School Bullying Essay

victims as well. With an exception of those children who have a conduct disorder, it is important for parents to intercede and try to train the bullies on good ways to behave. This is quite important because in the end it helps in saving the so many good brains that may be lost. The phenomenon of bullying to some extent may even involve persons such as principals and teachers. When such a thing happens, it is an indication of lack of maturity and these people should be dis-empowered.

This research aims investigate the phenomenon of school bullying to help people understand what it is, how it is caused, and who it affects. To achieve this goal, the paper has been systematically broken down into different sections literature review, recommendations and a conclusion. To synthesize for the literature review the following themes were included: existing definition of bullying, the different types of bullying, bullying at various levels of school, facts and examples about bullying, possible solutions. For clarity and attention, this paper has been laid down in a simple, easy-to-understand language and supported with appropriate examples.

Definition

Bullying has a broad range of definitions depending on its occurrence and context, but the most accepted definition is the one provided by stopbullying.gov which defines bullying to be an unwanted, aggressive behavior among school-aged children that involves a real or perceived power imbalance (Hart and Caven, 2013). The behavior is repeated or has the potential to be repeated over time.

Historical Background

Bullying has been experienced not only in high school where it is common but also across all school levels, even worse cases have been reported in family level. In the 18th

century, peer harassment was as common as we see it today (Mead Johnson & Company, 1972). However, at that time it was little understood. It was mostly considered a physical or verbal harassment commonly linked with intense isolation and even death in school children. Bullying was in fact considered as an innocent misbehavior or misadventure among schoolboys at King's boarding primary school, a twelve-year-old boy was murdered by his older classmates in the course of some bullying behaviors, but they were not held responsible for their crime as the school viewed it as a normal adventure among the teens.

Bullying was not recognized publicly until in 1862, a daily newspaper wrote their first story on bullying when they reported a soldier who was allegedly killed a result of the bullying practice by his fellow soldiers. The Times were the first to discuss openly the bullying and its major consequences. The writer highlighted how the soldier was treated as an “Object of constant vexations and attack”

According to Graham, and Juvonen, (2001), the most significant turning point of bullying took place in the mid-1970s when Dan Olweus, a researcher professor of psychology, conducted an intensive study on bullying among students. Using his research, Olweus created the Olweus Bullying Prevention Program (OBPP), which significantly reduced school bullying. Olweus’s research significantly contributed to the fight against bullying as it created awareness and also invited other research personnel to conduct research on the matter.

In point of fact, school violence has never ended. Over time, we have heard cases of students killing others or even themselves because of bullying. However, bullying has taken another negative turn with the ease access to the

Internet. As Toews, and Ljungberg, (2003), state, more teens have resolved to using cell phones and social media platforms, and this has given rise to cyber bullying. Cyber bullying is when" a child, teen or pre-teen is humiliated, harassed, scared, embarrassed or otherwise targeted by another child, preteen or teen using the Internet, interactive and digital technologies or mobile phones. Currently, cyber bullying is at its peak due to social platforms like Twitter, and Facebook where information spreads like wildfire.

Taking into consideration the hazards of bullying, governments in various states have come up with anti-bullying laws. In the United States, all the fifty states have passed school anti-bullying laws. Georgia was the first state to pass the anti-bullying laws in 1999. USA also has an organization called Bully Police that reports and advocates for anti-bullying legislation.

Bullying was there during the birth of our species having been inherited from the earliest of our ancestors. Species ranging from rats to chimpanzees regularly engage in bullying-like behavior. Thus, according to Blanch (1877), bullying is not something as humans we can easily control, but it is something that will continue for as long as the human species exists (Blanch, 1877).

With the rapid growth of technology, getting to the root of bullying cases will be a nightmare as teachers and other guardians will have to stay current as electronic revolution continues to grow. It is thus difficult to point exactly out what the future of bullying holds yet as schools and other institutions continue to put up safety laws and strictly hold bullies accountable, schools will be safer.

Types of Bullying in Schools

When most people hear the term bullying, their mind

automatically pictures some children or teenagers whereby one is physically hit or threatened by the other. This is not the only type of cases. There is more into bullying than just physical or verbal harassment. Each type of bullying in schools is discussed below.

Physical Bullying

This is the most common form of bullying that everyone knows. It is also easier to identify as it involves some physical acts like kicking, stealing one's property, kicking, pinching, pushing or damaging property. Physical bullying can be more dangerous as it can lead to serious injuries or even death.

Verbal Bullying

In this type of bullying, instead of physical involvement, it deals with spoken words. Verbal bullying often goes hand in hand with physical bullying ant it includes hurtful comments, name-calling, threatening, insulting, mocking, teasing, homophobic or racist remarks, verbal abuse and sexist remarks. It is often not easy to distinguish between teasing and bullying.

Social Bullying

Social bullying is the use of relationships to hurt others. It includes actions like telling other kids not to be friends with someone, excluding others, spreading false rumors about someone or the “the silent treatment”

Cyber Bullying

Cyber bullying is the most recent form of bullying. It involves the use of digital technologies, including computers, mobile phones, social media, texts, websites, instant messaging and others. Cyber bullying can happen anywhere and at any time. It includes hurtful texts, nasty rumors, imitating others and excluding others online intentionally

Hidden Bullying

Covert bullying is often harder to identify and can be carried out behind ones back. Its primary aim is to harm someone's social reputation. It includes, damaging one's social acceptance, encouraging others to exclude another socially, mimicking unkindly, playing nasty jokes meant

to embarrass and humiliate. It also includes spreading rumors.

Sexual Bullying

Sexual bullying involves actions that target a person sexually. Examples include pornographic materials, uninvited touching, vulgar gestures and sexual propositioning. Sexting also can lead to sexual harassment, for instance, two lovers can send their naked photos. When they break up, one of them shares the pictures with the entire school. As a result, he/she becomes the target of sexual bullying as people will make fun of him/her.

Prejudicial Bullying

Prejudicial bullying is based on prejudices people have towards people of different races, sexual orientation or religion. Prejudicial bullying can encompass all the other types of bullying as well. When it occurs, victims are targeted and singled out. Often, prejudicial bullying is severe and can lead to hate crimes.

Relational Aggression

Relational aggression often goes unnoticed by parents. Also referred to as emotional bullying, relational aggression involves social manipulation by teens as they try to hurt their peers. Relational bullies often spread rumors and break confidences. The goal of relational aggression is to increase their social standing by controlling or bullying another person.

Pack Bullying

Pack bullying is bullying committed by a group. Pack bullying is more prominent in high schools and characteristically lasts longer than bullying undertaken by an individual. It may be physical or emotional and can take place in classrooms, playing field or sport fields.

Bullying at Different Levels of School

Bullying is often of a different nature as one advances in his/ her education. It is usually associated with power imbalance in factors such as gender, size or age. Therefore, as one progresses in his studies, more brutal forms of bullying are used.

Bullying in Elementary School

Bullying can begin at any age.

However, at an early age, parents unknowingly help their kids become bullies. Whenever kids mess, parents assume taking it to be a normal thing. This is the first step of creating a bully. It is important that each kid should be accountable for all the things that he/she does. At a young age children can show bullying tendencies. It usually happens in the playing field, children refusing to share their toys or not willing to take turns in their games. Parents often think that this type of elementary school bullying is normal, but it could be a sign of long-term bullying. Even at this stage, bullying is a major problem. It’s just that, bullying has been overlooked.
Children can be very cruel to each other. Bullies often target their 'weak' victims, identify something imperfect about hem and then begin their bullying tendencies. Elementary school bullies can be very dangerous. In some cases, bullies have injured their victims seriously to the point of seeking medical attention. Bullying is not something new, and it is definitely increasing. More and more children are beaten up, abused and even sexually assaulted by their classmates. An increase in such incidences has made some parents pull their kids out of these schools. But is this the best solution? Sometimes, it is the only solution the parents have, but if school officials cannot put an end to this kind of bullying, other students will always be affected.

Educational reports show that averagely, 15% of elementary age children are involved in bullying. This number is high. And we should at all costs eliminate elementary school bullying.

Bullying in Middle School

Middle school is one of the levels

in which bullying hits hardest. At this stage, most kids are at the age where they do not feel that societal rules apply to them. Penalties are not as harsh as those of adults. Peer pressure is also at its worst. The effects of bullying are mostly worse.
Physical bullying is the most common type of bullying at this stage. Activities between classes provide a perfect environment for bullies to bully other kids. Bullies are often experts at this age, they know how to disguise themselves entirely and avoid being noticed. The major problem with middle school bullies is that authorities cannot be able to control what happens after school, so this activity mostly happens right after school and its common to find the bullies sending threats like “let us meet after school”. More often than not, this after school fights can be fatal as most teens at this age often enjoy weird activities like fighting and if an older person doesn’t stop this fights the kids may end up killing each other.

Sometimes in middle school, bully-victims may retaliate and harm the bullies. This normally follows after a long period of being bullied and the victims resolve to worse methods of ending the bullying. Chelisa Grimes sent her son to school with a stun gun after her son. Her child was bullied and she felt that the teachers did not do enough. The young boy pulled the stun gun from his pocket after six other students surrounded him at school, threatening to beat him up and all the kids run to their safety. This is just one of the many cases students and parents have resolved

to worse methods of solving bullying incidences.

Middle school is the stage of transition to adulthood, what one will become throughout the rest of their lives. If kids are left with their bullying habits, they may grow with the habit and may never be able to stop. So, parents should teach these young people how to deal with cruel people and also teach their children the effects of bullying and why they should not bully others.

Bullying in High School

In high school, physical bullying declines than it was in middle school However, Emotional, verbal, social and cyber bullying remain constant.

At this stage, bullying can have many negative effects. The victim can drop out of school caused by fear of being bullied or engage in drug abuse with the hope that drugs will help lessen the bullying effects. Effects can also extend to the community level. There are increased school shootings which may lead to an increase in the suicide rates.

It is common to find high school students bullying other non-students, like teachers and school employees as they are now physically stronger, or depending on their financial status. For example, big-bodied male bullies may tease their female teachers especially those who are not married, or look young in size. They can also bully the school cooks in order to get a bigger share in their meals. In extreme cases, high school bullies break the school rules willing and no teacher dares to punish them. Even the security personnel of the school fear the bully and they often pretend to be-friend the bully.

It is important to note that, bullies are not born, they are made. In high school mostly,

bullies are made with other bullies. The bully is or was often a victim of intense bullying to the extent of developing the bully attitude him/herself. The bullies 'inherit' the bully skills from their bullies and use it to attack other innocent students. This is one of the main causes of continued bullying in high school. Other bullies come from families where disputes are solved by fighting. Physical punishment is the norm here. In this case, the child learns that superiority goes to the person with most power. This means that whenever they face a challenge, they can only resolve it by using harsh means to show that they are the ones in power. This type of students is often associated with being cruel and using vulgar language both in school and at home.

Fact and Statistics

These are the general statistics about bullying from different research studies. 22 percent of students have reported being bullied during their years in school. Only 36 percent of children who were bullied reported it. 65 percent did not UNICEF. (1993). Students who experience bullying often face poor school adjustment, depression and anxiety.

Physical bullying varies as one advances in his education. It increases in elementary school, peaks in middle school and finally declines in high school. Other types of bullying remain constant. As boys age, the feeling of sympathy for bully victims decline. They are more likely to add the problem than put an end to it. 1 in 10 Students drop out of school because of repeated bullying. Over 67 percent of student believe that after reporting bullying incidences, schools respond poorly and a high percentage believe that help from

older people is ineffective Harris, and Petrie, 2003). One in four teachers see nothing wrong with bullying and will respond 4 percent of the time although, approximately, 160,000 teens skip school worldwide every day because of bullying.

Examples of Bullying

Examples of bullying can be seen right from homes to elementary, middle and in high schools. It can come in many forms like physical or emotional bullying.

Examples of Physical Bullying

Physical bullying entails actions like punching, kicking, fist fighting, rape, being shot, physical attack by a gang. In some areas, physical bullying has taken another step. Some students join gangs for self-protection and in the process become bullies.
Physical bullying can occur at any stage of life, right from elementary school to high school. In elementary school, bullying may vary from students pinching each other to pushing weaker kids in the field. In high school and middle school whoever, physical bullying can be physical fights, gang fights to even worse forms like shootouts. One of the worst cases of bullying happened in elementary school whereby, in Philadelphia school district, a nine-year old was tormented by his fellow classmates that he attempted suicide severally and even prayed to God to end his life. The boy was attacked while attending school and even sexually assaulted. Bullying of this kind should be fought against at all costs as it may lead to death or worse injuries.

Examples of Verbal Bullying

Verbal bullying if more often considered less dangerous than physical bullying. But this isn't always the case as the effects can be harmful as well. It may consist of name calling, threatening, insulting, mocking, teasing, homophobic or racist remarks, verbal abuse and sexist remarks.

Sometimes kids bully others indirectly hiding their ill actions in teasing. Whoever, one good rule is; if the target is not having fun, then it is. Verbal bullying victims are often associated with immense loneliness and low self-esteem.

Examples of Cyber Bullying

Cyber bullying is the most recent form of bullying and has been growing with the advancement in technology. There are many examples of this from of bullying. An example of cyber bullying is posting embarrassing photos or videos of others on the internet. Cyber bullying can also extend to activities such as, taking someone's photo and sharing it on the internet without the owner's consent. The owner might be embarrassed if he/she knows about it. Direct intimidation of someone online or in a text, posting mean or hurting things of someone in a website or in an online chat, sending a mean IM or email to someone. A technology geek bully can do a lot of damage by attacking the victims’ accounts, stealing their passwords and impersonating them while posting wrong information.

Examples of Sexual Bullying

Student, especially male students may touch their female classmates inappropriately. It is not always physical and may include sexual comments, sexual rumors and sexual jokes. Sexual bullying does not just happen to girls. Girls also can harass boys. Girls can harass other girls and boys can harass other boys. Sexual bullying is also not limited to people of the same age. Adults can also sexually harass young people as well as young people harassing adults. We have heard numerous reports of young girls being harassed by adults. In one incidence, a group of 11 year old boys descended upon a mature

lady in her car. The boys started pounding on the lady's car, jiggling the door handles and making obscene gestures. This is just but another example where older women are harassed by young boys.

Examples of Social Bullying

Social bullying can take the shape of teasing other children, ridiculing another child's items or his/her body, making fun of the way he/she speaks or mocking his/her academic achievements. Like all types of bullying, social bullying can be very damaging to the victim and can cause school drop-out are psychological disorders.

Examples of Pack Bullying

Pack bullying can occur when some students gang up against another. It can be in form of physical harassment, emotional or even verbal harassment. Pack bullying in many instances goes on for a long time and if not controlled, it can lead to serious hatred. In high school mostly, students categorize themselves in classes with respect to social, financial or physical grounds. If a student from one group is bullied from another student who is from another group, it can lead to rivalry between the groups. This is where you find students from one stream hate and fight student from another stream. Sometimes, if the students are left unmanned, rivalry of this kind can lead to school strikes. Cases of destruction of school property, injuries and even death may result from such strikes.

Examples of Hidden Bullying

Hidden bullying can include actions like excluding other kids from activities and spreading rumors about them children so that others do not like them. Covert bullying, as it is also referred, is harder to recognize than the other forms of bullying and can be carried out behind the victim's back. For

example, a child may mimic another who is stammers unkindly in his absence. When the kid comes into view, other children may laugh at him/her causing discomfort. Sometimes children bully others without their knowledge. The bully may use facial or physical gestures that in one way or the other hurt the other party. And if the victim does not say that he/she is not comfortable, this may go on for a long time.

Possible Solutions to Bullying

In spite of renewed efforts and numerous campaigns against this type of abuse in schools, bullying continues to be a major point of concern for parents and the victims. It has deterred many students from finishing school and reaching their potential. In response to this, we have to eradicate this ill practice. These are the solutions that help counter bullying and its effects.

Increase Bullying Awareness

One of the most fundamental solutions to bullying is the knowledge on what bullying is in the first place. You cannot know how to fight something unless you know what it is. It is the first and necessary step in finding solutions. By understanding the scope and roots of bullying, you will get the idea on how you can effectively fight it off. Therefore, each and every one of us is required to know the various types of bullying so that he/she is not caught up in one.

Respond to Cases of Bullying Forcefully and Respectively

In the 1800s, bullying wasn't punished as it was known to be a common practice among teenagers. Their effects were profoundly felt. Imagine, you do something wrong, and it is allowed in the society. This means that more people will do the

same, and its effects will be even greater. In the even that bullying takes place, we need to solve it calmly, respectively and persistently as this will give the kids what they will know about the wrong that they did. If we react wrongly, some children may be afraid to report cases of bullying to the parents and guardians.

Open Communication

Communication has been known to be the most common problem solver in society. It is one of the best ways of ensuring your bullying prevention methods will work is by opening communication channels for people to express themselves. As a parent, you should be willing to talk to your kids freely, talking about the negative effects of bullying as well as advising them on what they should do in case the fall victim of bullying. Teachers also should be willing to talk to their students concerning bullying and its negative effects. In case students report bullying incidences, the teacher should advise both the victim and the bully about the consequences of bullying.

Create Empathy

Bullying often results from children who have a low self-esteem and aren't feeling good about themselves. This is one of the most common reasons for bullying. We should ensure our children understand what their actions can do to others.

Inclusive Participation of All Stakeholders

Parents and guardians should read more about bullying and also learn what other parents are doing to curb bullying. In case you are bullied as an individual, you should try and stay away from the bully or try to make them understand that what they are doing is wrong. If that fails, you should report that to the authority instead of taking

action to your hands. If you witness or know that another person is being bullied, you should try to advice the bully to stop this kind of behavior and if this fails, report him. Advising bullying victims should also be your load to carry. Who know what the victims might do next. Your advice may save a life. We should also be positive in anti-bullying campaigns and participate in eradicating bullying.

Teach Your Kids Protective Skills

It is wrong for kids to feel defenseless. Therefore, you as a parent should teach your kids what they should do when they are bullied. Parent should encourage their children to make safe choices in such a situation, e.g., changing seats in class or walking away from the bully.
Parents also should not always resolve to violence in solving problems. Sometimes just a talk with your kid about the wrong he/she did is good enough. If parents always resolve to violence, the children may have a wrong impression to solving problems.
Another effective method to solving this menace is first understanding the reasons behind bullying. Solving these problems will help eradicate bullying.

Recommendations

Schools should provide a safe learning environment for their students. Thus, they should strive and reduce, if not eliminate any cases of bullying in the school, prevent the development of new bullies/ victims and achieve better relations at the school, creating conditions allowing better communication between the bullies and the victims.

Measures to Curb Bullying in Schools

Below are the measures that should be employed curbing bullying.
Educating the students on the negative effects of bullying is the key to stopping/ reducing the habit. That should be the first step to be taken in schools.

One cannot stop what he/she doesn't know.

Creating awareness will help students identify bullying earlier and also encourage them to report the cases of bullying once identified.

Teachers should also understand that bullying is a major problem. They should be thought on better means of solving cases of bullying efficiently. In this, students will be comfortable in telling the teachers what they are going through as they will be certain that their cries will be listened to and solved once and for all.

Schools should put up strict rules against bullies and bullying behaviors. This will, in particular, prevent present bullies, if any, against harassing other fellow students. Upcoming bullies will also not find it conducive to this kind of behavior. The rules should state clearly what the school considers as bullying and the punishment to be imposed to the bully if found.

Implement punishments in case of bullying, the school should administer appropriate public punishment to the bully for all to see. This will help student know that bullying isn't a good thing and discourage them from bullying their fellow students.

The school will try to help students who are bullied. To achieve this, there should be an anti-bullying department which has an advisor. The advisor will talk to the victims and advise them on matters relating to bullying and how to get away from being bullied.

The school should make a point to include students who are easily left out. Including all students in activities will assist the students to develop a higher self-esteem and value themselves more. Students who are often left out are the ones who mostly participate in bullying activities.

Hold regular classroom meetings. Classroom meeting will

help teachers and students develop a stronger relationship, and it will be easier for students to talk to the teachers. It will also give time for teachers and students to establish and re-evaluate anti-bullying rules.

Hold parents meeting. The parent also should be informed about anti-bullying measures put in place. They may also give suggestions of what they think is best for their children.

Hold talks with the bullies. The bullies should be made aware of their mistakes, warned against such actions and sending a strong, clear message that those actions are not acceptable.

Hold talks with the victims. Imagine you have a problem and you are the only one in it. You have no one to talk to. This is risky. You may resolve to worse methods of solving your problems. Bullying victims should be spoken to. The talks should include, telling how the bullying happened who it involved and in what way. They should also be persuaded to report any new bullying episodes.

Involve the parents/ guardian. When a bullying incident is discovered, the teacher should contact the victims and bullies' parents and let them know exactly what had happened. It is important also that the victim (depending on the level of bullying) talks to his/her parent about the incident as he/she may be more open to discuss the details with his/her parents than the teacher and he/she can get any required help.
Change of learning environment either school or class. If bullying actions persist on a specific student, he/she should be moved to another class, and if still the child is bullied, change of school will be the most efficient solution.

Establish and implement strong school anti-bullying rules.

Although the school may be having rules against bullying, it is also suitable for each class to have its anti-bullying rules.

Rules made by the student themselves are known to be far more efficient than the rules by teachers.

Build a culture of accountability: Building a culture of accountability not only applies to schools but also to the family. Children should be accountable to their teachers and parents. This means he should be accountable to how he talks, treats others or behaves. Parents and teachers should not tolerate false excuses from the children, but they should punish the wrong actions or talk to the children against the wrong doings.

Conclusion

Summing up, bullying is a problem that affects you and me in one way or the other. Therefore, we as a community should fight it out and reduce if not eliminate it lest we let our kids kill each other in something we have power over. The teachers and parents should all join hands together to help the kids to live in harmony. The principals and teachers who have the tendency of bullying the kids should be totally be dis-empowered due to this kind of unnecessary immaturity.

Educating yourself on the cause and effects of bullying should be a personal agenda. This should be done with the endeavor to get rid of this tendency since it is a bad as a cancer that I spreading in the human body. The behavior of children should be closely monitored by parents to ensure a bright future for the children.

We should guide our kids in the right way to preserver the peaceful community. In this way we will be able to control the

behavior of or kids so that they do not mistreat each other and perceive the society as a fair place. In the current world, each country wants to have educated people to aid in economic development. In that case, we need the children to be in school. The only way to ensure that this is achieved is by ensuring that the kids have the peace of mind. This is important for brain development and may realize great educational improvement in our societies. This is war we ought to win. The only way to win it is to stand tall and handle it as adults. Those with the parents who have children with the character of bullying others, it is important that they train their kids on good behavior. We can win this war together. All that we dream of is a better future for our children and to achieve this we need a proper understanding of what we need to do.

References

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3. Harris, S., & Petrie, G. F. (2003). Bullying: The bullies, the victims, the bystanders. Scarecrow Press.
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