The Issue of Bullying in Society and in School Particularly - Essay Example

First two paragraphs changed and elaborated more with a source attributed to them. The conclusion also changed with more action incentives by the ordinary people and specific actions that the organizations could undertake. Name Tutor Subject Date School bullying Bullying in the simplest and most basic sense refers to the cruel demeanor and overbearing behavior directed to weaker or smaller persons with the aim of intimidating and threatening them (Einarsen et al, 4). In the context of schools, it encompasses the uncalled for aggression directed towards the weaker students by the seemingly big and stronger students. In the recent past, there has been an increase in public reaction by the American concerning the question of bullying schools. This was occasioned by the fact that bullying traumatizing students to the extent where they would not wish to attend school any more. Therefore, it is prudent and imperative for the society as a whole to face and tackle the problem of bullying once and for all. There are different types of intimidation, harassment or bullying namely physical, emotional and verbal bullying. Physical bullying includes instances when the bully hit the other student, verbal bullying is when a person bad mouths another with the intention of hurting them (Einarsen et al, 9). Emotional bullying on its part is where the bully discriminates and marginalizes another person on the basis of any narrow societal definition such negative stereotypes, race amongst others. Conventionally, one would expect that students are the bullies against fellow students, however, the reality is a lot different. Parents and teachers are equally culpable of being bullies. At the long end, the younger person being bullied becomes hurt and would have a lower self-esteem since the people who are expected to offer solace turn out to be bullies themselves. According to Newman, “Among 12- to 17-year-olds, 47 percent of girls and 34 percent of boys report having been bullied either face-to-face or online, according to a survey by Mintel, a market research firm. And prominent cases of teenagers committing suicide after being harassed on social media networks have, along with strengthening the resolve of antibullying organizations, prompted brands to take up the issue” (Newman). Indeed the cruel treatment of peers has always been a problem of children’s communities and, perhaps, the reason for this is that in such way kids learn how to survive later in the adult society. The main issue here is that bullying might become rather contradictory issue and might play a role of social identifier of stronger and weaker personalities or even work like a kind of natural selection. On the other hand the kids being treated cruelly can gain many mental traumas and complexes which afterwards influence their social functioning or even can destroy it preventing them from self-realization. Coughlan comments: “Described as "easily provoked, low in self-esteem, poor at understanding social cues, and unpopular with peers", these children grew into adults six times more likely to have a "serious illness, smoke regularly or develop a psychiatric disorder" (Coughlan). It is important to note that as far as the subject of the issue is actually the bullying that happens at schools, a reasonable conclusion is that bullying doesn’t allow children to study normally and have good marks. It turns out that the main educational function of school is being interrupted, because kids are simply scared of going to school. The reason why the bullying should be prevented is because even though it can sometimes be treated as a part of natural selection, still we don’t live in the wild environment and the traumatized kids are going to stay in our society and form it. Thus, if their amount is growing every day, it is hard to imagine what our society will look like in a decade. Recent researches revealed an unfortunate statistics that 20 to 30 percent of school-age children are involved in bullying situations (“Bullying and Teasing: No Laughing Matter”). The essential thing in the problematic area is the consequences bullying may have. First of all, it was already mentioned kids that get traumatized, but more important thing is that majority of these children will never be able to recover from the mental traumas they’ve got in humiliating situations. In the article “Childhood Bullying ‘Damages Adult Life” Sean Coughlan asserts that the both sides of bullying, including not only a victim but also a bully, gain serious mental damages and frequently can’t live a decent social life. Indeed, it turns out that those kids who used to be victims of school bullying often have psychiatric disorder and feel uncomfortable being in society, because they lose their belief in humanity. It can be easily proved by the analogy that when a person gets traumatized by somebody, the victim remembers the offence that led to the pain, so in order to prevent the same situation in the future the person will avoid certain category of people that may seem dangerous. Mental traumas like this lead the bullying victims to serious physical illnesses as a consequence of the negative inner state. Furthermore, even bullies themselves later suffer from their actions, claims (Coughlan). Most of them keep aggression and cruelty inside for a long time; they don’t stop on school bullying and try to expand their brutality as much as possible. Eventually, they even become criminals and this role of bully becomes their profession. It turns out that there is no side in the bullying situation that actually wins, because finally the both sides suffer. There are a lot of arguments why school bullying should be banned and nowadays society realizes the danger of bullying tendency. In the United States the problem has gained serious attention from authorities; 49 states have already passed anti-bullying laws, and the number of schools using anti-bullying programs continues to grow (Brackett and Rivers). Governmental actions are quite reasonable and correspond to the core values of American people and their rights set in the Constitution. Indeed as far as all the people, citizens of the United States in particular, are equal by their nature, they deserve to be treated accordingly. Unfortunately, still there are no effective measures of bullying prevention. Brackett and Rivers argue in their article: “It is true that bullying-prevention efforts are on the rise. In fact, 49 states now have anti-bullying legislation in place, and the number of schools using anti-bullying programs continues to grow. These legislative and programmatic actions demonstrate a commitment to addressing a critical problem. They have cost our nation billions, and, yet, according to nationwide surveys, bullying rates have not declined. The results of six meta-analyses confirm that current anti-bullying programs are not working” (Brackett & Rivers). Conclusion In order to overcome the issue of bullying in the society, it requires collective action from each member of the society. The ordinary people could help by raising awareness about the menace of bullying such as in the social media so as to deter the perpetrators of the vice. Secondly, whenever an incident of bullying is raised, it would be proper and critical for the society or the ordinary people to stand by the victim. This means that they would give the victim emotional support needed to overcome that trying moment. These measures would help the victim of bullying to have the emotional strength needed to overcome the emotional trauma while at the same time caution the bully against his or her behaviors. Organizations and advocacy groups have huge following and resources at their disposal, thus, they could play a part in this by visiting schools to counsel and train students on this subject. For instance, they could hold fun days and awareness events in schools thus teach and train the students on the negative effects of aggression or bullying at the same time help the victims with psychological counselling. Another way would also be if the organizations rewarded the reformed bullies. Works Cited Einarsen, Ståle, et al. "The concept of bullying and harassment at work: The European tradition." Bullying and harassment in the workplace: Developments in theory, research, and practice (2011): 3-39. “Understanding Bullying.” BBC. 6 Feb. 2015. http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/parents/bullying/ Newman, Andrew Adam. “The Fight Against Bullying in Schools Expands to Store Shelves”. The New York Times. Web. 6 Feb. 2015. http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/01/business/media/the-fight-against-bullying-in-schools-expands-to-store-shelves.html?_r=1& “Bullying and Teasing: No Laughing Matter”. Scholastic. Web. 6 Feb. 2015. http://www.scholastic.com/parents/resources/article/social-emotional-skills/bullying-and-teasing-no-laughing-matter Coughlan, Sean. “Childhood Bullying ‘Damages Adult Life”. BBC News. Web. 6 Feb. 2015 < http://www.bbc.com/news/education-23756749> Brackett, Marc A. and Rivers, Susanne E. “Preventing Bullying With Emotional Intelligence”. Education Week. Web. 6 Feb. 2015. http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2014/02/19/21brackett_ep.h33.html Read More