No Bully

child with black eye

“Free acceptance in play, partnership, and teams is what matters most to any child… Rejection hurts more than anything else that happens at school.”
Vivian Paley, the first teacher to win the MacArthur Genius award

Costs of Bullying

Belonging and safety are fundamental human needs. Bullying prevents students getting these needs met with by pushing them to the bottom of their peer group or isolating them entirely. The cost of our failure to stop bullying in our schools is enormous.

For the targets of bullying, who often endure their school years in a more or less permanent state of anxiety or depression, the effects include not only the cuts, bruises and wounding of physical assaults. Physical, verbal and relational bullying can result in reluctance to go to school and truancy, headaches and stomach pains, reduced appetite, shame, anxiety, irritability, aggression and depression. Bullying is a direct attack on a student’s status, belonging and core identity and often results in low self-esteem. The effects of bullying often continue many years into adulthood. In the most extreme cases, targets have taken out their anger and despair through school shootings or by committing suicide.

Students who habitually bully miss the opportunity to learn an alternative to aggression. Research tells us that they often develop a habitual tendency to abuse power and are increasingly shunned as they reach the higher grades. Approximately 25 percent of school bullies will be convicted of a criminal offense in their adult years.

The students on the sidelines (the "bystanders") commonly report extreme discomfort at witnessing bullying, but say that they do not know how to prevent it. Many are silenced by their fear that they will be the next target of bullying if they dare to speak out. Often they grow up believing that they are powerless to stop abusive behaviors in others.

For the school, the costs of bullying are countless hours consumed in tackling a problem that is resistant to change, truancies, reduced student retention, low teacher morale, negative perceptions of the school by the wider community and parent hostility. The school campus becomes a place where diverse youth are marginalized and where no-one feels safe. As students become alienated from school, academic performance declines. Schools are increasingly sued for failing to provide a safe learning environment and are being held liable for the harassment, violence and suicides caused by bullying.

For our society, the cost is our future. According to the Southern Law Poverty Center Annual Report (2010), hate groups are at their highest level ever. In an increasingly diverse society, we are becoming increasingly intolerant of diversity. We are creating a generation where self-interest and aggression are triumphing over kindness and co-operation.

 

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© 2011 No Bully.