Stop school bullying

Today as usual I opened my MSN waiting for yahoo news window to pop up, I saw a tragic piece of news about school bullying in ONE school in Ohio. Four teenagers committed  suicide  due to their peers ridicule about their accent, the way they dress, their sexual orientation etc…

What shocks me is the number of students  and the reaction of the school’s administration towards those tragedies. They only care about their school’s reputation and not being cought up by the judicial system. They do not care about those innocent lives. I keep wondering about those teenagers who bully others, should they get away with what they did? To cause another’s death is a disease and they should be in rehab facilities. There should be strict laws which prevent school bullying. Tough actions should be taken against those bulliers  . I am also wondering about the school’s psychiatrist  in handling these situations. They should have interfred from the beginning and talked to the victims and gave councilling sessions to them about how  they can react towards this. The families could have done more  than that by transferring their children into different schools or taking serious actions towards their children abuse.

These tragedies bring sadness into my heart that there are still people who judge others according to their clothes, accent, disabilities…

should we blame the community we are raised in or just media which enhances the picture of being “cool” at school?

9 Comments

  2. I think you need to examine the school culture- it would seem that such behaviour (name calling, nasty behaviour to others) must be condoned and supported for it thrive. What does this school care about, and how is this manifested in how students and teachers behave towards each other? What posters/information exists in the school about how to ‘out’ bullies or make complaints about others? What school processes exist to protect students?

    There is something rotten in the school if students are driven to such desperate measures through others’ cruelty. No counsellor will be able to support students if the prevailing attitude is toxic to students’ mental health and sense of safety

    • I agree with you esp. in the awareness part. That should be made clear to all schoolers that bullying is not accepted. You know there is this movie about school bullying about this intelligent girl and because and her friends get jealous of her so they drive her to kill herself….
      I also think that immigrants are mostly bullied because of their “individual differences” such as color, religion, accent, language, culture, etc…

  3. I have read a few great tweets on this issue…and a great blog post by a mom to her daughter after hearing of the college students suicide after the was videotaped having an encounter with someone of the same sex.

    CNN has great resources:
    http://www.cnn.com/2010/LIVING/10/05/bullying.victim.kemmerling/index.html?npt=NP1

    http://www.cnn.com/2010/US/studentnews/09/30/antibullying.resource/index.html

    If you use Tweetdeck or Hootsuite to manage twitter, make a column that searches for bullying. You are right, it has to stop and it starts with parents..

  5. Hi Olabakri,

    This certainly is a moving topic, thanks for bringing it up.

    I think that talking about bullying is key in its prevention. Years ago, strapping students and smoking in the classroom were non uncommon. Because education raised awareness, these practices have disappeared, at least in developed countries. The more we talk about bullying and embrace initiatives to fight it, the better the chance to see it become marginalized.

    We’re still not very good at identifying the multiple aspects of bullying. But there’s hope. The youth themselves are more and more informed. In my local schoolboard, a couple of years ago, two young teenagers decided to stand up for one of their classmate who was being bullied. They did it in a wonderful, peaceful way: they decided to come to school with a pink t-shirt. This was so powerful that it immediately became a school movement, that later spread school board-wide and province-wide. And now at the beginning of each school year, kids come to school dressed in pink, boys and girls alike, to denounce bullying. We didn’t even know the term when I was young…

    Thanks for prompting this reflection!

  6. Hi Ola,

    I just blogged about cyberbullying. If you have time, please check it out.

    I would like to provide you with some links to some blogs I found that might help you find the answers to your questions.

    1. Don’t Blame the Technology — http://theonlinemom.com/blog.asp?id=1298

    2. There’s No Such Thing as “Cyberbullying”
    http://dashes.com/anil/2010/10/theres-no-such-thing-as-cyberbullying.html

    3. Let’s not create a cyberbullying panic
    http://news.cnet.com/8301-19518_3-20001982-238.html

    Thanks for your blog post Ola! I think you pose some very important questions and I enjoyed your thoughts and the thoughts of your commenters

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