BULLYING: Makes a scared person feel more powerful by making someone else feel powerless.
Dig Deeper: You Matter
- Our lives are shared.
- Our actions are loud.
- A lack of action is even louder.
- Either, we stop a bully or we enforce bullying.
- Pretending it doesn't exist, does not make it go away.
- Tolerance is acceptance.
- If you are being bullied, talk about it with an adult.
- You are not alone.
What is a bully?
1st Anti-Bullying Gala in NYC on 18 May 2012 (Photo: Pippitolstoy)
A bully learns the behavior and passes it on to others. More often than not, a bully at school is being bullied at home. The anger that the child feels from the pain caused by the adult festers and builds up so the child takes it to school with him.
Teachers need to learn to recognize the behavior and make sure that no one in the faculty is a bully.
According to www.stopbullying.gov:
Bullying includes actions such as making threats, spreading rumors, attacking someone physically or verbally, and excluding someone from a group on purpose.
Bullying is unwanted, aggressive behavior among school aged children that involves a real or perceived power imbalance. The behavior is repeated, or has the potential to be repeated, over time. Both kids who are bullied and who bully others may have serious, lasting problems.
In order to be considered bullying, the behavior must be aggressive and include:
- An Imbalance of Power: Kids who bully use their power—such as physical strength, access to embarrassing information, or popularity—to control or harm others. Power imbalances can change over time and in different situations, even if they involve the same people.
- Repetition: Bullying behaviors happen more than once or have the potential to happen more than once.
Cyberbullying is bullying that takes place using electronic technology. Electronic technology includes devices and equipment such as cell phones, computers, and tablets as well as communication tools including social media sites, text messages, chat, and websites (e.g., mean text messages or emails, rumors sent by email or posted on social networking sites, and embarrassing pictures, videos, websites, or fake profiles).
Bullying.org
HIU w/Bill Belsey on 18 May 2012 (Photo: Pippitolstoy)
"Cyberbullying involves the use of information and communication technologies to support deliberate, repeated, and hostile behaviour by an individual or group, that is intended to harm others." -Bill Belsey
On April 28th, 1999, eight days after two students went on a deadly rampage at a high school in Colorado, a similar attack struck the community of Taber, Alberta Canada.A 14-year-old boy opened fire inside W.R. Myers High School in Taber. One student, Jason Lang was killed and another was wounded. Shortly after the shooting, stories began to emerge of the relentless bullying the accused had previously endured.
Within days after the Taber shooting, Canadian father and teacher, Bill Belsey, thought he must take some form of action to help prevent the future pain and suffering of others because of
bullying.
Bullying.org is a collaborative project that has three goals; to help people understand that they are NOT ALONE in being bullied, to help people understand that being bullied is NOT THEIR FAULT,
and to help people understand that there are many POSITIVE alternatives to dealing with bullying.
Bullying.org is dedicated to the memory of Jason Lang and all others whose lives have been directly or indirectly hurt by the effects of bullying.
National Suicide Prevention Lifeline: 1.800.273.TALK (8255)
BRAVE: 1.212.709.3222
Counselors available 2-9:30 PM (NYC)
(stands for ”building respect, acceptance, and voice through education," launched by the United Federation of Teachers, and the Mental Health Association of New York)
NOTE: While most websites offer help to parents, teachers, and communities, HIU could not locate a national hotline for child victims of bullying. If you need help, please talk to an adult. If you are feeling lost and are thinking about suicide, please call the national suicide prevention lifeline. You are not alone.
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