SCHOOL BULLYING

Bullying is the deliberate abuse by use of force to dominate over another person. It entails the forceful authority over another person to inflict physical or mental pain in a given social setting. Bullying has existed since time immemorial with the vice being common among the school setting especially in the youthful adolescent stage. The vice evolves to not only include the only physical doings but all acts that aims at intimidating another person in the desire to gain forceful authority over someone. It can be attributed partly to ego, self esteem and the desire to get action by use of aggression without prior understanding or mutual correlation of the parties involved.

Various forms of bullying exist since the time immemorial with the cyber bullying emerging as a modern form of bullying in the digital world. With the broad classification of bullying falling under physical bullying, verbal bullying, covert bullying and the presently cyber bullying. All of this actions regarded in the desire of action by use of force or the unreasoned reaction towards the loss of intended action. A physical bully will involve the physical inflicting of pain towards another person by kicking, hitting, pushing, pinching hitting, damage of property and tripping over another person due to aggression. Its commonly a vice found in schools with its social environment likely to breed depression and suicidal thoughts. Peer influence in the desire to maintain ego would thus make up person to inflict physical pain be it to the other person or to physically destroy property in the intention to hurt.

     Verbal bullying is a psychologically intended way of inflicting pain to another person. Only a personality will feel the pain of an insult, intimidation, calling of nicknames that are humiliating to the other person and the deliberate racist remarks that that are all forms of abusing another person verbally.

 Another form of bullying is the covert bullying that involves the indirect way of tarnishing the name of an individual or a given body of interest. It’s usually indirect and may sometimes be left unrealized in the event of tarnishing someone’s reputation and the exclusion of someone in an indirect way so as to harm the other person socially (Scherer, 2011). Negative physical gesturing towards someone may be left unnoticed by the person being bullied while it deliberately creates a negative image of the individual to the people involved.

      In the modern era comes the cyber bullying, which usually involves the direct to target analogy to harm the person intended, it may involve the sending of defamatory messages and the deliberate harassment of a person by use of cell phones and the exclusion of a person from a social networking space so as to hurt the person emotionally.

     Bullying can be in depth arise from the way nature relates with social being of an individual, for instance a disabled person may face hate and rejection, a prisoner may face harsh treatment from a prison police, a parent may unleash their anger to their children in desire for dominance, a partner may use  non physical or physical means to hurt another person sexually a vice commonly found in ladies (Elliot & Hailstone, 2010), at workplace the harsh treatment of a worker to demean his or her status of say job rank leads to harassment and humiliation especially in the instance of sexual harassment at workplace and eventually the common school bullying. A school setting is evidently a haven for bullying considering the interactions and usually the age of the victims playing a key role. A mature person is deemed to have learnt from past experiences and he thus controls his or her emotions to act within the goodwill of both parties. A youthful population is emotionally active and the lack of experience would thus likely lead to lack of sound judgment whenever reacting  to an oppressing situation.

    The effects of bullying may lead to depression, exclusion, suicidal thoughts, increase in the bullying itself and the apparent failing in grades. A student who usually suffers bullying like name calling will eventually develop a low self esteem leading to low academic performance and the eventual lack of cooperation with other students, a fundamental key to positive academic achievement (Margitics, Figula, & Pauwlik, 2012), however a this may not be the case to all students, others may develop violence towards other students and it may lead to more bullying in schools instead.. Students with low self esteem find it depressing to interact with teachers as well as other students and hence this serves as a barrier to information flow. Reports have revealed increased poor performance among students who have suffered much bullying giving statistics that 83% of boys and 79% of girls  are affected by bullying in schools. It reveals how students miss school sessions and some drop out of schools due to repeated bullying.

     As a measure to curb the doings of bullying, it therefore becomes necessary to come with actions that discourage those acts either by use of measures of equal or greater force. The most effective means would be to ignore the person who harms you psychologically or physically. This would require one to assume a situation by not getting emotional in the event of abuse. A victim would consider bearing with the situation hence the abuser becomes discouraged to continue with the vice. Students who are less concerned with what others have about them will suffer less the effects of bullying. This can be an easy and simple to implement action as it is based on a self evaluation procedure that are aimed at mental and opinion change among students.

    Secondly punishment can deal with the situation by enforcing disciplinary measures as a means to curb the vice. It would act as a measure of discouraging the abuser especially when the repercussions are too harsh to discourage the abuser by stiff penalties. Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 in the federal civil rights laws deals with the disciplinary action on bullying. People who bully others can be penalized in monetary terms or imprisonment not exceeding one year, however to students it would call for close monitoring by the tutors to ensure a quick disciplinary action to student who bully others. It therefore calls for disciplinary actions to tame students who bully others as a measure to curb the vice.  Close monitoring and reporting of such instances to the disciplinary would be a great effort to deal accordingly to students who bully others it serves to moderate bullying instances hence it’s a measure to curb the vice. Suspending or discontinuing students who bully others could be effective too as canning or other forms of punishment.

     Thirdly as a means to control the vice mediation could be considered a neutral mechanism to reconcile the involved parties through dispute resolution. This method leads to a mutual understanding and tolerance hence a means to reconcile the parties to an understanding and end of a dispute. Neutral parties like peer counselors can be trained to mediate bullying cases among students. Immediate action by peer counselors will see the involved parties come to an agreement without aggression or the intervention of the disciplinary. Neutral parties without divided opinions will find it easy to mediate a bullying situation by convincing the involved students to stop the vice for their betterment in day to day school life and academic performance (Scherer, 2011).

            Fourthly the establishment of a support group to provide counseling can be of great effort to deal with the abuser and the abused. A reasoned understanding fostered by a neutral party would bring the parties to reconciliation and end of the vice. A support group would eliminate the effects of bullying to the victims through social involvement as a measure to promote interaction and tolerance among the target group like students. Generally students who interact in social arenas are more likely to tolerate each other than the ones who don’t. The school administration should establish support groups like clubs that foster active student involvement to increase student interaction. Students with disability could otherwise involve themselves in academic clubs like debating club so as to interact with other students as a means of promoting mutual understanding.

REFERENCES

Elliot, M. A., & Hailstone, P. (2010). Stop bullying pocketbook. Alresford: Teachers' Pocketbooks.

Margitics, F., Figula, E., & Pauwlik, Z. (2012). New perspectives in the examination of school bullying. Hauppauge, N.Y: Nova Science Publisher's.

Rigby, K. ( ACER Press). Bullying interventions in schools : six basic approaches. Camberwell: ACER Press.

Sanders, P. (1996). Bullying. Brookfield, Conn: Copper Beech Books.

Scherer, L. S. (2011). Bullying. Farmington Hills: Greenhaven Press.

Smith, P. K. (199). The nature of school bullying : a cross-national perspective. London ; New York: Routledge.

Engel, P. (n.d.). 11 Staggering Facts about Bullying in America. BusineFebruary 3, 2014, from

Krahé, B. (2013). The social psychology of aggression (2nd Ed.). London: Psychology Press.

 Rigby, K. (2012). Bullying interventions in schools: Six Basic Approaches. West Sussex: John Wiley & Sons LTD.

 Swartz, L. (2013). Bully-go-round: a handbook of literacy and arts strategies for promoting bully awareness in the classroom. Markham, Ont.: Pembroke.