Bullying at School - Tips For Schools

Introduction

Bullying is an intentional, hurtful and character damaging act by one individual or a group of individuals on other individual or group of individuals.


Bullying today is a societal menace and draws the attention of parents, teachers and sometimes education authorities. It can take the form of -

* Beating

* Kicking

* Name calling

* Excluding from peer group

* Insulting in public places

* Taunting

* Playing hurtful pranks

* Damaging belongings

Bullying in schools is a universal problem. The severity of the problem may vary from school to school. In recent years, the constant media attention has made bullying a global issue. Many schools have been forced to evaluate their teaching methods and add new policies on anti-bullying behavior.

Over thirty years of my experience in working with school children as a teacher and then as a principal, I have found many schools often deny the presence of bullying in their campus. However, denying the presence of a problem does not mean it’s not there. School authorities have often also been found to blame the current social structure. Some of these are:

* Working parents

* Unstable homes

* An increase in divorce rates

* And abuse at home

The above reasons definitely do create a volatile environment for the child and on many occasions does play a vital factor in the child’s psychology and behavioral patterns. Nonetheless, some stability needs to be brought in and only through a consistent effort of schools, government and parents can bullying be controlled.

Personally I feel that, youngsters often miss essential basic values, respect for themselves and others, humanity, love, tolerance and confidence. They spend much of their time on the Internet or watching television that does not help them learn or build on positive social behavior. In the recent years we have found that with every new batch of children, we have youngsters who are becoming increasingly aggressive and exhibit gross misbehavior. Hence there is considerable increase in the kind of bullying and its severity. The ratio of bullies to bullied is one is to ten, in the recent years