In Response to Bullying

In Response to Bullying

Teachers everywhere, lend me your ears. Schools in the modern age have a rampant problem that poses so much danger to the lives of our children that as future teachers we cannot be considered responsible people if we do not act. And act with determination. The issue is bullying, and if there is one thing I have learned from this class it is that bullying is a problem just as much as any other, but one that is often ignored.

The danger is real and great. Hardly a week goes by without some new student getting in the news for suicide caused by bullying, and school shootings performed by bully victims retaliating cannot be ignored. The amount of students at the high school level suffering from depression has risen tremendously, and most attribute a cause of this to be because of bullying.

I have sat by and watched as bullying destroyed lives. It starts in grade school, where funny looking students are picked on for looks and students live in the moment. In middle school words get meaner, cliques form, and student’s budding self -esteem either isn’t given a chance to grow or is crushed. It is at this age that the more sensitive students begin a spiral downwards, one that leads to high school, small friend groups, lack of confidence, inability to form or hold meaningful relationships, seclusion, depression, and repressed anger and hate. That anger remains bottled up for a while, usually because the student maintains some form of support group either in the form of parents or a few friends, but it doesn’t go away. Usually it changes from a hate of the bullies, and the teachers that allowed it, into hate and anger at the victim’s self, because they are too weak to stand up for themselves, they are worthless, no one cares about them, and fill in every other thing a bully has ever said about them. Bully victims grow a sense of self-hate instead of a sense of self-worth.

Even if bullying stops at this point, the damage has been done. It only takes one spark after that to unleash the anger and hate that have been building in the student for years. This comes from a student going to college and having no more parental or friend support and then failing (just as the student knew they would), a bully going one step too far. The anger and hate is then released, always in self-destructive forms, whether or not other individuals are involved, because what the victim hates most of all is themselves.

What do we do? We nip it in the bud. Elementary and middle school bullying is how it starts. We need to not just Band-Aid the victims as we see them, we need to teach students about the harm of bullying. We need programs in every school that teach students that bullying is wrong. I consider this more of a threat to our students than drug use, yet every school in America, almost, has anti-drug programs. If we want to stop bullying then teach about it in elementary school and don’t just hand out warnings when it is seen. At least in my classroom, bullying will be considered a zero tolerance event. I have seen its effects destroy too many good people, and I cannot consider myself a teacher if I let it happen.

No more. It’s our generation that can stop it. If we don’t than we will be forced to continue to watch our students fall into despair, and I cannot, in any good conscience, let that happen.