Koyczan's Bullying Experience At School

Society judges those who are different both physically and mentally and those that don’t fit in with the social norm but it is up to the individuals to look past that and rise against their judgement. Shane Koyczan’s ‘To This Day’, is a poem about those who have been bullied throughout their lives and its long term impact it leaves. The poem tells multiple stories of the victims of bullying due to their physical appearance or their mental state. The poem begins with a personal adecdote talking about how he earned his first nickname. The anecdote is used to allow the readers of the poem to relate as it doesn’t rely on the abstract logic as the anecdote provides proof. He tells his story about how he used to love pork chops, and didn’t know the difference between pork chops and karate chops, until he was called pork

According to the American Psychological Association, “Bullying is a form of aggressive behavior in which someone intentionally and repeatedly causes another person injury or discomfort. Bullying can take the form of physical contact, words or more subtle actions” (Bullying, 2013). People bully each other for several reasons and there are different outcomes that are a result of those reasons. People can be bullied physically, emotionally, or verbally. Bullying can take place at school or online. Bullying should be a considered a crime, but kids get away with it all the time; furthermore prevention can be used in order to keep kids safe from bullying.

An average bullying session lasts about 37 seconds; an adult intervenes in the problem about one in twenty-five times (Bullying Facts). Bullying is seen as aggressive and unwanted behavior between two or more people (Aspa).  Most people who are not involved in the actions going on do not really know it’s happening.  Most parents do not even know when their child, or children, are being bullied (Bullying Facts).  Bullying can be prevented if the right consequences take place.  Parents and schools have the rules about bullying prevention, but these do not prevent the bullying from continuing their ways.  People who bully often should receive bigger consequences because eventually the problem could escalate and the bully will continue their

The video “To this day” by Shane Koyzcan, based on the poem by the same name, reveals the permanence of the emotional damage bullying causes the victims. In addition, two interviews that reveals his personal experience with bullying. To begin with, Koyzcan was bullied as a kid for a simple misunderstand of him thinking pork chops were the same thing as karate chops. He was taken away from his grandma for 3 days until the truth about his accident was revealed. The story got out and that’s how he got his first nickname: “pork chop”. Although, he got his nickname as a child, it still haunts him today as an adult. Instead of showing all of this cruelness Koyzcan would much rather have us spread love, beauty, and forgiveness that will be able to

Most kids say that they don’t see bullying around school. In just Minnesota alone there is talk about bullying and how to prevent it. Sen. Franken states, “Nine out of 10 LGBT kids are harassed or bullied in school. One-third report having skipped school in the last month because they felt unsafe” (Shah 14). Kids should not feel unsafe to go to school. School is supposed to be a safe place to go and if someone needs help there are supposed to be people there to guide them. Franken adds, “But the sad fact is that our federal laws are failing” (Shah 14). Laws have been made to try to stop bullying, but bullying continues to exist. This shows how out of control bullying is becoming.

Koyczan is not the only kid that gets bullied, his friends get bullied as well which led them to believe that they will never be cared

This part of the chapter is significant because it teaches the importance of peer groups among children and how children basically learn from each other. It also informs us about bullying which is a serious issue among all age groups, especially during middle childhood. People, specifically parents and guardians, need to be informed about bullying and the consequences and results of it. All parents should guide their children to avoid the path of becoming bullies, so that children can grow up in peace and harmony with one another. Along with peer groups, children will befriend others they can relate so they do not feel alone (Berger, 300-302). Lev Vygotsky’s social-cultural theory can be applied to this because the way a child is raised or how they grow up to be, in which includes factors such as environment and the people they associate with, will affect their overall developmental growth. Similarly, Jean Piaget’s Cognitive Theory relates to bullying because his theory focuses on changes in how people think over time; thoughts shape attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors (Berger, 28). For example, when a bully insults someone by saying that he/she is fat, ugly, stupid, etc., the victim starts to believe that it’s true and will put him/herself down. They will lose self-confidence and become extremely conscious about their appearance and characteristics. The constant name calling perpetuates to the victim believing and noticing the words the bully is saying about them. When

I was bullied a lot in middle school. Mostly because before the first day of fifth grade before school I told my parents I was nervous and they told me there was this nice boy named Will that would-be friends with me but I didn’t really know him. On the first day of school I went around asking literally everyone if they knew him and when I finally found him he thought I was weird that I was asking around to find him and he wouldn’t talk to me.

The results and consequences of bulling in all sorts of format (verbal, cyber or physical)

As of today, I've attended four different schools. In elementary school, I was constantly bullied for being Asian. Peers would make fun of my eyes for being "too big" for an Asian, asked inappropriate questions regarding if I ate a certain domesticated animal, or talk to me as if I couldn't understand English. To overcome the bullying, I became someone who I wasn't. I was not myself and I hated it. I had to be this other person just so people did not bother me. I started to become the bully, changed what I ate, how I dressed and started to cover up my insecurities. I use to put my hair in ponytails or in a bun then leaving it down because I was made fun of my buddha shaped ears. I didn't want to speak to my family because they all had a specific

The public school system has been governed by landmark cases and school law throughout history. One of the early cases was Brown v. Board of Education in 1954 where the Supreme Court declared it unconstitutional for states to have separate public schools for black and white students (Hubbard, 2014). Since 1954, the public school system has had a series of landmark cases which effect educational law such as Tinker v. Des Moines (1969), New Jersey vs. T.L.O. (1985), Hazelwood v. Kuhlmeier (1988), and Individuals with Disabilities Act (1990). The State and Supreme Courts have ruled on everything from Freedom of Speech to Special Education.

Koyczan is one of many bully victims who has suffered in this world and to survive from its life-changing attacks. The way Koyczan portrayed himself in the beginning was a very shy little boy who was happy and had big hopes for the world. Toward the middle, he started to notice he wasn’t the only one who has been bullied, that he do not have to go through this by himself. only when he found out that he was not alone , but that they all should help each other embrace their scars together. At the end, Koyczan voice turned from having low-self esteem to pride.

The New Face of Bullying chapter emphasizes how to identify bullying and understand gateway behaviors. Three characteristics that identify bullying are power imbalance, repeated occurrence, and intentionality. Power imbalance occurs when bullies are bigger and stronger than the victims. Victims are vulnerable targets since they’re physically weaker and can’t defend themselves. Repeated occurrences occur when bullies constantly harass victims on numerous occasions through different components such as physical bullying, verbal bullying, and cyber bulling. Intentionality occurs when bullies have a negative agenda to cause visible hurt or harm towards victims for their enjoyment.

Bullies in School Kathleen Berger 1 Bullying was once commonly thought to be an unpleasant but normal part of child's play, not to be encouraged, of course, but of little consequence in the long run. However, developmental researchers who have looked closely at the society of children consider bullying to be a very serious problem, one that harms both the victim and the aggressor, sometimes continuing to cause suffering years after the child has grown up. 2 One leading researcher in this area is Dan Olweus, who has studied bullying in his native country of Norway and elsewhere for twenty-five years. The cruelty, pain, and suffering that he has documented in that time are typified by the examples of Linda and Henry: Linda was systematically

It is alarming that students between the ages of 8 and 18 consider pressure to engage in sexual activity, AIDS, racism, alcohol and drug use to be less problematic than bullying. They consider the latter a far greater problem than the former (Domino, 2013). Bullying has been defined as a subcategory of interpersonal aggression characterized by intentionality, repetition, and imbalance of power, with abuse of power being a primary distinction between bullying and other forms of aggression. Moreover it is a unique but complex form of interpersonal aggression, which takes many forms, serves different functions, and is manifested in different patterns of relationships. Bullying is not simply a dyadic problem between a bully and a victim, but is recognized as a group phenomenon, occurring in a social context in which various factors serve to promote, maintain, and suppress such behavior (Hymel & Sweareer, 2015). There seems to be an array of definitions for bullying, but for the most part “research agrees that bullying is (1) chronic, (2) done with the intention to harm, (3) relational, and (4) is a form of exposure to violence that presents a major threat to healthy development through adolescence (Fitpatrick, Dulin, & Piko, 2010).”