Bullying in
Schools:
Some Kids get it from Peers and Adults
by Flowering Spring Tree
Bullying
has been around for a very long time. It
is prevalent in all areas of society – homes, neighborhoods, schools, churches,
clubs, work, sports, and other groups and organizations. Children learn to bully their siblings. When such bullying is not corrected, child
bullies expand their bullying to children outside of their families.
Whether
bullying by children is overlooked – or encouraged and rewarded – by their
parents or others, the child bully learns that when he or she scares,
belittles, degrades, humiliates, or injures another, he or she typically gets
what is desired. Even worse is when
bullies locate and discover others who are similar, grouping into gangs that
persecute their targets and victims unmercifully.
Often,
children who are bullies grow and develop into adults who remain bullies. The only difference is that adult bullying –
whether adult to adult, or adult to child – has become a part of the bully’s
personality, unrecognizable as a wrong or harmful behavior to the bully. To the bully, his or her behavior is
acceptable, continuing and perhaps escalating it.
In
schools, an increasing trend is for children not only to experience bullying
from their peers, but by the adults who are charged with their care and
well-being. Incredibly, teachers, staff,
and administrators who are bullies do not recognize their bullying behavior as
such toward children and youth. When an
adult yells at, degrades, humiliates, or belittles a child rather than speaking
with them in a civil manner, he or she is engaging in bullying. Adults who severely discipline or punish
children or youth in schools are engaging in bullying.
Teachers
who prevent students from participating in various school activities or
opportunities are behaving as bullies toward them. Administrators who refuse to perceive the
bullying behaviors of themselves and/or others (such as teachers) toward
students are acting as bullies. When a
child is seriously hurt at school, and there is no call to the child’s parents
about the injury, adults at school are engaging in bullying. When teachers are all too quick to fail a
student without providing incentives for progress and/or opportunities for
extra credit work, they are also being bullies.
Thus,
it is the adults in the immediate world of children who are often acting as
catalysts for the child’s bullying behavior.
When children experience it, observe it, and are unable to stop it –
from adults – it becomes commonplace, tolerated, and accepted in the child’s
world. To the child, when adults
repeatedly behave as bullies – toward him or her, or others – bullying becomes
okay. It is, therefore, often the adults
who are giving license for the children to behave badly, just as they – the
adults – are doing.
What
has happened in our society that adults are so easily able to bully children
and get away with it? Is it because so
many children are abused and killed at the hands of bullyish parents or
others? Is it because our society seems
to thrive on viewing and/or participating in more and more violence? Is it because people simply do not know how
to understand, appreciate, and respect each other? Or, is it because there are always people who
desire to take advantage of others, dominating, intimidating, and overpowering
them in whatever possible ways? Or,
perhaps these are not the right questions.
Possibly there are other more existential questions that should be
asked. For example, is violence simply a
part of human existence that poisons every part of our society? Is it just a part of the human reality that
we experience while living on this earth?
While
I do not know the answers to these and so many other possible questions about
bullying and why it exists, I do know that it is an ugly part of our society
that I dislike and about which I would like to improve. I believe that people should better
understand, appreciate, and respect each other – no matter what race,
nationality, geographic origin, religion, culture, gender, financial status,
sexual orientation, or any other background.
That,
however, does not mean that with an increased understanding about people that
they should always be able to do what they want – because that could involve
bullying and unfairness toward others.
What is necessary is coming to an increased perspective about doing what
is right in our actions toward others.
Needed is a greater understanding of how to properly interact with
others in a respectful, understanding, and appreciative manner – including the
interactions of adults toward children.
With
children and youth spending so much time in schools, institutions of education
are their second home. When I send my
child to school, I do not wish that he be bullied by his peers – or by adults
at school. I send my child to school to
be educated, but not to be educated in experiencing, tolerating, and/or
accepting bullying by anyone, least of all the adults at school. School teachers and other school employees
must reflect upon their own words and actions so that they are not bullying
toward children, and instead are respectful, appreciative, and understanding of
children, so that they are the proper role models that our children can look up
to and emulate.
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