Addressing the Issue of Bullying in Schools (Essay Sample)

Addressing the Issue of Bullying in Schools
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Addressing the Issue of Bullying in Schools
Bullying remains a significant problem experienced in many schools today. Primarily, this phenomenon occurs among school-age children and adolescents but can also exist among adults. Such unpleasant behaviors result from continued abuse of individual position or power to victimize or mete some form of aggression on others. In schools, bullying can take various forms, including name-calling, trolling with the intention of upsetting the aggrieved party, exclusion, circulating rumors, verbal threats, and physical beating. Students who experience repeated bullying are more likely to suffer physical and psychological damage, which may affect their overall wellbeing and academic success. To address the problem of bullying in schools, it is imperative to acknowledge that the phenomena really exists, encourage reporting of such incidences, and mobilize bystanders to intervene and prevent such injustices from happening under their watch.
Successful containment of safety issues such as bullying cannot ensue if the school’s management cannot acknowledge that the problem exists in their learning environments. Recognizing that bullying is a systemic issue in schools will mark the first step towards successful development and implementation of targeted anti-bullying programs to suppress any perceived vulnerabilities among schoolchildren. According to a report by the US Department of Education (DoE), more than 32% of students have experienced bullying at least once in their middle or high school life (Ernsperger, 2012). Strikingly, the majority of bullying victims include students with various types of physical and cognitive disabilities and those from minority groups. Such students are more likely to experience name-calling, ridicule and exclusion in classroom environments as well as in other school settings. To implement any comprehensive program targeted at addressing such issues, the school’s management must identify the precursors of bullying, its severity and different ways in which this phenomenon manifest itself within and outside classroom settings.
Many incidences of bullying take place in presence of an audience, where the oppressors focus on provoking an interaction between the bystanders who may have different perspectives about such behaviors. Encouraging bystanders to stand up against bullying behaviors can have a moderating effect on interpersonal risk factors that result in victimization and oppression of vulnerable students in learning environments (Padgett & Notar, 2013). When students sit and remains impassive towards bullying situations, chances are high that such incidences may continue to occur, exposing the victims to unprecedented harm in future. Markedly, maintaining friendships with bullies allows such individuals to continue victimizing others; p