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Mauricio Herrera

Mr. Hackney

English 102: Rhetoric

11 April 2014

What to Do About the Bullying Epidemic

Just 50 years ago, a child being teased for being overweight or wearing glasses was a

commonality that all kids had to deal with--it was simply a part of growing up. Although

recently, there has been a dramatic increase on the violence associated with bullying. Victims are

now a danger to themselves and their classmates. Random acts of violence like the Columbine

massacre and countless suicides by young people have all been discovered to be responses to

bullying. Schools are now working hard to make their environment safe for children and havens

from bullying. The bullying triangle phenomenon is ever growing and schools are trying hard to

combat it. Many different schools are trying different tactics to combat bullying but all have

differing conceptions on what a bully really is. Does making someone feel bad constitute as

bullying? Or does bullying only consist of physical violence. The image of bullying is changing

rapidly from what schools once knew, and they are trying hard to keep up with it. With all the

different definitions of bullying and ideologies on how to handle it, it becomes problematic and

can cause a feeling of indifference in the issue with children. What schools need are a clear,

concise definition of bullying, with the same ideologies on how to combat it. A school’s goal for

eradicating bullying—one person exerting their power over another individual in order to make

them feel poorly and lesser of themselves—should be to assess the problem, educate about

bullying, and to create rules and enforce those rules strongly.

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The first thing to understand about bullying is that it is not simply about the victim and

the bully. New research has shown that bullying involves three different people or groups of

people. The bystander plays a very prominent role within the bullying process. This “bullying

triangle” is further explained in Marian Wilde’s article for GreatSchools. Wilde explains that

“[b]ullying most often takes place in front of peers,” and that the audience (bystanders) play a

vital role because “if the audience shows disapproval, bullies are discouraged from continuing.”

Wilde goes on to give a brief history of anti-bullying programs in schools, and explains that they

are relatively new within the United States. Along with this new anti-bullying sentiment, the

prevalence of the bystander is extremely new. Because of this new phenomenon, schools are

trying to implement certain rules in order to combat bullying using the bystanders as tools. Wilde

explains that most children are against bullying, but do not intervene for a wide array of reasons,

mostly due to a lack of support or education on the subject. The best plan of action according to

Wilde is to empower the bystander by helping them see their peers are against bullying and to

educate them into understanding that non-physical intervention can make a huge difference.

With this information, it is much easier for schools to deal with a bullying problem. In my

experience, the best way to deal with an issue involving children is to include the children

without too heavy a hand. The way to do this is to educate the students on why bullying is wrong

and how they might act in the event of witnessing bullying. Without an audience or reassurance

from their peers, a bully will not continue to torment a victim.

The victim’s role in the bullying triangle also very important; the victim is singled out by

the bully as vulnerable due to a lack of social skills, or the ability to speak up and defend

themselves, says Gail D’Aurelio, a child psychotherapist in an article on Sageday. The target is

frequently so because of their quiet, sensitive, or anxious personalities. Targets can sometimes be

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difficult to recognize because they do not speak out or stand up for themselves and often sadly,

suffer in silence due to a severe decline in self-esteem, says D’Aurelio. Authors Abigail

McNamee and Mia Mercurio’s article in childhood education states that victims of bullying are

often different physically. Students with physical disabilities have the highest likelihood of being

bullied. They also go on to give statistics on the bullies themselves.

Most often, bullies become bullies due to environmental factors. The bullies are more

likely to have poor relationships with people and their parents, and receive little positive

reinforcement. A major factor to the development of a bully is an aggressive environment.

“Violent videogames, aggressive treatment, negative role models and being rewarded for

aggressive behavior” are all elements to the development of a bully says McNamee and

Mercurio. Bullies are often factors of their environment, so the obvious solution is to stop

bullying at the source: their parents. By educating parents and the youth, we are helping breed a

new bully free generation, or at the very least very little bullying with more children and parents

recognizing it as unacceptable behavior. Despite the nationwide anti-bullying sentiment, there

are still opinions that oppose the movement. Child development scholar Tim Gill states in his

Guardian article It’s a big, bad world that we as a society may be exaggerating the problem.

Charity Bullying Online released statistics that nearly 70% of children are bullied and that the

most severe issue is name calling. Gill states that by society exaggerating the problem of

bullying, we are leaving children less able to learn to look after themselves. He mentions that

children are naturally mean toward each other, and that children should learn to deal with it as it

helps to develop social skills. By growing up in this environment, children develop an “everyday

morality” says Gill, and that morality helps a child understand how to act in a variety of

situations; from knowing when to stand up for themselves and when to back off, to simply

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knowing when they are not welcome within a certain social situation. Perhaps Gill’s greatest

complaint with the anti-bully movement is that the definitions are so far and wide that “the very

purpose appears to inflate the figures” and that statements like “playgrounds being safe from

emotional pain” are counterproductive.

Gill’s criticisms of anti-bullying organization’s very broad definitions of bullying are

quite accurate; the majority of definitions of bullying are very, very extensive. For example, in

McNamee and Mercurio’s article, they cite several definitions such as  "when a more powerful

person hurts, frightens, or intimidates a weaker person on a continual and deliberate basis" and

“using one's authority, position, or size to undermine, frighten or intimidate another person.”

These are all encompassing definitions and can cause an issue when dealing with bullying.

When a definition is so broad, it is easy to confuse what normal teasing and real malicious

bullying is. Even the school I attend has their own definition of bullying found on Joliet West’s

website which reads: Bullying is understood as aggressive behavior that: (a) is intended to cause

distress or harm, (b) exists in a relationship in which there is an imbalance of power or strength,

and (c) may be repeated over time. What schools need is a clear and concise definition that

encompasses the elements of all the others while not appearing too widespread.

Because the issue of bullying has only now become a big concern, efforts to combat it are

very progressive with many different angles being taken by different schools. For instance, a new

law implemented in New Jersey requires schools to submit their own self assessments and grade

themselves in accordance to the law. Peggy McGlone’s article on nj.com states that the law

requires the education commissioner to develop a grading system and all districts are required to

complete a 20 page self-assessment composed of 8 different areas such as bullying and

harassment prevention, and staff training. It seems like it’s working, too. Two-thirds of the

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nearly 2,500 schools scored a 57 or higher, reports McGlone. What is the correct way to handle a

bullying problem anyway? Should all schools adopt the grading process?

The website stopbullying.gov is a website devoted to ending bullying and has many tips

in order to combat it. Assess Bullying is the first tactic of prevention and is implemented to

determine what kind of environment a school is for children. It is proposed that an anonymous

survey is an excellent way to do so. The article states “Understanding trends and types of

bullying can help plan prevention and intervention efforts.” Survey suggestions include making

sure that the essay is age appropriate, and that the survey is anonymous and is distributed at least

once a year to students. The most important aspect of the survey method is that once the survey

has been distributed and recorded, the results remain anonymous and the findings are dispersed

among students and staff, as well as the parents. The article mentions that “[administrators] are

prepared to respond to the results of the survey” and to “have a clear plan for prevention and

intervention in place or in development.” By doing this, schools have a helpful new perspective

on where to start and how to prevent further bullying.

Perhaps the most common theme for bullying prevention is to educate about bullying.

That is, because it is the most obvious but sometimes tricky to execute. But in order to

understand and combat a threat, we must first learn all we can. Educate About Bullying gives tips

on how to teach the subject. The article explains “Schools don’t always need formal programs to

help students learn about bullying prevention.” Activities schools can use to teach may include

presentations, classroom discussions, creative writing, and artistic works and class research

projects. By doing this, schools can help students learn exactly what a bully is, and what to do if

they ever find themselves within the bullying triangle. “In order to ensure that bullying

prevention efforts are successful”, the article states, “all staff need to be trained on what a bully

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is, what the school’s policies and rules are, and how to enforce the rules.” Training in doing this

can be in the form of a staff meeting or single day training sessions. Learning about bullying is a

very key step in prevention.

Due to the fact that a great majority of bullies are simply victims of their environment

and many are bullied in the home, it is obvious that the parents play a pivotal role in violence

prevention. Engage Parents & Youth notes that the school staff can only do so much in order to

combat bullying and that parents and the youth have to work together with the staff to prevent it.

Statistics show that school administrators are very important to bully prevention but that when

parents and children are part of the process it is greatly improved. When all are present in the

prevention and intervention process it causes a simple cause and effect reaction. Students feel

safer and can focus on learning, parents generally tend to worry less, and ultimately the school

climate improves due to students being engaged to talk about and prevent bullying. The article

gives advice on how students and parents can contribute. It explains that a beneficial way for

students to contribute is to contribute their views and experiences with bullying as well as be

involved with their classmates to promote inclusion and respect among one another. Parents can

contribute by interacting positively with the school parent teacher association and volunteering to

promote a positive school climate. The staff can help out by simply keeping parents informed

and making them feel welcome and treating them as partners. Lastly, the article suggests that

school safety committees should be placed into schools to complete activities such as developing

and enforcing bullying policies and rules, as well as educate the school community from the

students to the parents. Many schools now have these programs as well as clubs to advocate for

bully prevention. Joliet West’s drug and violence prevention club No Name, is widely popular

among students.

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I sat down with Ms. Deborah Burroughs, director of the No Name club for more than 20

years to discuss bullying at Joliet West. I expressed my belief that a school as big as Joliet West

(roughly 3000 students) we don’t have too big of a bullying problem. She responded with there

is bullying, but not as much as people believe. “People tend to glorify the negative and choose

not to look at the positives in a school” said Burroughs. When I asked about the statistic that

70% of children are victims of bullying she stated that it is most common at the freshman level.

The most common form of bullying at the school is cyber bullying. Students do not regularly

torment each other physically anymore, “It’s mostly electronic now” she said. Its true, we don’t

see bullying so much at the upperclassmen level, and more so in a school as big as West. But

does the size of the school truly dictate how bad bullying can be in a school? “Bullying is very

exclusionary these days, you see it in smaller schools a lot more often.”, Burroughs noted. In a

school where everyone knows everyone, it is easy to feel left out if you’re not very popular. Ms.

Burroughs firmly believes that the plan of action for all schools should be to educate about the

severity of bullying and to engage the community as well as eliminate social networking in

schools to lower the threat of cyberbullying. By educating we can help create a more positive

environment and stop violence within schools.

It should be of no surprise that almost all children will encounter a bullying situation in

their time at school. With the rise in violence from bullied children in recent times, schools

should be doing everything in their power in order to combat and prevent further bullying. Is it

possible we could be glorifying the situation and obsessing over a normal part of child

development? With the amount of research done and expert opinions, it is hard to argue. Schools

clearly benefit from a bully free environment with students doing better in school and helping

attribute to a positive school climate.

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In order to achieve academic bliss schools must complete several objectives. These start

with simply adopting a clear concise definition of what a bully is, without using terminology so

broad it encompasses every sort of treatment as bullying. Definitions like these can prove to be

counterproductive. What an administrator does next is up to personal opinion and is situation

based. Some schools may benefit from an anti-bullying self-assessment and rely on receiving

numerical values to showcase their efforts, although all school prevention tactics should follow a

certain formula. The schools should then make an effort to educate and assess bullying through

the use of presentations and anonymous surveys and to engage not only the students and staff,

but the parents of the children to emphasize an anti-bullying attitude both in and out of the

school. After doing so, the schools primary goals should be to create and enforce policies for

bullying. By following this loose model, a school can easily boost their school climate, overall

student morale, and ultimately make learning more beneficial and enjoyable for students.

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Works Cited

"Assess Bullying." Stopbullying.gov. N.p., n.d. Web. 17 Mar. 2014.

Burroughs, Deborah. Personal interview. N.d.

D’Aurelio, Gail. "The Bullying Triangle." Sage Day. N.p., n.d. Web. 10 Mar. 2014.

"Educate About Bullying." Stopbullying.gov. N.p., n.d. Web. 17 Mar. 2014.

"Engage Parents." Stopbullying.gov. N.p., n.d. Web. 17 Mar. 2014. <

Gill, Tim. “Antibullying goes too far” The Guardian. N.p., n.d. Web. 14 Mar. 2014.

Mcglone, Peggy. "NJ schools start releasing anti-bullying grades." NJ Times. N.p., 5 Mar. 2014.

Web. 10 Mar. 2014.

McNamee, Abigail., Mercurio, Mia.. "School-Wide Intervention in the Childhood Bullying

Triangle." Childhood Education 5(2008):370. eLibrary. Web. 26 Feb. 2014

"SAP Mission on Bullying." jths.org. N.p., n.d. Web. 26 Feb. 2014.

Wilde, Marian. "The bully and the bystander." Great Schools. N.p., n.d. Web. 10 Mar. 2014.