In the documentary "Bully" the director Lee Hirsch presents his viewpoint on the issues of bullying in Americans schools, implying that it will take more than one person to make a change, and that bullying can be much worse than people assume. Additionally Hirsch conveys these ideas through the negative representation of the American education system and the sympathetic representation of bullying victims.
Throughout the film the filmmaker indicates the idea that it will take more than one person to make a change to stop bullying. Within the documentary, Hirsch presents a negative perspective on how schools handle bullying and indirectly implies that more needs to be done. Although the documentary doesn't have any profound suggestions to actually stop bullying, the bullying victims are gradually fighting back and making a difference on their own. It is apparent in the documentary that that one person cannot make a change on their own, as bullying victim Kelby points out after she came out and her small town turned against her, “It took me a while to realise that you can’t change it all at once. It’s not just going to take me.” Recent American statistics state that 1 in 4 kids are bullied, and only 20-40% of bullying victims actually report what is happening. This film serves as a call to action and to create awareness of these issues. Kirk Smalley, father of Ty Smalley made it his mission to stop bullying after his son’s death. He started a foundation called Stand for the Silent in honour of Ty. His foundation so far has spoken to over 800 schools in America about bullying, talking to kids about the effects and trying to stop bullying in it’s tracks. Kirk Smalley strives to create awareness with his important and valuable words, ...
... middle of paper ...
...f kidnapping and 22 counts of attempted aggravated assault.” In an interview with the law-enforcement officer, he tells the audience his perspective on the incident. “there’s nothing, no amount of bullying, or teasing, or picking on… unless someone was whipping on this girl, unless someone was hitting this young lady in the heard and being physically brutal to her, there’s nothing to me that justify’s her taking that gun on the bus, I don’t care what it is.” This statement characterises the officer as clueless and disconnected from the issue. It also positions authority figures to be insensitive and out of touch to modern day bullying by not understanding the situation. The use of editing and selection of detail further promotes this idea, that adults don’t understand bullying and the extend it can have, and forces the viewers to accept it the filmmaker’s viewpoint.
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
When Tyler read her essay, the topics included making safe and responsible choices and bullying. She told her fellow students they should not be bystanders and watch others get bullied. Rather, they should stick up for those getting bullied and tell a trusted adult. “Don’t let a bully control you,” she
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)
As you can see, bullying is a huge problem. We need to start advocating for the victims and assess the problem. Today over 3.5 million teens are being bullied. “ Fighting means you could lose. Bullying means you can’t. A bully wants to beat somebody; he does not want to fight them,” Andrew Vachss-American crime fiction
Over the last decade, bullying has really been a worldwide issue. Bullying is affecting children all over the world and has grown into a huge epidemic. According to the National Education Association, “160,000 kids stay home from school each day to ...
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...
At Lebanon High School in Tennessee, a sixteen-year-old student named Emily Gipson spoke out against bullying. She made a video about anti-bullying due to a classmate’s suicide, and asks all students to treat each other better. She not only spoke to students, she spoke to the school administration, using a harsh-worded, free-verse speech. Emily Gipson’s speech hurt several teachers’ feelings, including the principal. In the end, Emily was suspended for two days. She said that her punishment was worth it.
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.
...proved how the statement of a single witness can drastically affect the outcome of a trail and how a person’s actions or inactions can make both good and bad differences just like Mary Podlesny had a negative effect on Nabozny’s life during middle school. Today bullying is still a major issue; over 3.2 million students are bullied each year and an average of 9 out of 10 LGBT kids say they been bullied. Many of these victims are afraid to ask for or are refused help from their schools and school districts. However, that does not mean nothing can be done to help bullied individuals, even just one person taking a stand against bullying can make a huge difference and if there is anything everyone can agree upon it is that no one wants to be bullied. So take a stand against bullying, make a difference, and maybe, just maybe, make the world a bit better in the process.
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 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
In a CNN study by Chuck Hadad he states “That bullying is pervasive even though the schools have anti-bullying programs from kindergarten through 12th grade, assemblies throughout the year, and a peer-to-peer program where older students talk to younger students about the dangers of bullying” (Hadad). Robert Faris, a sociologist found that bullies and victims are generally the same person. Whe...
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
On the afternoon of April 9, 2010 I found myself in a meeting with Kerri Evans, the assistant principal of Pleasant Ridge Middle School, and my son Nicholas. I was there because my son had become a victim of verbal abuse. It was shocking to learn that bullying has become such an epidemic in our school system. “Nearly 1 in 3 students is involved in bullying” (Hertzog, 2010). In a perfect world there would be no bullying. Kids wouldn’t get shoved into lockers, and they wouldn’t be beat up in the hallway. Students wouldn’t talk about another student behind their back because of their shape, size, race, or religion. In a perfect world this wouldn’t happen, but at that moment in our imperfect world it was happening to my son. The question is, why does it happen and what can we do to stop it? “According to a 2009 federal survey of school crime and safety, 32 percent of middle and high school students said they'd been victimized during the academic year, compared with 14 percent in 2001” (Tyre, 2010). Bullying was making its way into my home and affecting my life. It was then that I realized that bullying was a problem that needed to stop. Bullying in schools is escalating and becoming a bigger and bigger issue, and we must take action to eliminate it.
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.