School Bullying Essay: Bullying and Its Consequences
Everyone knows that bullying is wrong. It always has been. Students – and people in general – have been bullied before and continue to be bullied today. According to the National Center for Educational Statistics, in 2016 over 20% of students reported having been bullied in schools, which makes one out of every five students a victim of bullying! Fortunately, the problem of bullying has been getting a lot more recognition in the recent years. The evidence to that is the presence of anti-bullying laws and policies accepted by the majority of states in the USA. The more light is being shed, the more conversation is being started around the issue. This can be seen from events and meetings that are being organized to bring awareness of the issue, bullying experience essays are being written and published for other students to see, and a number of ways to police bullying are being implemented. However, the established approach to deal with bullying is becoming a part of the problem.
Understanding Bullying
As defined by the official governmental StopBullying website, bullying is a repeated aggressive, unwanted behavior among peers in schools that involves a form of power imbalance. Needless to say, this behavior comes with a list of negative effects on the bullying victims. Students, who have been happy and confident prior to bullying, now become unsure, shy, reserved, self-conscious, and distance themselves from others. What’s worse, under the effects of bullying, victims are prone to depression. It accentuates their condition even further and starts affecting their relationships and performance in school. Some deal with bullying better than others, regardless, the position of a bully victim is never a comfortable one.
What Most Bullying Essays Examples Are Missing
When students are asked to complete an essay on the topic of bullying, they often provide their view on bullying and measures to deal with it. If you pick a random essay, you will most likely find a conventional solution — enforcing policies and holding bullies accountable. While that is a completely fair thing to ask for, it is only a part of the solution.
When looking from a different perspective, it does not take much to realize that bullies are in need of help too. In fact, the majority of bullies are either bullying victims on their own or have been taught to show power as a defense mechanism. You often hear the advice from elder siblings or parents, who were bullied in the past, that imposing power is a sure way to prevent becoming the victim. In other words, it’s a vicious cycle and policing the issue will not bring resolution.
Educating Over Policing
Education is the key to resolving the problem of bullying in schools and higher educational establishments. Students need to become educated on the subject and understand what bullying is. They have to recognize that anyone could be in the position of the victim overpowered by a physically stronger individual or a group. In fact, even a person who is the bully in one scenario can be a victim in another one.
Indifference is another area where work needs to be done. Often acts of bullying are successful only due to the apathy of the environment. Imagine a situation where a student gets bullied in their school hallway, and everyone is simply passing by taking the event as something mundane. Bullying is not normal, and it should not be accepted like that. If in this hypothetical, but completely possible situation, a few by-passers would have stepped in to stop it. Imagine if an adult or peer intervention would happen at every time a bullying act is attempted? When an attitude like this is exercised, it gradually renders bullying useless and not even worse the risk of getting punished.
To sum up, policing, enforcing power and punishment, only fuels rebellion and reinforces the need to bully others looking for the outlet. It’s through bringing up the relish for mutual support and care that bullying needs to be overcome.
