Should the state or federal government put laws in school to prevent bullying? “With ignorance comes fear, from fear comes bigotry. Education is the key to acceptance”. Kathleen Patel. Bullying can take place in or out of school and in person or through other means of communication. Bullying can be verbal or physical, and when physical, it can be directed against a person, a person’s property, or be used to intimidate, rather than inflict damage to the person or his or her property. Verbal bullying can include name calling threatening or teasing someone or making obscene remarks or spreading rumors about someone. Bullying can be peer to peer or be done by younger people to older people or vice versa. There are many causes in which the government should put laws to prevent bullying. Make children safe in school, eliminate hostile environment and prevent suicides are the three causes for the state or federal government to put laws in school to prevent bullying.
One important cause for the state or federal government to put laws in school to prevent bullying is make children safer in school. Temkin (2003) writes about the intention of the Senator Bob Casey want to introduce the Safe Schools Improvement Act. The time to pass this bill is now for making children feel safe and empowered in school. The U.S Department of Education showed that shown to be effective in reducing bullying. It is known that the horrible effects child abuse can have on a child’s current and future well
Relational bullying prevents a child from being involved or accepted by their peers (Kasier & Raminsky, 2012). This type of bullying occurs among both boys and girls; however it is more common amongst girls. The goal of Whole School Approach or No Blame Approach is to take the focus off the bullying by getting everyone involved and focus more on creating a positive environment (Kasier & Raminsky, 2012). This requires the school to take on the challenge of anti-bullying policy. Setting up clear expectations or rules for children about respecting individual rights these rules should include bystanders and
School bullying and bullying as a whole has become a growing concern. The need for more intervention is more recognized, as incidents of bullying and inappropriate acts towards others occur in places outside of the classroom. This literature takes a closer look at bullying in schools. Olwesus (2013) states “the field of bullying research is to some extent plagued by problems, disagreements, and unresolved issues” (p.752). Whether if anyone will agree on the root of bullying, the fact remains that bullying has to be examined at its very core to remedy the matter before it becomes a bigger concern. There is a dire need for intervention based programs to be set in place to address the fact the act of bullying has lasting effects on the bully and the victim. When intervention programs are put into place to address bullying, the act of bullying decreases due to the gained understanding of the effects.
I believe bullying laws should be strict throughout every state in the United States of America however that is not the case for every state today. Depending on the state of which one resides, school officials can address bullying on their own terms. However, this can be an issue if there are no solid laws within that state to protect students from being bullied. Without proper state policies, schools fail to initiate prevention programs or simply lack the knowledge to create, interpret, and enforce anti-bullying programs. State policies of Ohio and Pennsylvania will be compared to show the discrepancies in prevention of bullying and how state laws protect students who fall victim of being bullied.
Moreover, behavioral and emotional differences intimidate many people. This study provided the many different definitions of bullying and is a great jumping point for teachers to understand the causes and effects of bullying, both in school and legally. However, the nine helpful recommendations fail to be truly applicable to a classroom and may even raise more questions than answers. Most would agree that policies that apply to schools are a state-level issue, as per our Constitution. However, if the available definitions of bullying are too broad and students do not report issues or teachers fail to advocate for victims or fail to be strong moral agents and correct issues as they see them then all the other recommendations in the article have substantial
The July 23,2010 New York Times article “There’s Only One Way to Stop a Bully” by Susan Engel and Marlene Sandstrom (2010), reveals that laws do not stop bullying, only teaching the values of human life can make a difference . In Massachusetts, a recent state law is about anti-bullying. According to Engel and Sandstorm (2010), “schools are required to institute anti-bullying curriculum, investigate acts of bullying and report the most serious cases to law enforcement officers”. Research shows Children have been always been mean to one another. The desire and ability to protect and tolerate are not natural instinct in children.
The state of New Jersey passed Anti-Bullying Bill of Rights Act in 2011 to reduce school bullying. The Anti-Bullying Bill of Rights Act, which is Chapter 122, is “an Act concerning harassment, intimidation, and bullying in school settings, amending various parts of the statutory law and supplementing”. After learned the current situation of bullying in the United States, and compared the rates of bullying to New Jersey, realized the benefits of anti-bullying regulations have on youths, parents, teachers, school stuffs, and so on, and the history of successfully implemented public school anti-bullying statutes in 2002, legislators in New Jersey saw the needs and being confident of enacting the Anti-Bullying Bill of Rights Act (C.18A: 37-13.1).
According to O’Neil, Kellner, Green, & Elias, bullying has lasting effects on students along with the school. Therefore, both “proactive and reactive strategies” should be implemented when dealing with bullying (O’Neil, Kellner, Green, & Elias, 2012). According to the authors, every school should have a group of “administrators and pupil service personnel” who are trained to deal with incidents of this nature. To properly deal with the problem of bullying in schools, certain measures should be taken. First, according to the US Department of Education Office of Civil Rights, an official investigation must be conducted. Next, the injured party and their parents, along with staff members, should meet to discuss
I concur with Brackett and Divecha's claim that public school anti-bullying programs in the United States are unable to support students who are physically and emotionally bullied. Two reasons why I agree with their claim is that these programs don’t always do as intended and can put children in a greater face of harm and that the anti-bullying programs could be vastly improved to be more effective. My first reason has two parts to it, the first part is that these programs are ineffective towards solving the bullying problems and the second part is that these programs put children at a greater risk of becoming a victim. There are many vocal opinions over the fact that these programs are ineffective. Some claim that these programs are ineffective
The article Bullying in School: The Traumatic Effects of Bullying on Children was written by Dr. Terry Ehiorobo. Dr. Ehiorobo has the following qualifications to address these issues, because he has worked as a school teacher and principal. Currently, Dr. Ehiorobo is employed as a school principal at an alternative school in Kenosha, WI. The main idea of the article is to focus on how these acts of bullying can cause long-lasting effects for the victims. Basically, bullying has a real emotional and psychological impact of children. Many adults do not take bullying seriously; therefore, many children have seek drastic measures which resulted in suicide and/or murder. The article states, “Even the president has taken a strong stance on the issue of bullying. He stated, “We’ve got to dispel this myth that bullying is just a normal rite of passage” (Anderson, 2010).
It’s been estimated that “each day at least 160,000 children in the United States miss school due to bullying” (Mandel par.3). Bullies can force children into cliques and groups that they might not would had joined. As bullying increases, more conflicts will occur.
Once perceived to be child hood fun, bullying is now the subject of hundreds of laws and an important issue for teens and parents around the country. As time has passed and more modern technology has risen in popularity it has created even more ways for bullying to occur, causing a larger effort of prevention. Therefore this paper will discuss whether there should be more bullying legislation enacted within the United States of America.
The legislation is intended to protect victims of bullying; however, consequences for bullying may be too severe. (Garby, 2013) postulates students who are considered bullies are not criminals, but rather copying learned behaviors (p. 449). (Teisl, Rogosch, Oshri, & Cicchetti, 2012) studied 470 kids growing up in high-risk neighborhoods and approximately half of those kids were exposed to maltreatment. It was more likely that these kids were identified as bullies. Not only is legislation affecting children, but workplace bullying is also being addressed. (Greenwald, 2010) interviews Eric A. Tate who asks the questions, “Do you really want to be the subject of being sued if you lose your temper? If you're on a deadline and somebody screws up royally, how do you discipline people?” The problem is how do we punish a bully? The goal of the bullying problem is to eliminate bullying, but sending someone to jail for assault may not be in the best interest to correct the bullying problem. Consideration needs to be paid attention to those who may have grown up exposed to aggressive behavior ultimately learning that behavior as an acceptable way to deal with
Bullying is often unnoticed and unacknowledged by adults, which causing school officials to limited understanding and skills on how to address behaviors (Branes, Cross, Lester, Hearn, Epstein, & Monks, 2012). Bulling prevention programs will help inform teachers, schools, and parents on how to notice students are bullies or bring bullied. A bully behavior can negatively affect the person that they are targeting. Schools must inforce consequences for students are labeled as bullies, and teachers will need to intervene when the behavior is displayed. Therefore, effective school policies and strategies are important for teacher and staff members to understand to prevent and reduce bullying (Branes, Cross, Lester, Hearn, Epstein, & Monks, 2012).
As more and more children go to school, the rates of bullying go up as time goes by. there are many times at which students suffer all the bullying that occurs within their lives. As more schools become aware of the magnitude of the bullying occurring right under their noses, there are rules created to aid the victim. There are various types of bullying and these are created to do one thing, instill superiority among the “stronger” and place a feeling of inferiority. Bullies are the ones who are detrimental to a child’s development.
The presence of bullying is presented like a disease and is growing. It has reached a point that to prevent it from becoming worse, school systems need to intervene or establish stricter policies towards anti-bullying so that students have the ability to learn in a healthy environment. In the United States, forty-eight states have established anti-bullying laws. As this is portrayed as a law, schools and other facilities need to ensure that it is continuously enforced.