1.0  INTRODUCTION

This task gives focus on essay writing based on the theme that given. I have choose an article about “Bullying In School” that include on theme of social issues. There are the three articles that I have choose from internet about Bullying In School that include causes of bullying in school, effects of bullying in school and ways to reduce bullying in school.

2.0 ARTICLE ON TOPICS

2.1 CAUSES OF BULLYING IN SCHOOL

Bullying in schools

Worried about going back to school? Worried about school bullying? Intimidation, threats, taunting, violence?

Recently there's been much increased awareness of bullying in schools and whilst it may appear that bullying is on the increase, I suspect there's been little change in the amount of bullying that goes on in school. What has changed is that society is at last beginning to recognise just how vile bullying is and that the myths and misperceptions are just that - myths and misperceptions. Those who perpetuate these myths are choosing to be part of the problem, not the solution.

It seems that children bully for a variety of reasons and when dealing with child bullying it's essential to identify who is the bully at the centre of the violence - there's usually one person who's the gang leader - and the reasons for bullying which include:

frustration - a child is impaired in some way and is frustrated and resentful because the source of their difficulty has not been identified - problems can include deafness, dyslexia, autism, allergy, being left-handed, undiagnosed PTSD or some unidentified learning difficulty - nevertheless the child is expected to perform at the level required by the school and no attempt is made to identify the source of the frustration
the child is being bullied, the responsible adults have repeatedly failed in their duty of care, so the child slowly and reluctantly starts to exhibit aggressive behaviours because that's the only way to survive in this bullying-entrenched climate
poor or no role model - the child has no role model at home, or a poor role model for one or both parents and has never had the opportunity to learn behaviour skills
abuse at home - the child is being abused and is expressing their anger through bullying
desire for attention - children who do not get attention or emotional support at home may try to get noticed even in negative ways. to do this, they may try to become the center of attention by humiliating someone else.
influence of media - television shows, video games, websites and popular music all have facets that encourage and even praise violent behavior as a means to assert oneself. Taken out of context, a troubled child may use these examples as ways of being aggressive to gain popularity with peers.
cycle of abuse - some children are only repeating behaviors they witness at home. They may see one parent bullied by the other or may be the victims of bullying themselves by older siblings.
gang membership - In small towns as well as big cities, children are finding acceptance through gang membership. This is especially true of youth who live in families with either one parent or an extended family member. Gangs often use threats and intimidation to initiate new recruits and continue to use these methods to deal with opposing gangs. These tactics inevitably are transferred to the school environment.
desire for control - there are many children who live in undesirable family situations or who find themselves in abusive situations. in an attempt to exert some kind of control of their life, they will try to manipulate others even if they have to use threats and taunts.
neglect at home - similar to abuse as the child's emotional and behavioural development is being retarded
undue influence - the child has fallen in with the wrong crowd
conduct disorder - the child has a conduct disorder, the precursor to antisocial, psychopathic or other personality disorder

Whilst much of this web site on workplace bullying is relevant to child bullying and school bullying, there is one significant difference. A child is still in their formative years, and if a child is exhibiting bullying behaviours, then if you intercede in the right way, many child bullies - with the exception of those with a conduct disorder - can be helped to learn better ways of behaving and interacting with other children. At present, this is not possible with adult serial bullies, especially the sociopathic ones. Psychopaths comprise at least 1% of society and that's only the ones who have been identified. When socialised psychopaths are counted, the percentage could be 2-3%. Psychopathic personality is a lifelong condition and the only thing mental health professionals are agreed on is that it is not caused by bad parenting. For more information on psychopathic personality read The Mask of Sanity by Hervey Cleckly and Without Conscience by Robert Hare. All psychopaths have been through school. Society has no solutions for dealing with psychopaths. [More on psychopaths]

There are very few programmes that will actively help an aggressive child learn to deal with their aggression. Many schools, under pressure of budgets, lack of time, overburdened with work (especially tick sheets and tests), lack of leadership, lack of local education authority support, lack of government support, and rising class sizes [click here for the real picture of education today], either ignore the problem (in which case it gets worse), punish the bully (in which case it gets worse), punish the target of bullying when they stand up for themselves (in which case it gets worse), or expel the bullying pupil (in which case the problem is passed to someone else). All of these are short-term, short-sighted non-solutions which do not address the cause of the problem, which in all cases will get worse. It can result in the death of a pupil, either from suicide (at least 16 children commit suicide in the UK each year because they are being bullied at school and those in authority are failing to deal with it), or from violence, as in the cases of Damilola Taylor in Peckham, South London and Josh Belluardo in Canton, Cherokee County, Georgia, USA.

When Neil Marr and I were writing our book Bullycide: death at playtime we discovered that if bullying is rife in the playground then it’s likely to be rife in the staffroom, and vice-versa. Teachers are the largest group of enquirers to Bully OnLine and in most cases the identified serial bully is the head teacher with one of the behaviour profiles at workbully/serial.htm. A teacher or principal who is bullying members of staff is likely to be bullying the pupils also. In these cases the good teachers - the majority - have become disempowered and disenfranchised. The bullying is designed to try and hide the fact that the principal lacks integrity, maturity and thus, significantly, does not have control of discipline but is now embarking on a campaign to vilify the bullied child and their family in order to divert attention away from his or her lack of competence and to evade liability and personal accountability. Increasingly in the UK, it seems, head teachers are being appointed on the basis of their willingness to simply obey orders and comply with meeting government targets and regardless of their lack of interpersonal skills or educational ability. Such heads often have a high intelligence but a low emotional intelligence (EQ) - and at secondary school level and above it seems that most head teachers and principals share the same funny handshake.

Bullying is the general term applied to a pattern of behaviour whereby one person with a lot of internal anger, resentment and aggression and lacking interpersonal skills chooses to displace their aggression onto another person, chosen for their vulnerability with respect to the bully, using tactics of constant criticism, nit-picking, exclusion, isolation, teasing etc with verbal, psychological, emotional and (especially with children) physical violence. When called to account, the bullying child will typically exhibit the denial - counterattack - feigning victimhood response to evade accountability, often with success. Child bullies are adept at manipulating the perceptions of adults, especially adults who are inexperienced or who have a low EQ.

If a child is exhibiting bullying behaviour, the questions to ask are "why does this child have a lot of internal aggression?" and "why does this child need to displace their internal aggression onto other children?", and "why has this child not learned how to interact with other children in a non-violent manner?". See my page on abuse for clues.

I believe a school should create an environment whereby children understand from the moment they start school that bullying, aggression and violence are not acceptable. It is often the absence of such an ethos that potential bullies perceive as acceptance of their aggressive behaviour. A policy is a start, but it must be more than just words on paper, it has to be a proactive policy, not just a rule book which is dusted down in the head's study after aggression has resulted in injury. Any anti-bullying policy or anti-bullying advice which fails to mention of accountability for the bully and for the responsible adults who are failing in their duty of care is likely to meet with at best limited success.

Positive behaviour should be part of the national curriculum, but unfortunately it is not a subject that produces statistical data that the government can use to show how wonderful its education policy is. Behavioural skills, assertiveness, parenting skills, financial skills, business skills, motivational skills, success skills - key skills for a successful life and career - are conspicuously absent from the national curriculum. I also believe that a whole-school policy should also support both parties. The target is taught assertiveness skills (this will not solve a bullying problem but enables a child to learn emotional and verbal self-defence), whilst the bully is taught how to deal with their aggression and how to interact in a socially responsible manner with other children.

I believe physical punishment is inappropriate, for it reinforces the bullying child's view that violence is an appropriate solution to any problem - if you don't like what someone else is doing, it's OK to hit them. The bullying child needs support, supervision, and mentoring, whilst being helped to understand that violence is not acceptable. If the bullying child refuses to respond positively, then an escalating response is appropriate, including ultimately the removal of the child from the class in order to protect the rights of the majority of children who do choose to conform to the required social norms.

The education system is still one where aggression and violence are dominant. The popular students tend to be the jocks, those with sporting prowess, especially in those activities which require physical strength. In classes, the most aggressive pupil tends to be the one around who all others cluster. Aggression rules. Those children who are non-violent, not physically strong, or physically small, are always vulnerable; their needs are often overlooked, as are their talents. It's the non-violent children who will go on to make the biggest contribution to society.

School environments tend to be one of "exclusion" rather than "inclusion". Children are left to form their own groups, or gangs, and you are either "in" or "out". I believe children should be taught at the outset to show dignity and respect to other children regardless of whether they are "in" or "out", and to be proactive in their relationships to other children, especially those who "do not fit in", for whatever reason. Conformity is high in the list of children's priorities, and rejection, for whatever reason, is particularly painful. Sadly, many children do not learn the best interaction skills at home, and this is where schools can make a big difference.

Much good work has been done on addressing bullying in schools, but much remains to be done. Research shows that at least 50% of children will be bullied at school. The incidence is probably much higher. Bullying prevents children from undertaking their studies and results in grades which are lower than they would otherwise be which means that the school appears lower down the league tables than they otherwise would.

If a child learns how to bully, and gets away with it, there's a lot of anecdotal evidence to suggest they leave school and carry on their bullying in the workplace. This web site is the result.

So who's responsible?

I think it's important not to immediately blame individuals. And especially not teachers. There are a few bullying teachers (it's surprising how often these get promoted to positions of management), but most teachers are hard-working individuals who dedicate their lives to educating the next generation. The problem, as so often, lies further up the management chain.

We all have a collective responsibility, and bullying is the result of a number of factors. I believe the way forward is to identify all the factors and especially the causes, then begin to modify our education system so that in 25 or 50 years time, bullying is no longer a problem. There are no quick fixes, by the way, although change, if properly implemented - and resourced and funded (smirk) - will start to bring dividends inside a year or two.

Bully OnLine provides unique insight into bullying and explores the profile of the serial bully. Everyone, I believe, has experience of at least one person in their life with the profile of the serial bully. It may be at home with a violent partner or family member, or at work with an aggressive co-worker or boss, or with an aggressive neighbor, or at school with the school bully. Living or working with a serial bully can drive you mad. Click here to see who you know with this behavior profile.

2.2 EFFECTS OF BULLYING IN SCHOOL

The Effects of Bullying in School

By Valerie Martin, eHow Contributor

updated: October 17, 2009

Bullying can cause severe emotional damage for years, and the children who are bullied aren't the only ones who suffer. The bullies also undergo serious emotional trauma, which in turn causes them to bully other children.

Emotional Trauma

According to the National Center for Children Exposed to Violence, children who are bullied may suffer from low self-esteem, as well as other serious emotional issues such as chronic anxiety and depression. (See Reference 1)

Academic Achievement

Bullying may keep kids from succeeding in school. Their anxiety, or other emotional issues caused by bullying, may make it impossible for them to concentrate on their studies or to succeed at extracurricular activities.

Hostile Environment

Bullying creates a hostile school environment, which may affect even children who are not directly bullied, who may fear being bullied and become distracted from their studies and other pursuits.

Effects on Bullies

Bullies are likely to become violent, drop out of school, or get into other serious trouble as adults. (See Reference 1) They need help as much as the children being bullied---and often, they are the victims of bullies as well, such as an abusive parent.

Bullying as Adults

Adults who bullied others as children may continue bullying their peers as adults. This can be a problem in the workplace for many people, particularly because adults' concerns about being bullied are not always taken seriously. (See Reference 2)

Environmental Effects

 The general atmosphere of the school become negative if even a relatively small number of students are being bullied. This negativity also emanates from the bullies themselves. They create an environment of intimidation in order to establish control.

Community Effects

 Bullied children might seek to retaliate when school is over. This brings the conflict into the community, which can involve family members and peers, not to mention the police. This is also a cyclical problem because the conflict in the community may be continued during school hours.

Societal Effects

 Children who bully have a greater chance of becoming violent adults who use intimidation to control others. The victims of bullying might tend to seek revenge by violent means. Either way, bullying affects society at large as children enter adulthood with negative coping behaviors.

Physical Effects

 Bruises, scratches and scars can mean your child is being bullied. Aside from the normal bumps and scrapes that young children get from playing, excessive marks should be investigated. Also, a loss of appetite or sleep is common as a result of the fear and anxiety that bullying causes

Effect on Relationship with Parents

 The relationship between a parent and child may be strained because of the child's hostility towards school. For instance, a child may blame his parent for forcing him to go. He may also begin asking you for more allowance and lunch funds money if the bully is demanding money from him.

Effect on Friendships

 A child may isolate himself or develop a general distrust of people. He may also seek revenge on his bully or feel justified in attacking other children to relieve stress or anxiety.

2.3 WAYS TO REDUCE BULLYING IN SCHOOL

School bullying

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopaedia

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Bullying is detrimental to students’ well-being and development.

School bullying is a type of bullying that occurs in connection with education, either inside or outside of school. Bullying can be physical, verbal, or emotional and is usually repeated over a period of time.^[1]^[2]
Many educational institutions have implemented anti-bullying campaigns. Studies in Norway and England confirm these programs can be effective. The programs usually focus on increasing awareness and supervision, establishing clear rules, and providing support and protection for victims.

Types of school bullying

Physical bullying

Emotional bullying

Verbal bullying

Cyber-bullying

Main article: Cyber-bullying

Cyber-bullying occurs when someone bullies through the Internet, mobile phones or other electronic means.^[1] Examples include:

sending mean spirited text, e-mail, or instant messages.
posting inappropriate pictures or messages about others in blogs or on web sites
using someone else's user name to spread rumors or lies about someone.

Sexual bullying

Sexual bullying is "any bullying behaviour, whether physical or non-physical, that is based on a person’s sexuality or gender. It is when sexuality or gender is used as a weapon by boys or girls towards other boys or girls - although it is more commonly directed at girls. It can be carried out to a person’s face, behind their back or through the use of technology."^[3]
As part of its research into sexual bullying in schools, the BBC Panorama programme commissioned a questionnaire aimed at young people aged 11-19 years in schools and youth clubs across five regions of England.^[4] The survey revealed that of the 273 young people who responded to the questionnaire, 28 had been forced to do something sexual and 31 had seen it happen to someone else. Of the 273 respondents, 40 had experienced unwanted touching.^[5] UK Government figures show that in school year 2007/8 there were 3,450 fixed period exclusions and 120 expulsions from schools in England due to sexual misconduct.^[6] This includes incidents such as groping and using sexually insulting language. From April 2008 to March 2009, ChildLine counselled a total of 156,729 children. Of these, 26,134 children spoke about bullying as a main concern and 300 of these talked specifically about sexual bullying.^[3]
Some people including the UK charity Beatbullying have claimed that children are being bullied into providing ‘sexual favours’ in exchange for protection as gang culture enters inner city schools,^[7] however other anti-bullying groups and teachers' unions including the National Union of Teachers challenged the charity to provide evidence of this as they had no evidence that this sort of behaviour was happening in schools.^[7]

School shooting

Main article: School shooting

School shootings have focused attention on student bullying, with shooters in several of the worst shootings reporting they were bullied.

Who bullies

One student or a group can bully another student or a group of students. Bystanders may participate or watch, sometimes out of fear of becoming the next victim. However, there is some research suggesting that a significant proportion of "normal" school children may not evaluate school-based violence (student-on-student victimization) as negatively or as being unacceptable as much as adults generally do, and may even derive enjoyment from it, and they may thus not see a reason to prevent it if it brings them joy on some level.^[8]
Bullying can also be perpetrated by teachers and the school system itself: there is an inherent power differential in the system that can easily predispose to subtle or covert abuse, humiliation, or exclusion - even while maintaining overt commitments to anti-bullying policies.^[9]^[10]^[11]

Strategies to cope with bullying- Helping victims at school

Many of the responsibilities of members of a school team are that they need to help the victims of bullying.^[12] The following strategies may be considered:

Speak with the victim and ask them if they want to do anything about it, if they refuse take your part and start investigating.
After investigating the situation, it may be that intervention is necessary with the bully or bullies. The situation needs to be addressed. Ideally, a resolution to the problem will be found.
Inform the parents of the victim and of the bully. Discuss possible solutions with them. Arrange a meeting with them if possible.
Follow up in communicating with the victim, the parents and the teachers about the situation.
Monitor the behavior of the bully and the safety of the victim on a school-wide basis.
If the problem continues speak with the parents of the bully again and consider the idea of expulsion of the bully if problems continue, bullies normally attack not only one child but more of one, and normally 3 to 4 children are the attackers, find out exactly who they are.
Finally you should decide for yourself the punishment, it depends on how they attacked the children, how many they have been attacking, since when has it been a problem, etc.

Strategies to reduce bullying within schools

Researchers (Olweus, 1993;^[13] Craig & Peplar, 1999;^[14] Ross, 1998;^[15] Morrison, 2002;^[16] Whitted & Dupper, 2005;^[17] Aynsley-Green, 2006;^[18]) provide several strategies which address ways to help reduce bullying, these include:

Make sure an adult knows what is happening to their children.
Actually enforce anti bully laws.
Make it clear that bullying is never acceptable.
Recognise that bullying can occur at all levels within the hierarchy of the school (i.e., including adults).
Hold a school conference day or forum devoted to bully/victim problems.
Increase adult supervision in the yard, halls and washrooms more vigilantly.
Emphasize caring, respect and safety.
Emphasize consequences of hurting others.
Enforce consistent and immediate consequences for aggressive behaviors.
Improve communication among school administrators, teachers, parents and students.
Have a school problem box where kids can report problems, concerns and offer suggestions.
Teach cooperative learning activities.
Help bullies with anger control and the development of empathy.
Encourage positive peer relations.
Offer a variety of extracurricular activities which appeal to a range of interests
Teach your child to defend himself or herself, verbally and physically, if necessary.
Keep in mind the range of possible causes: e.g., medical, psychiatric, psychological, developmental, family problems, etc.
If problems continue in your school, press harassment charges against the family of the person who is bullying you.

3.0 GRAPHIC ORGANISER

4.0 ESSAY

Bullying is defines as an aggressive behavior that is persistent, intentional, and involves an imbalance of power or strength. There are four kinds of bullying, that is physical, emotional, verbal and cyber bullying. In colloquial speech, bullying is most often used to describe a form of harassment associated with being performed by a child who is older, stronger, or otherwise more powerful socially, upon weaker peers. School bullying is a type of bullying that occurs in connection with education, either inside or outside of school. Recently there's been much increased awareness of bullying in schools and whilst it may appear that bullying is on the increase.

ARTICLE 1 – CAUSES OF BULLYING IN SCHOOL

Bullying is when someone repeatedly acts or says things to have power over another person. Bullies mainly use a combination of intimidation and humiliation to torment others. According to the first article that I choose, I find out that there are some causes of bullying in school. Bullying is not a new problem, but it is gaining more attention as episodes of school violence are increasing. The causes of bullying is desire for attention showed that children who do not get attention or emotional support at home may try to get noticed even in negative way by humiliating someone else. Bullying in school also causes by a cycle of abuse that is some children are only repeating behaviours they witness at home. The child is being abused and is expressing their anger through bullying. Other than that, bullying in school also caused by influence of media that encourage and even praise violent behaviour as a means to assert oneself. Taken out of context, a trouble child may use these examples as ways of being aggressive to gain popularity with peers. Besides that, gang membership also becomes a factor of bullying in school. Gang memberships often use threats and intimidation to initiate new recruits and continue to use these methods to deal with opposing gangs. In addtion, undue influence also causes a bullying in school while the child has fallen in with the wrong crowd and so on.

ARTICLE 2 – EFFECTS OF BULLYING IN SCHOOL

Bullying can leave some effects on the individual who being a victim of bullying. According to the second article that I choose by Valerie Martin, I find out some of effects of bullying in school. That one of the most profound impacts of bullying is its effect on a child's self-esteem. Bullying can lead to feelings of worthlessness and depression, which can interfere with schoolwork. When a child’s is worrying about bullying, it may make difficult for them to concentrate on necessary tasks and impossible for them to concentrate on their studies or to succeed at extracurricular activities. Deficits in academic performance can easily occur when bullying victims succumb to depression or otherwise become demoralized. They certainly also occur when victims ditch school to avoid bullies. Besides that, bullying in school causing a physical harm to children who become a victim of bullying such as bruising, scrapes, cuts and damaged clothing. Bullies may also attempt to steal or destroy objects of value, such as electronics or money. While, effects to bullies are likely to become violent, drop out of school, or get into other serious trouble as adults. Bullies also become a disrespect for teachers. In addition, bullying also creates a hostile school environment, which may effect even children who are not directly bullied, who may fear being bullied and become distracted from their studies and other pursuits. Therefore, bullying also causing legal action, against the school or education authority and against the bully's family. Bullying also damaged relationship between parents and child that may be strained because of the child's hostility towards school. A child may blame his parent for forcing him to go and may also begin asking for more allowance and lunch funds money if the bully is demanding money from him. A child also may isolate himself or develop a general distrust of people. A child may also seek revenge on his bully or feel justified in attacking other children to relieve stress or anxiety.

ARTICLE 3 – WAYS TO REDUCE BULLYING IN SCHOOL

Even though great strides have been made, bullying in schools still remain a problem. Signs of being a victim of bullying regularly present themselves. While bullying decreases as a child gets older, many of the effects of bullying can last long in the child's life. Before it's too late, intervention must take place to stop and control bullying. Both victims and instigators of bullying need to be professionally counseled. According to the third article from Wikipedia page, I find out that there are some ways to reduce the bullying in school. Parents can be educated in bullying too, which will allow them to reinforce what they know at home. Also, by being informed, parents will be better able to recognize if their child is an instigator or victim of bullying. Besides that, parents should teach their child to defend himself or herself, verbally and physically, if necessary. But, parents should not teach their kids to hit or fight back; it will only make things worse. Parents should offer to make the complaint if their child is unwilling to report the bullying cases to a teacher. Schools can modify curriculum and hold school-wide awareness and prevention programs to prevent bullying. School should do a supervising to get a maintain higher visibility so that a bullying cases can be identify, enforce anti bully laws, help bullies with anger control and the development of empathy. School should recognise that bullying can occur at all levels within the hierarchy of the school. In addition, school should offer a variety of extracurricular activities which appeal to a range of interests, emphasize caring, respect and safety.

Amoi Chantek

Tuesday 9 April 2013

CAUSES OF BULLYING IN SCHOOL