged himself because of the torment he went through from his peers. Students threatened to beat him up everyday and would call him names making fun of his sexual orientation. It is thought that the staff in the school knew about his situation but did little to help. All of this built up in Billy and he could not take the bullying anymore and decided to end his life.
Schools should be doing more to prevent these things from happening. Most schools do not have the proper means of security to keep their students safe or pay enough attention to some of the problems that students may be facing. Although security items can be very expensive, the safety of the students should be more important than the spendings. 86% of students feel that kids that are harassed turn to lethal violence in their schools. To help prevent bullying, schools should be putting together more programs to support the many differing problems and personalities of their students. Who knows what could have prevented Billy’s death, but if one act of kindness could have eased some of the pain, he might have had the strength to keep pushing through to another day.
I think this is great! I think she will like the example of the 15 year old. Are there some school bullying programs that schools could be choosing from? I remember one that my school used to have. It was called Olweus and we were hammered with that info from about 5 grade on.
ReplyDelete