Bullying the Freaks and Geeks
Walking down the school hall to the next class, the bully appears before his prey. He stands before his soon to be victims as if he is two feet taller and ten times stronger. His victims attempt to ignore him, but he stops them and puts his face in front of theirs to make sure his presence is known. He then abruptly decides to save his senseless punishment for another day as he passes by with a slight shoulder nudge. In today’s high schools, the majority of bullying incidents occur in this fashion. A bully finds the weakest kids and targets them. Freaks and Geeks, a television show, demonstrates these specific bullying instances and their effect on the character Bill Haverchuck. The pain bullying causes goes beyond surface level bruises and stretches to damaging internal feelings. When analyzing Freaks and Geeks, it is apparent that this television show demonstrates the physical and emotional effects of bullying through character Bill Haverchuck.
As a breeding ground for bullies, high school has become a place that is miserable for select students. If a student is not a prime athlete or is not accepted by their peers, he is more than likely going to be bullied at some point during his high school career. The geeks of any high school normally endure the majority of bullying. The consequences of insults and physical abuse on students are horrible. Bullying can cause severe emotional problems. From insecurity to a lack of self-worth, students begin feeling negatively about themselves and their lives. Bill Haverchuck, a character from Freaks and Geeks, goes through the same hardships as real life bullied victims.
Presenting a typical high school environment, Freaks and Geeks displays the com...
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...press others in an attempt to gain respect and likeability from other peers. Bill’s reasoning for trying to fit in was similar to his bully’s. Although having similar goals, Bill’s bully took it way too far and ended up causing the hospitalization of another student. Bill Haverchuck’s character was used in this episode to show how foolish unnecessary bullying it is.
As shown as a real issue within high school through television’s Freaks and Geeks, bullying is something that needs to be understood and dealt with. In an age with more resources for bullies to use, the consequences are too severe not to do anything about it. Bullying is now stretching beyond the school hallways and has invaded students in their own homes. There needs to be more awareness on what the actual effects of bullying are and that bullied victims are not alone.
Works Cited
-Kyle Frazer
Bullying has become a major problem facing the United States today. The American Psychological Association reports that roughly 40% to 80% of children are involved in bullying on some level during their time in school. (APA, 2014) The magnitude of the problem can be observed in the statistics. In the United States, a total of 4,080,879 children between the ages of five and 18 have been the victims of bullying compared to 3,892,199 who have reported that they have engaged in bullying someone else. Additionally, 851,755 said that they have been both the victim and the bully. That's a whopping 8,824,833 people in the United States that have been involved in bullying behavior on one level or another. (High, B., 2000 Census)
The documentary film Bully (2011) – directed by Lee Hirsh – takes the viewer into the lives of five families that live in various, predominantly remote, towns across the United States. All families presented have been affected by bullying, either because their child was at the time being bullied by peers at school or the child committed suicide due to continuous bullying. The film also profiles an assistant principle, Kim Lockwood, whose indiscreetness makes the viewer...
The students share stories of other families experiences or their own experiences of deaths due to bullying along with Kirk describing his first hand tragic experience. The way that they approach the students is life changing. With the different approach on explaining bullying, students and teachers are beginning to understand the real effects and consequences of people’s actions. As of May 2010, the Smalleys’ have spoken to over 580,000 kids and have visited hundreds of schools (“Stand for the Silent”). Not only have they visited schools, but they have personally met with President Obama and the First Lady Michelle Obama at the White House to attend the first ever conference discussing bullying (“Stand for the Silent” ). The story of Ty Smalley’s tragic bullying experience is featured in the film Bully. The most important goal is to commit students to helping people face bullying and know they are not alone. Students who want to participate in changing people’s actions can be considered for a chapter group. Stand for the Silent wants to create as many chapter as the can and each participating area gets a chapter to participate in. Pledge cards are another big step in showing that each participant is committed in helping stand up for the people who choose to be silent. Aspiration, love, hope, respect
Prior research indicates that bullying causes students to disengage in school (Hoover & Oliver, 1996). Bullying often causes students to become angry and hurt, and experience low self-esteem and even depression (Banks, 1997). Many students experience problems with academic performance, interpersonal relationships and physical and mental health as a result of bullying (O’Brennan, Bradshaw, & Sawyer, 2009). Prior research has also noted that bullying is the common form of victimization that children will face during their school years (Nansel, et al., 2001). All students will be exposed to bullying in some form pr...
Every day Tod wakes up for school and starts his day from there. When he goes to school everybody knows that he is a bully and a troublemaker. All the time he only gets problems all of the time. He does not bully because he has to, he bullies because he wants to. Tods situation is not uncommon around the world. In fact over 3.2 million students are victims of bullying each year. Approximately 160,000 teens skip school every day because of bullying. 17% of American students report being bullied 2 to 3 times a month or more within a school semester. This issue is a hotly debated subject. Some argue that bullies should be punished while others argue that they should be given therapy or help. Despite what some may say, bullies should be helped
A bully is someone who picks on other people, because they think it is the way to solve their problems. There are many types of bullying, there is physical, verbal, and mental. Children that are ages five through eleven began using verbal abuse and some even use physical abuse (Garrett 33). People estimated that one hundred and sixty thousand students miss school every day, and twenty-eight million missed school days per year, due to fear of being bullied (Garrett 36). Six million boys and four million girls are involved in fights from being bullied or bullying others (Garrett 33). Also, there is an estimate that over five hundred and twenty-five thousand people are bullies in America (Garrett 35). “Freshman, particularly are the victims of bullies in high school, especially if they are small and smart” (Garrett 31-32). Many people are bullied because of the way they look, or the way they act.“ Children from violent homes are three or four times more likely to become a bully” (Garrett 30). Some bullies may make fun of people because they were made fun of, beaten, or unwanted as they grew up. Most children become bullies to gain power (Verial). Bullies do what they do so they “feel competent, successful, to control someone else, to get some relief from their own feelings of powerlessness” (Garrett 72).When children grow up they may become bullies, because of the abusive environment they were raised in by their parents.
Bullying has been around for decades and yet it is still a reoccurring problem, and it is only getting worse. The National Center for Educational Statistics, in 2009, said nearly 1 in 3 students between the ages of 12 and 18 reported being bullied in school. Eight years earlier, only 14 percent of that population said they had experienced bullying(Ollove,2014). There are two types of bullying the direct form and indirect form, in the direct form the victim receives physical harm example kicking pushing shoving. In the indirect form the victim receives emotional or mental harm by name-calling, rejection, gossip, threats, or insults(Green,2007). It doesn’t matter which way the victim was bullied it still causes
Bullying has been a part of schooling for as long as children have been congregating. To some it seems like a natural, though uncomfortable, part of life and school experience, while to others it can mean terrifying experiences which spoiled and characterized otherwise happy years in school. Dan Olweus, a pioneer in bully behavior research documented that 2.7 million children are affected as victims, and that 2.1 children act as bullies (Fried, 1997, as cited in Aluedse, 2006). With bullying cited as the reason for violent, gun-related crime in the past few years, school districts as well as national governments have put anti-bullying policies in place. Bullying is a complicated phenomenon, involving more than one child demanding lunch money from a smaller child. It is a worldwide epidemic hitting schools everywhere. Virtually everyone has seen or experienced bullying. With technological advances, bullying is even hitting the internet. Parents, teachers, students and governments agencies alike are attempting to put a stop to bullying practices.
Bullying is a growing concern in a society where status and exercising power over another human being are increasingly important in developing one’s social circles. Dan Olweus (Norwegian researcher and founder of the Olweus Bullying Prevention Program) defines it as an “aggressive behaviour that is intentional and that involves an imbalance of power. Most often, it is repeated over time” (Violencepreventionworks.org). School victimization is an especially delicate matter that has only really been in the public eye for the past half century, as more and more researchers and psychologists pointed out its short- and long-term negative effects on targeted individuals. It has since been widely investigated and numerous programs have been developed in an effort to address and prevent the many forms of bullying that exist today. The negative effects of such an abusive behaviour are various and can greatly differ from individual to individual. However, there are three main consequences that can be associated with school bullying, which are: school avoidance, depression/anxiety and even suicidal attempts.
In conclusion, bullying has seemed to have erupted from simple name calling and evolved into harmful altercations among kids and students. Bullying is something that’s never going away because of people like Greg who do it to make themselves feel superior, because of social appearances surrounding popularity, and because of ignorance which causes others to believe rumors more so to the
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 has always been present within the United States. Although the issue has been around for a long time, it continues to grow and become more of problem. It is said that about 160,000 children within the United States are refusing to go to school because of bullying. Another statistic is that within American schools alone, there are an estimated 2.1 billion bullies and 2.7 billion victims (Dan Olewus, MBNBD). The numbers presented here are outrageous and although there are organizations to stop bullying, obviously there needs to be a new set of solutions. Any type of bullying presents problems to children, “Suicide, depression, anxiety, substance abuse, trouble with the law, poor performance in school and work, and lack of involvement in socially accepted activities are some of the difficulties resulting from bullying (Austin, Reynolds, Barnes, Shirley). Of course, there is more than just a single type of bullying. Feeding ground for bullies can range anywhere from text-message or cyberbullying to physical bullying in schools. Also, bullies can begin to strike at a young age and could also be; teenage, middle-age, or even the elderly. Even though there are these many versions of problematic bullies, the largest bullying problems take place within the school setting: a place that is supposed to be safe for children rather than harmful. Although it seems impossible to completely get rid of bullying, these are a few suggested solutions; making the school informed on bullying issues, schools implementing rules on bullying, and having students positively use electronics to stop bullying.
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 is a devastating issue that threatens the well-being of today’s youth. Those who are most likely at risk are those who; have a learning or physical disability i.g., autism or ADHD, are underweight or overweight, are gay/lesbian/transgendered, or speak a different language. Of course, there are no specific guidelines of who will become victims of bullying. Children who are bullied experience lower self-esteem, greater loneliness, greater anxiety, and more depression in addition to the already stressful adolescent years. The longer the bullying occurs the more profound the symptoms can become. As a low-level, subtle form of violence, bullying creates an unsafe school environment and can lead to more serious types of violence among students (Whitted & Dupper, 2005).
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.