Slice of Life Story Challenge March 26 -The Scourge of Bullying

I watched a report on television tonight regarding the scourge of bullying and its effect on children. Bullying has always been around, but it has become even more pervasive with the growth of on-line bullying, where the tormentor can often hide. It is also extremely difficult to get those who manage social media sites and chat-rooms to take action in such circumstances. They absolve themselves from responsibility. This only adds to the trauma of the victims.  The report did not address the important issue of parental responsibility and monitoring of children’s online lives. This would appear to be an area of critical importance in dealing with this issue.

The development of resilience is another aspect tied to bullying. How do we deal with bullies? How do we bounce back from such set backs? How do we cope? How do we minimize the impact of such negative behaviour?

We have all been the target of some form of harassment in our lives. It’s hideous to be victimized in this manner. We carry those stories through out our lives. 

As educators, we have to work with both the victim and the perpetrator when the bullying behavior occurs in our schools. Research shows many of the same young people who bully others offline, such as at school, are also the same young people who bully others in cyber-space.

We try to effect a change for both parties. We seek a resolution; a change in behaviour, and an awareness of the behaviour’s impact. Bullying is an increasingly vexed issue, not just in schools, but through out societies. It is

This poem concerns itself with bullying and grew from a conversation with a group of third graders on a recent school visit.

Bully For Me
We had a bully at our school
I think every school has one
-But ours left
Now, I can ride to school
Relaxed

We had a bully at our school
But ours left
And now playtime is fun again

We had a bully at our school
-But ours left
I wonder if that person is happy?
Like me and my friends

Are now

Comments

  1. Linda B26 March 2014 at 23:59

    Your poem makes me wonder if those at their school were aware of this bullying. Did the kids tell? And now that the bully is gone, is there any learning from it other than they're glad? One of the important aspects we believe that helps at my school is that we say behavior is everyone's business always. No one goes to a teacher to tell him or her that "their" student(s) was misbehaving, the students are confronted then, from anyone who observes. It takes time, but we feel students know they're being taken care of by everyone, & that helps. If a situation comes up about online things (with older students), we do bring in the parents to discuss it. It takes a village...

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