Blog #3, Bullying
Bullying is a major issue throughout the world. It may happen in schools, on the bus, in public places or even online. Bullying can negatively impact kids day to day lives at home and in school. It is sad to see that most kids have experienced bullying at some point in their lives. With bullying being such a major issue, something must be done to stop it. If we all work together, we can get through it.
Discuss at least one thing from Bully that stuck out in your mind. Why?
From watching the documentary, "Bully", there were some things that really stuck out in my mind. First off, hearing the stories of several different kids that were bullied absolutely broke my heart, and knowing that this is happening to thousands of kids around the United States alone, hurts even more. What really stuck out to me was that some of these school officials shown within this documentary honestly did not seem to care. First off, when looking at the story of Alex Libby, he was bullied so badly in school, especially on the school bus. He was beaten and tortured all the time, it got to the point where he convinced himself that these bullies were his friends, and they were just messing with him. Not only that, but the abuse got so bad to the point where the clips were turned over to Alex's parents and the school. Alex's mom knew it was bad, but not to that extent. She was so upset that she went to speak with the assistant principal, and the assistant principal did not seem to care whatsoever. The way that the assistant principal was kind of brushing it off really got me mad. How can someone take this sort of situation so lightly? I even watched this documentary with my mother, and she was absolutely disgusted by this as well and couldn't believe what she was seeing. Not only did Alex surely feel helpless, but you could tell that his parents felt the exact same way. Another situation would be with the girl Kelby, who was bullied and harassed for coming out as lesbian. Not only was she tormented by her peers, but by her teachers as well. The fact that her teachers were tormenting her for who she loves really disgusted me as well. If anyone is supposed to help to make us feel safe at school, it would be our teachers. It got to the point where Kelby's parents pulled her out of school. A students education should not be jeopardized all because of students and/or teachers harassing and tormenting them for their differences.
How might these films and articles inform your work with youth? Be specific.
I feel that after watching the documentary, I kind of got a sense of what not to do. As I mentioned, it seemed that some school officials and teachers were doing exactly what you should not be doing when a student is being bullied such as sliding it under the rug, making false promises about fixing the situation and even feeding into the bullying. When it comes to the articles, I took a lot from them. There are so many things that can be done within schools to prevent bullying. The article "Framing Bullying for Educators" shows some really great ways to help create a more safe and welcoming environment in schools. Some of the things listed would be to create a sense of openness and trust, encourage the participants to speak and listen to one another, make time for a silent reflection, and to teach the students to appreciate differences in talents, points of view and contributions of the less vocal participants. I think that these are some great ideas when it comes to opening up some bullying discussions. I think that sometimes kids have a hard time hearing and taking in what other points of views are, but if we work together, we can help show them that it is a good thing to have differences, because that is what makes us all so special.
The article, Social and Emotional Learning and Bullying Prevention, (2009), made some really great points on how to address bullying and prevent it within schools. "In order to successfully address bullying problems, the entire school must comprise a culture of respect. Expectations for how staff and students treat one another should be clearly reflected in school policies, and the rules for classroom interaction should be consistently modeled by adults and enforced and reinforced in all school settings" Social and Emotional Learning and Bullying Prevention, (2009). Having a culture of respect within a school can decrease the amount of bullying within the school. If students are taught to respect one another and that having differences is a good thing, then there would be less for kids to pick on one another for. A lot of the time, bullying can happen all because of differences from one another. Another great point made by this article would be; "At the student level, schools using an SEL framework teach students skills in the areas of self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, relationships, and responsible decision-making. These core SEL skills are the foundational competencies that students need in order to deal with bullying" Social and Emotional Learning and Bullying Prevention, (2009). Schools using the SEL framework can help show students how to deal with bullying as well, which is something that schools should educate their students in as well.
The final article spoke about 10 different ways to be an upstander. We all can make the world a better place if we work together, and one of the ways to do that would be by being an upstander. If you see someone getting bullied, you should stand up against the bully. If you just stand by and watch or laugh, it makes you just as bad as the bully in my eyes. This article gives you 10 different ways to be an upstander, including; learning more about bully behavior, helping others that are being bullied, stopping untrue or harmful messages from spreading, getting friends involved in helping, making friends outside of your circle, welcoming new students, refusing to be a bystander, and even developing an anti-bullying or upstander program within your school. If more people took these steps, we can help to stop bullying within schools, and in some cases make the students who are being bullied, feel less alone.
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