Right now at Wal-Mart we are doing a campaign to stop bullying. I started to read an article that we had posted in our coffee room about "bullying." So I came home and found in on the internet. The article is from the Leaderpost and is called Family recalls bullying problem. It was posted in the August 9th edition. Bullying can take on many forms and happens everywhere. I am very glad that someone like the Red Cross, who usually does stuff for disaster relief or does swimming lessons is raising awareness about bullying. The monies raised for bullying will be put into workshops at schools, at workplaces and other places where bullying exists.
Being a couple years out of school, I think about my own personal school experience. I was extremely fortunate that my classmates were all very close friends and we all got along, so bullying within my class was never a problem. Bullying in my school was less I believe then from other towns that I live by. In a town just up the road from my hometown of Preeceville, I know that bullying was a problem. In Canora, two suicides were perhaps linked to bullying. This article, from January 2005 is about the Canora situation. Bullying is a very serious thing that happens in our schools and can be verbal, physical and sometimes even worse non-verbal. As said in the Leaderpost article bullying has a life time effect. The older gentleman in the article is still affected by bullying that perhaps happened thirty years ago.
The question I have is how do we stop and solve bullying if the bullying happens non-verbally or even through hate emails. I think this answer is both extremely difficult to answer, but yet very easy. We have to raise the awareness in our classrooms early and make students feel very comfortable coming to you to talk about bullying. Bullying is everyones problem and has an effect on everything a student does. Like the little girl in the article, her grades dropped and she became quiet and reserved which was very different for her.
Overall, I am very glad a well known organization like the Red Cross is helping to raise awareness for bullying. So donate a simple dollar next time you are at Wal-Mart and slowly but surely maybe we can all make lead way on this issue in so many schools.
2 comments:
Coincidently I have been thinking about bullying and how I am going to address it during my internship. From my experience it really is a hot issue in education, and judging from your experience at Walmart, in the real world as well. This all connects to citizenship education, we have spoke about digital citizenship in class, but the reality is that not all students/people are aware of how personal actions affect others and contribute ripple effects to the momentum of bullying and other societal breakdowns. As educators we have an opportunity to create awareness among our students of their place in society and lead them towards understanding citizenship.
Very insightful post. I am also very interested in this issue and am glad you took the time to write about it. I have two websites/blogs that I watch on my RSS feeds on Bullying and violence: http://personalweb.about.com/ is a website that has new articles and ideas on how to tackle cyber bullying in an elementary school and http://blog.bullying-in-school.info/ is a blog that discusses these issues, but has not been updated in a while. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that it will stay active!
Not to be negative but i'm not sure stoping bullying completely is possible. As sad as it is kids will be kids. I believe there are many things we can do to help prevent bullying as much as possible such as: guest speakers, videos, raising general awareness, posters,etc. As well I think it is very important that we as teachers constantly observe our students and watch out for any changs in behaviour. It is also important for one to be trusted and respected by their students, so that in a time of need a student would feel comfortable approaching you for help.
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