Essay on Bullying and Violence in Public Schools

More than obesity and health care is wrong with America. Not only does the health care system warp people's mind, but it creates an issue with the way children are taught and how they learn. A large stance has already changed many people’s lives—bullying. Children bully for many reasons including sexual orientation, weight, religious/philosophical beliefs, and some reasons unknown to all. Children bullied for their weight often times feel insecure and worthless about their bodies—scaring them in the process of always wanting to be in the same physical state and leading more obese children to lead obese adult lives.

Bullying, often labeled as just a part of growing up, is a major problem in America’s schools today. Although it is such a hot topic in our country right now, it is also a long ignored problem that only seems to worsen. The complication with bullying is that no one quite understands it, and it is not taken seriously. The definition of bullying is an overbearing person who habitually badgers and intimidates smaller or weaker people. In more simple terms, bullying is not a onetime incident; it is repetitive and happens among individuals when there is an imbalance of power. Statistically, every one in six children are bullied, and this cannot continue to take place. Every child has the right to feel safe and have the pursuit of being happy in which bullying completely takes those rights away.

Bullying has been a social problem for decades. Bullying started out with name calling, but today bulling comes in different forms. You find bullying in schools, texts, and social media to name a few. The following information provided in this research paper discusses the history of bullying and how the history has shaped bullying today. The paper will provide informative background information about bullying and the definition of bullying. This paper will discuss the roles and skills of the human service professional that works with the population that is affected by the social problem.

Bullying is defined as “verbal, physical, or psychological abuse or teasing accompanied by real or perceived imbalance of power” and is usually targets what children perceive as different (Olweus, 1993). Bullying is prevalent across the nation. It has devastating effects on students each day. Bullying is a problem for all students, regardless of race, gender or class. The National Education Association reports that 160,000 children are absent intentionally from school each day because they fear being bullied whether it is an attack or just intimidation by other students. This accounts for 15% of all school absenteeism (Hunter, 2012). Dan Olweus (1993) from the National School Safety Center tells us that bullying includes three parts: (1)

Over the past couple of decades, schools all across the nation have noticed a significant rise in the amount of bullying taking place among their students. “Two decades ago, bullying was often seen as a rare occurrence, where small groups of parents sought protection for their children with the school district”, stated by Vikki Healy Ortiz, writer of the article “New inclusive approach helps schools fight bullying”. However, the same cannot be said for our society in today’s world. Our modern world has advanced tremendously over the past few decades and there are even more opportunities for children to be susceptible to feeling isolated from others because they are simply unique. In today’s society, children have the potential to bully each other outside of the classroom as well.

Bullying is a problem that is on the rise in society; however, many individuals have a distorted view of what bullying entails. Usually when someone thinks of bullying, they assume that it is a standard part of a child’s life. This view, on the contrary, is erroneous. Bullying is actually abnormal behavior, many times, leaving victims with a dismantled self identity. Since some people do not understand the consequences of bullying, the actions of the bully often go unnoticed and are perceived as “kids being kids”. The issue of bullying goes deeper than that nevertheless. Despite the erroneous views that many individuals hold towards bullying, it is still a distortion of normal behavior in children.

Bullying is bound to happen anywhere at any time but occurs mostly within school limits. Kathleen Winkler defines bulling in her book, Bullying, as “...any kind of ongoing physical or verbal mistreatment, done with the intent to harm, where there is an imbalance of power between bully and victim” (Winkler 14). Bullying has an extremely important impact on one’s everyday life and can affect their life negatively getting to the point where they can no longer take the blow. To try and prevent bullying from taking place in schools, one needs to know how bullying effects a person, what the role of each person involved in the situation is, and have knowledge of specific methods on how to prevent it. Bullying in schools is a serious problem and a handful of school do their part to prevent it; others, not as much, which means there is room for improvements.

Bullying has engrained in American society since the country’s founding. Bred from a capitalistic economy and competitive social hierarchy, bullying has remained a relevant issue through the years. School age children are learning skills and lessons from their teachers as well as through peer interactions. Although schools are great tools that children benefit from, there are some bad experiences, such as bullying, that may negatively affect and remain with these children for the rest of their lives. Some

According to www.how-to-stop-bullying.com, seventy-seven percent of students are bullied. The definition of bullying has recently changed (how-to-stop-bullying.com). The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines the verb “bully” as “to treat abusively” (Merriam-Webster). There is more than one way to abuse someone. So a complete definition, that comes from www.bullyingstatistics.org, is any type of verbal, social, physical, and cyberbullying abuse that occurs (Naas). Bullying is seen everywhere. It is talked about in movies, media, songs, and inside school programs. What makes the bullies, or aggressors, do what they want? How does the bullying effect everyone?

Many kids all around the world are abused by their parents, peers or even by complete strangers. One of these types of abuse is bullying. At a first glance, we might think that it is an older kid beating/teasing a younger classmate however; bullying consists of much more than this. The basic definition of bullying is when your behavior hurts or harms another person physically or emotionally. There are many different types of bullying, which may lead to a victim becoming violent later on. There is teasing and name calling, there is also picking and shoving the kid. However, the most extreme one would be beating up the child, hurting them physically and mainly, emotionally.

School bullying and bullying as a whole has become a growing concern. The need for more intervention is more recognized, as incidents of bullying and inappropriate acts towards others occur in places outside of the classroom. This literature takes a closer look at bullying in schools. Olwesus (2013) states “the field of bullying research is to some extent plagued by problems, disagreements, and unresolved issues” (p.752). Whether if anyone will agree on the root of bullying, the fact remains that bullying has to be examined at its very core to remedy the matter before it becomes a bigger concern. There is a dire need for intervention based programs to be set in place to address the fact the act of bullying has lasting effects on the bully and the victim. When intervention programs are put into place to address bullying, the act of bullying decreases due to the gained understanding of the effects.

It is only in the recent years that attention has turned toward the widespread problem of bullying, especially in schools, and that bullying is identified as a serious problem that merits intervention and research (Coy). Therefore, relatively little effort has been made to overcome or address the problem, which still remains a widespread social vice. This paper purports to illustrate how, despite efforts made to rectify the situation, bullying still remains rampant, and is getting worse.

As evidence has shown, children view many violent scenes while watching television, movies, or playing video games, but the question still remains: What psychological effect does violence in the media have on children? Research over the past 10 years has consistently shown that there is a cause-and-effect relationship between media violence and real-life aggression (Strasburger 129). Violence in the media can lead to aggressive behavior by children and teenagers who watch the various programs. Of course, not all children who watch television, or movies, or play video games develop aggressive behavior. However, there is a strong correlation between media violence and aggressive behavior. A study, published in the Journal of the American Academy of Child Adolescent Psychiatry, examined how children's television viewing practices are related to aggressive behaviors. The results revealed that children who reported watching greater amounts of television per day had higher levels of violent behavior than children who reported lesser amounts of television viewing (Singer 1041). Witnessing violence is an important determining factor in violent behavior. The media serves as a means for children to witness violence. According to Bandura's Social Learning Theory, children imitate behavior that they see on television, especially if the person performing the behavior is attractive or if the

Bullying, in its many forms, is becoming an extremely hazardous problem that many individuals endure. Bullies torment others because they themselves have insecurities, have been bullied themselves, or have a mental illness that brings out the worst in them. Nevertheless, bullying can physically and emotionally destroy the victim, whether it is by physical abuse, cyber bullying, or verbal abuse.

 “Bullying is one form of violence that seems to have increased in recent years,