The idea of bullying has been around in schools for quite a long time, but I'm not writing this to make general statements. When a student takes his/her own life from the words or physical abuse of another student, that is when people start to question whether the other student was "bullying" or not. This is the scenario that we have been studying in IIMA.
First, let's take a look at what bullying really is. The way I think of it, bulling is when one or more student(s) engages in verbal or physical harm towards another student. The question that can rise from this definition is, "What would 'phsyical' and 'verbal harm' be?" "Physical harm" is obviously kicking, punching, slapping another person, but "verbal harm" involves a bit more than one factor. If one (or more) student(s) start saying offensive words to another, directed at a specific person, then it could be considered to be "verbal harm." But this goes just beyond saying offensive things DIRECTLY to another person. Cyberbullying, is probably one of the more specific forms of "verbal harm." If a student takes his/her life because one or more students are talking about him/her over the internet, where EVERYTHING is public, then those students could be considered the cyberbullies. There have been laws recently created to help prevent cyberbullying. As far as I know, they same to be working, but there need to be better ways to prevent suicide in students who were cyberbullied before it actually happens.
The case of United States v. Lori Drew involves 13 year-old Megan Meier, who had developed a relationship with 16 year-old boy by the name of Josh Evans on Myspace. After 6 weeks, he told her via message that he didn't want to be friends anymore, and the world would be a better place without her. she then hanged herself on October 16th, 2006. The "Josh Evans" account was created and used by Megan's former friend's mother, who wanted to see what Megan was saying about her daughter. This was a form of cyberbullying, because "Josh Evans" gained the trust of Megan, and then turned on her, and started writing cruel messages. She was also battling depression but was "upbeat" by fall of 2006. The verbal harm, even over the internet can kill someone, if they have enough issues already. This is a problem because even if someone over the internet is joking around, soemone with depression can take it seriously and commit suicide. If that person is not joking around, however, it should be considered cyberbullying, because he/she is intentially harming someone
At DHS, I don't feel that there have been any significant issues with bullying. At least not in my class of 2011. The class a grade younger than my class, however had a minor case of one person posting in the school a letter about a guy who wanted to write a song for a girl that he had liked. This is a form of bullying, because one person was intentially causing verbal harm towards another. By "verbal harm," I don't just mean saying it out loud, but symbolizing it such as saying it over the internet in written form, or printing out a sheet that has it written or typed up. Other than that minor scenario, I have not heard of any problems at DHS, nor do I feel like anyone would have a reason to bully someone else. If people want to talk badly about their aqquaintance friends, then they would be smart enough (I presume).
What would be the best solution? Well, I think that the "Challenge Day" in the video that we watched in class the other day would be very suitable for a school that has a lot of problems with bullying, or with other issues.While not all schools in America have problems with bullying, "Challenge Day" is a great way for students to communicate with each other about what really goes on in their lives, even if they are not talking to one of their friends. "Challenge Day" is at least a great start to help prevent bullying. Another way to stop bullying is if teachers payed attention to how students behave in the hallways. That was something that did not exist in the film, Bullied. The homosexual student went through too much bullying, and it came to the point of abuse, but the school district did nothing to stop it. This was probably because they were against homosexuality. A principal of a middle school cannot just tell a student to stop being "openly gay." You can't tell even a straight guy to just stop "openly liking girls." Things just don't work like that. The thing that the school should have done was have teachers monitor hallways to make sure that there was no violence in any part of the school. My grade school, which was in the city, did not tollerate any form of physical harm, no did they tolerate anything like it, even if it was a joke. I wish that more schools were like that, because they could prevent a lot more bullying cases from happenig just like the case in Bullied.
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