Kylee Meryhew

Proposal

Bullying- Can We Put an End To It?


As I transitioned from elementary school to junior high, the school boundaries changed,
sending me to a school with only four other students that I knew. It was a hard first couple
weeks, figuring out how junior high worked and making new friends. I became friends with kids
I wouldnt normally hang out with, but we had several classes together. While we were in
history, there was a girl named Skye sitting next to us, one of the guys went to elementary with
her, and had been making fun of her for years. It wasnt long after that, that everyone else
started to join in. I dont remember anyone ever sticking up for her, or anyone who was a
friend to her. Half way through the school year, Skye transferred to another junior high. It was
then that I realized I had been bullying her.

Do you know a student who is afraid to go to school, or doesnt want to eat lunch in the
cafeteria, or is dreading the final school bell? I dont know about you, but those were some of
my favorite times in school. But it you are one of the 160,000 students who is trying to skip
school for fear of an attack, these probably werent some of your favorite memories. Children
shouldnt be afraid to go to school, so why are they? Where does bullying stem from? What can
we do to prevent the bullying?

To understand where bullying stems from, we must first define bullying. Bullying is the behavior
intended to harm or disturb, this behavior happens repeatedly overtime and there is an
imbalance of power, with the more powerful person or group attacking the less powerful
one. It is shown that bullying differs by gender, reportedly boys have a higher level of
aggression and victimization involving acts of physical bullying, such as hitting, kicking and
pushing, while girls tend to spread rumors, and exclude peers from social activities. Kids and
teens are prone to be bullied by their peers for many reasons including their appearance, dress,
academic ability, disability, hobbies, or even their social status and parents financial status with
the community. Kids and teens that are bullied have higher rates of suicide (also known as
bullycide) and have lower self-esteem , poor academic performance and overall struggle more
to succeed.

In 2005, H. Sherrow synthesized information from multinational studies, and reported it in his
"The Origins of Bullying. Various researchers went to 28 different countries across North
America and Europe, who determined No matter where you go in the world, from the Mbuti
of Central Africa (Turnbull, 1961) to the Suburban children in the United States (Wang et al,
2009) there are individuals and groups that target others with tactics designed to intimidate,
coerce or harm them. They then looked into whether it was something that was only
happening in human lives or if primates also act in bullying ways. They found in several studies
that species ranging from rats to chimpanzees regularly interact in bullying-like behaviors,
which lead to the final conclusion; bullying was there during the birth of our species, having
been inherited from the earliest of our ancestors. (Sherrow, H)

Bullying typically happens at the transition between elementary to junior high. Another study
found that there is a general pattern in which bullying tends to decrease the last two years of
elementary, increase the year students transition from elementary to middle school and then
decrease the final two years of middle school. (Nylund, Bellmore, Nishina, & Graham, 2007;
Pellergrini & Long, 2004)

Moving from elementary to junior high can be extremely difficult. It requires students to move
from a small and supportive school to a larger less personal educational setting. This requires
all of these students to establish new friendships at a time when peer acceptance is extremely
important. This can cause significant individual and social uncertainty and insecurity, not to
mention, students are also experiencing different physical and emotion changes.

This study has found that some students transitioning from elementary to middle school are
experiencing a great difficulty in forming new friendships and establishing peer group
relationships which leads to an increase in bullying and peer victimization. (American Medical
Assoc.)

Research has also found that people who were either bullies or bullied as children are often the
adult bullies. One would hope that as people mature and move on in their lives that they would
stop the undesirable behaviors of their youth, such as bullying. This has proven, however, not
to be the case. Adults are more likely to use verbal bullying as opposed to physical bullying, but
the fact remains that they are still bullying. The goal of the adult bully is the same as that of the
child or teenager to gain power. (Bullying Statistics, 2013)

So how do we stop this from happening? We cant exactly stop the transition from elementary
to middle school, but we can give students the resources to learn how to manage the
transition, to learn how to handle peer acceptance. One thing I did that helped me was joining
the dance company, and getting involved in school activities. We need to teach all children, the
importance of acceptance. At the junior high, which has a group of popular, self-confident and
compassionate students who become the big-brother/big-sister to students who are victims of
bullying. These students are usually in the upper levels of junior high and take the younger
students under their wing. They help them feel accepted and develop better self esteems
which in turn helps them to deal with the bullying.


Schools should teach how bullying leads to depression, low self-esteem and even suicide. We
need to have Anti-Bullying programs in school and in the workplace. We also need to make a
safe place for people to report the bullying, and not only have it be reported but also do
something to stop it from happening again. We need to develop and promote a No-Tolerance
attitude towards all bullying.



Works Cited

Bullying Statistics. (2013). Retrieved 2014, from Stop Bullying, Harassment, and Anti-Bully in
School/Work: www.bullyingstatistics.org

Sherrow, H. (2011, 12 15). The Origins of Bullying. Retrieved 3 1, 2014,
from http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/guest-blog/2011/12/15/the-origins-of-bullying/

Jenson J, Brisson D, Bender K, Willidors A. Effects of the Youth Matters Prevention Program on
Patterns of Bullying and Victimization in Elementary and Middle School. Social Work Research
[serial online]. December 2013, 37(4):361-372. Available from: Academic Search Premier,
Ipswich, MA, Accessed march 2, 2014