What is it?

Some people say that the world has advanced greatly from yesteryears. But social exclusion is still a grave problem in society. Then how has the world advanced? Bullying is one such form of social bias. Bullying is aggressive behavior that occurs among school-aged children. It includes a bully and a victim, and many times witnesses. It is repeated or has the potential to be repeated. It is an international issue and is conducted among school-aged kids. According to www.dosomething.org 1 out of every 10 students drop out of school because of repeated bullying.

Bullying can take on many forms. Verbal bullying is when someone is called names or threatened, normally in person. These names and threats are used to make the victim feel bad about themselves. Physical bullying is when someone is physically harmed and/or has their personal belongings taken from them. Social bullying is when someone is often and deliberately left out of games and other activities and purposely ignored. Bad and untrue rumors are spread and the intended purpose is to make that person feel left out. Cyber bullying is when someone is socially and/ or verbally bullied, except it’s online or on electronic devices. Cyber bullying is one of the fastest growing forms of bullying due to the rapid spread of technology in the world. All of these types have a negative impact on the victim.

Bullying has many negative effects on the victim. One effect is depression, which may entail loss of appetite, nightmares, and sadness. Other effects do not want to attend or doing badly at school or work, acute asthma, eczema, SAD/social anxiety disorder, bullying out of revenge, and suicide. Though the victim is the one being bullied, he or she is not the only one affected in that situation.

When people witness bullying, they normally don’t know what to say or do. They may feel worried or depressed. They might not go to school because they feel unsafe. They may stay silent or join in so they won’t get bullied themselves. Or they might stand up to the bully. While at the time these instincts might seem the most appropriate the best thing you can do if you see someone being bullied, or if you yourself are bullied, let a trusted adult know as soon as possible.

How can we make a difference?

Every person plays an important role in putting and end to bullying. Below are some of the things that work in our districts to put an end to bullying!

This year, at Percy Julian Middle School. Students celebrated Pink Shirt Day on February 27th. Pink Shirt Day was started in Canada after a young boy was bullied for wearing a pink shirt. Students called the student gay for choosing to wear a pink shirt to school. Two classmates decided to take a stand and asked for assistance from the administration. They passed out pink shirts to all the male students on February 27th and thus began pink shirt day. Pink shirt day really unified the students of Percy Julian Middle School. This is the first year we have chosen to participate, but we all got to decorate our own shirts during our Advisory periods. We took a stand as a school to state that we were not going to tolerate bullying. On Tuesday March 19th Mr. John Halligan also came to visit Percy Julian Middle School to speak with the students about how his son committed suicide as a result of bullying. Students also wore their shirts for the assembly. Here is team 8.1 sporting their pink shirt pride:

At St. Mark’s Teachers attend a Workshop on preventing Bullying in Schools which was conducted by Mr. Stan Davis, an international educationist form USA. The workshop mainly dealt with 4R’s of bullying prevention, namely, Respect, Relationship, Resiliency and Responses. The workshop emphasized on having a ‘Youth Voice Project’ where concerned youth would act as mentors, sources of support and friends to mistreated and excluded youth.

In Hungary we don't really have bullying in our school. Maybe it's because we live in a small and poor country, in a little school, but yet we don't really have it. As I see, maybe in the close future it will appear here, too. This is a small town everybody knows and respects each other. Hopefully others can learn to treat each other the way we do here.