Leah Whisenant
Mrs. Pleas
English Composition II
08 September 2015
Bullying: What It Is and What Schools Are Doing About It
Background:
What is bullying? It is often described as “behavior that occurs repeatedly and over time intentionally inflicts physical and/ or psychological injury on another individual.” It is an issue that threatens the well beings of children and teenagers. Fifty percent of American children in school have conceded to being bullied in ways such as being left out, being physically abused, and mentally abused (Clay). Ten percent admitted to being cyberbullied (Swearer). Bullying often targets race, disability, national origin, physical appearance, gender, religion, and many more.
There are four main types of bullying
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My argument is that the bullying issue has not been solved in most schools. Schools need to be an environment for children to learn. Many schools are not putting forward the effort to put and end to bullying. During the years of 1950-1980, the statistics of bullying are much higher than they were back then. Victims of bullies endure depression, anxiety, relationship issues, and a lack of self esteem. Often these behaviors can eventually lead to lack of interest in school. It can lead to absences, disapproval of school, lack of participation and school activities, and reduced academic scores …show more content…
The topic of bullying is an issue that has always been close to my heart. When I was seven years old, I was diagnosed with a brain tumor called a Craniopharyngioma on my pituitary gland. As a result of the tumor and surgery, I gained excess weight. I was also informed I would have to take steroids and hormone replacements for the rest of my life, which also contributed to the weight gain. I returned to school about 4 or 5 months after surgery. I returned back to school bald and overweight, stimulated by the giant mass in my head. Under the circumstances, all of my friends vanished, I was called names no one should be called or labeled, and was neglected by my whole grade. I was treated like this just because I appeared different. I was looked upon like I was invisible. (This is an example of verbal and relation abuse, a type of bullying where the victim undergoes name calling and ignorance.) I endured this type of bullying until about eighth grade. Ninth grade through about tenth grade I experienced mainly the last form of bullying listed, relation/ social abuse. These last few years of high school, the bullying turned into talking and laughing behind my back. This type of bullying was unfavorable to me because I didn’t know who was saying what. Given my experience with bullying, I take this topic very seriously. Whether victims are battling rumors or discrimination, kids are getting bullied all the time at schools
When someone breaks you down over time, telling you you are worthless, pathetic, stupid, ugly, retarded, fat, loser, ect; one may start to think that all this is true. Demeanor changes, the child starts to feel low, and thinks they aren 't good enough. I should know, being bullied wasn 't fun. Being ridiculed for things on a daily basis. Being called names, being hit, degraded is never easy. I started feeling down, I had major depression and anxiety issues. I suffered from migraines for 10-12 hours a day and awful stomach pains every single day for almost two years. My grades started to suffer because I couldn 't concentrate, I was becoming less social and sitting at home more watching the television instead of going outside and having fun. Why? Because I was afraid someone was going to say something to bring me down; and instead of letting them have that chance even more then they already did I decided to slowly decline my way of life. Telling someone that you are bullied isn 't easy; at least for me it wasn 't. You feel so pathetic that you allow someone to treat you so poorly for no good reason. Being bullied ISN 'T an option. You don 't choose if you are bullied or not, and frankly I didn 't choose to be hated for no reason. These other kids in the world didn 't choose to be bullied either and their bully shouldn 't just be treated with a slap on the
Experts say that bullying begins around middle school, where children are changing to young adults. In bullying there are three people involved the bully, the victim, and the bystander. The bystander also holds responsibility when bullying occurs, because they are present but never take part because they fear the intimidator. Often targets are considered to be “different” from others, and that consists of students having specials needs, being gay, bisexual, overweight, or most importantly students who are viewed as easy prey. When bullying is attempted it can ruin a student physically and emotionally influencing the capability of a pupil to learn. It is recorded that in the United States 160,000 teenagers skip school in order to avoid bullying, and one out of ten teens quits school because of continuous tormenting. In 2014 statistics in the U.S. showed that only 20-30 percent of students who are bullied tell an adult or the authorities. The only way bullying can be prevented is when schools make a great effort to create no tolerance programs, and effective rules. That will result...
What is bullying? Bullying is behavior that is hurtful, whether physically or mentally and is ongoing. I know that cyber bullying is huge right now, but what about good old fashioned bullying? The kind where someone is mean to another, whether at school, on the playground, or work. I am specifically going to talk about kids in school being bullied and ways of coping.
Have you ever been bullied in school? Have you ever known a person who was bullied before in his life? Do you know that people who are bullied in school can grow up to have depression or social problems? Bullying was and still is one of the biggest problems schools have from a long time ago. To bully is to make fun of, tease or harass someone who is vulnerable or just younger. As a matter of fact, the victims of bullying and the bullies are turned up to have some serious issues when they become adults. In an article published by Ron Banks in 2013, “Educational Resource Information Center”, he explained how bullied victims and bullies are unknown by the authority members in schools. In my opinion, we should lighten up the parents and the faculty
The word “school” brings nothing except goosebumps to many students nationwide. Bullying has been around since schools themselves. However, in the recent decades, the term “bullying has gone far overhand. After all of these years of tears, cuts, and suicides, there still has been no solution. The only option we have now is, to have bullies convicted with criminal charges.
Bullying by definition is a form of aggressive behavior in which someone intentionally and repeatedly causes another person injury or discomfort. Bullying can take the form of physical contact, words or more subtle actions. [Why] Bullying has grown new outlets over the last decade. With social media outlets and text messaging added to the game, bullying is not just about getting tormented face to face anymore. Cyber bullying can include sending out mean or threatening emails and instant messages about a person, spreading rumors about someone and also include photos that a person would consider to be humiliating. [Chamberlin] Bullying can have many outlets. The most common form of bullying is still face to face confrontation. But the other outlets, such as cyber bullying are definitely not something to take lightly or consider low on a scale of importance. Sexual harassment, racial differences, not being “cool enough”, or just simply being viewed as a weaker individual may attribute to many of the reasons a person is preyed on.
It only takes one bad experience to change your opinion on something. Imagine if you went through this same bad experience for months, or better yet years. Your whole personality, how you view yourself, and others changes drastically. This is what it feels like to be bullied. Bullying is a serious issue in America, especially among children and young adults. From kindergarten all the way up until my sophomore year of high school, I was a victim of bullying. Being bullied changed how I viewed myself and others, what my values and morals were, and it shaped me into the person I am today.
Bullying is an issue that is a problem in society today. Bullying is any kind of unwanted behavior to an individual on repeated occasions which is a display of power over someone. Bullying is mainly common among students in school, and unfortunately, it happens in other places like at home between parents and children, and on rare occasions, among adults. When people began to identify bullying for what it is, it was only known as a physical aggression towards others, but over the course of time, bullying has moved from just physical bullying to verbal bullying, and power abuse in the workplace between co-workers in different ranks. In a book called Welfare Brat: A Memoir, Mary was bullied in school by boys on the streets, and unfortunately, she was verbally bullied by her mom. Bullying among children in the society is caused by different reasons, and affects its victims negatively.
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
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.
“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 of students in school is an abuse that affects and produces a number of negative experiences on the victim. It is proven that those students who bully do so merely because they see themselves superior than those being bullied. They use this as a tactic to make juniors fear them and show them that they are not equal in any way. Some will even bully as a revenge of the bullying they suffered in the past. I have been bullied before and I know some of the effects it could have on a person. Bullying is a serious cause of many issues and has effects that may be long lasting.
As a society, we often underestimate the damages that bullying cause on children, not just America but all over, and the ones who suffer are the victims themselves. Victims are damaged with the stigma that they are weak, yet somehow have to fend for themselves against something that they have little to no control over. Whether it is for funding, a reputation or any other reason schools sweep their bullying problem under the rug or turn a blind eye, however they have more potential to end this growing issue. To the schools that think bullying is not their problem, they should know that according to heyugly.org, an anti-bullying campaign, “Approximately, 160,000 children a day stay home from school in fear of being bullied.”They also point out
Bullying does not have a standard definition. Bullying can be anything from calling someone else names, beating them up just for the fun of it, to texting or messaging them on the internet or any mobile device. Any person can be the victim of bullying, not just children. Bullying causes many issues, physically, emotionally, and mentally, not only for the victim, but for their entire families as well. Bullies have many different reasons as to why they start bullying someone else. The actions done to the victim leaves them with only a few options on how to stop being bullied. How they handle it is always different.
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.