Bullying -- Solving the Problem With Peers
TUCKER HUGHES
If you read this, help by taking this program to any faculty member who could, and is willing, to help. If you see anyone being bullied step in and stop it from going on and if that doesn’t work go to an adult. Please do what you can to stop bullying.
Bullying is a problem for many young people around the world. There have been many reports of teenagers being driven to suicide because of bullying. Bullying is when someone uses superior strength or influence to force someone to doing what the bully wants. Over 475,000,000 children are bullied or have been bullied, 190,000,000 are bullied at least once a week and 95,000,000 are bullied once a day. Bullying is hard to prevent because it often happens secretly, or with no adults nearby, and others do not want to get involved for fear of being bullied themselves. Teachers and administrators may put in rules or regulations to try to prevent bullying, but it may be that the best solution comes from the children. With no bullying, children could grow up to have better lives and be more secure and confident with who they are and what they can do.
At Princeton University, a study was done on the most effective way to stop bullying. The study showed that if students who were social leaders started advocating against bullying, it was more effective than other programs. Instead of teachers or administrators setting blanket rules against bullying, the social leaders were asked to speak out against bullying and set an example. Their peers noticed the social leaders more, which helps them become a good normal in the community and created an obstacle to bullying.
If someone were to start something to help stop bullying, they should create a program and go to the schools around where I live, and give the program to the teachers and faculty and tell them to pass it on to other students, and attempt to start a network of anti-bullying. The teachers or social leaders might not care about the program or be interested would make the program much more difficult. They would need to make the program interesting and important to the people watching it. If they liked the program, the social leaders could be very effective in stopping bullying.
A program could start out with the teachers and faculty creating a survey for the students, having them fill out questions about who they think could be a good leader and why they would help the anti-bullying movement (this could include themselves as well). After this, the faculty would select the specific students to start the program beginning with the basics of why bullying is bad, how they can help, and how they can include other students to give them the program. After that the new students would pass it on to other students and so on.
People often play more than one role in bullying. They can watch others be bullied, bully others, be bullied by others themselves or they might fight against bullying. For instance a child might be a bully because they get bullied themselves and feel the need to put their pain on someone else or someone may have been bullied and are more afraid to help because of that experience. This could change if someone stood up and showed them that it wouldn’t hurt to help someone who is being bullied, or to stop bullying others.
I interviewed Dr. Paul Grenier a man who has witnessed bullying, been bullied and been a part of bullying someone. I asked him “How often, if ever, have you heard about someone being bullied?”
“I suppose if I was honest I could say that in my life I probably either witnessed it, experienced it myself or was a part of bullying on my end at least once a month throughout my life.” Replied Paul, “Sad to say but it is built into our society and is finally coming to the surface, I believe to be healed. I, being in a little guy stature, have always been a target for bullying. But humor has always been my greatest defense.”
Next I asked, “What would you do to stop people from getting bullied?”
To which he replied, “I would get people in the same room if it was a chronic bullying situation. Ideally just the individuals themselves and maybe a moderator. It is really hard to continue to hurt somebody if you can really see they’re pain.” He continued on saying, “If it is just general bullying then I would try to educate people as much as possible in the understanding of different cultures different ways to think, races, gender misunderstandings etc.”
For the next question I asked him, “What do you think causes someone to be a bully?”
“Question number three I would have to say the number one answer to that would be something inside themselves that they are insecure with how others think of them.” He answered, “Also the classic they were abused and or bullied themselves at one point. Sometimes people get caught up in the group gang mentality and do things that they normally wouldn’t do on their own.”
Next I asked, “How do you think it could effect someone’s future?”
He answered saying, “It makes my gut ache! It’s a very sad thing to witness or experience, especially if it is more than one person that you’re being bullied by. I believe it could be very devastating in some situations. At other times like for myself it has helped me become more compassionate. Also it has made me more aware of my own habits and precondition biased thoughts. I believe it’s time for our society to truly break through and start living from our hearts. As the Buddha has dedicated his life to compassion, I believe it is our time to do the same.”
This story is part of a new Storytelling for Changemakers program for Changemaker Schools activated in partnership with Ashoka’s Youth Venture and Start Empathy.
Individual views expressed in this blog are from individual students at YIHS and not representative of Ashoka, Start Empathy, or Youth Venture.
