​C.

Von Dem Knesebeck 1

Catalina C. Von Dem Knesebeck

Instructor Erin Rogers

Writing 2010

4B

Involvement of Schools on Bullying

Bullying has been a serious problem and has become an known issue in which people

should be aware of its effects. Bullying can happen anywhere and happen at any time. It can be

in school, at home, at work, in public and it can be physical, verbal, and emotional. But no matter

what form bullying takes, the results are painful, stressful and cause damage to the person being

bullied. The most common place where bullying happens is at school. There are countless of

cases where students are being bullying and some cases where students commit suicide because

they were bullied in the school setting. It is important for people to know that bullying and

suicide should be treated seriously because it is a serious problem. However, the word

“bullying” has been oftenly used and at times have a misleading meaning of what it actually

means. Bullying is repetitive and intentionally use words and actions against someone to cause

distress and risk to their wellbeing. Because of this people have a difficult time knowing what is

considered bullying and this brings up controversies regarding what is actually considered

bullying for schools to be involved. Today many start to wonder what the school system is doing

to prevent bullying and what their response is when it comes to bullying. And this brings up the

question if schools are doing enough to provide and bring awareness on what is bullying and

suicide along with dealing with the issue of bullying and suicide. While some argue that schools

are doing the best they can when it comes to preventing and reducing bullying and suicide,

research shows that schools are not doing enough to intervene in bullying and suicidal situations.
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To understand why schools are not doing enough in preventing and reducing bullying and

suicide, one needs to understand what the schools is already doing about awareness and what the

schools policies are when it comes to bullying and suicidal thoughts. It’s known that schools

respond and provide students and staff some awareness on bullying and suicide by having hosted

speakers and events, presentations, adopted programs, and rules and policies. When it comes to

the hosted speakers and presentations given at schools, the information presented are repetitive

and somewhat helpful. Some would say that having repetitive information presented to students

will be easier for them to better retain the information that bullying is serious and should not be

done. However, some of the ways that the school respond can at times fail to teach students how

to deal with the situation when there is no support. In the school setting most teachers would

miss and not pay attention to bullying. Bullying is actually missed by adults 96% of the time

(Whitson, ​Psychology Today​). And 25% of teachers feel like that it is sometimes helpful to

ignore the problem (​School Psychology Review​). With the lack of awareness and support from

teachers and staff, students/victims of bullying think that they have no support in the school

setting. Victims might think that teachers and other school officials either will not be

sympathetic to their plight or will not be able to protect them. And because they think that they

have no support, it’s clear to understand why students/victims resort to avoidance and at times

retaliation. When they resort to avoidance it can result to unwanted/unhealthy outcomes such as

avoiding peers, school activities, poor academic performances, avoiding specific areas of where

the bullying took place, and in extreme cases, suicide. The problem isn't the fact that the schools

are not doing anything to reduce and prevent the issue; like mentioned above schools are

providing programs, presentations and events about bullying and suicide and some schools are
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actually doing a great job at it. However, the problem is that what most schools are doing is not

that effective.

The reason on what the schools are doing is not effective is because the lack of training

and knowledge that teacher and school faculty has. It makes sense that if teachers and school

faculty were trained they would be better equipped to respond, intervene, and have better

effects/results of the issue. But that's not always the case. Not all teachers are trained and some

teachers have no idea how to handle bullying and/or suicide. Some teachers ignore the fact the

bullying is or can happen in front of them because teachers view behaviors like verbal

intimidation, isolation and exclusion as less serious than physical assaults where the “damage is

easily visible. Teachers have the most effective job in being able to reduce bullying and suicide

since they are in the ideal position to intervene and make the difference when signs of bullying

and suicidal thoughts are taking place. However, most teacher education programs do little to

inform teachers on this issue. When teachers do intervene, most would downplay the situation

because they would not know what counts as bullying or has no idea how to handle a problem in

their classroom. And when teachers don't intervene is because they are not motivated to do so.

More than 60% of victims reports state that school staff respond only “sometimes or never,” or

try to put a stop to the bullying “only once in a while or almost never” (​School Psychology

Review​). That being said, schools sometimes fail to input bullying reports in an education

department database that triggers a process for responding to the allegations. And some schools

failure to document or respond forcefully to bullying is due to staff not knowing what counts as

bullying and how to best respond to it. This is a problem that should and can be easily changed

and improved by teachers and schools. It's understood that teachers should not always be at fault
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for not knowing what to do in such situations. Teachers and administrators can and will be

overwhelmed and some do want the issue of bullying and suicide to be reduced and prevented

but are not sufficiently trained to take part and intervene. And when teachers are not trained and

students not knowing how to deal with a bully, students believe that the adults in the school

environment do little to discourage bullying. In essence, the belief of bullies that they can use the

power and intimidation to control their environment and the lack of response by school faculty

results in an environment where few want to be in and spend their day. With the lack of training

and awareness of bullying in schools also result a lack of respect for one another. This is a reason

on why schools are not doing enough to reduce and prevent bullying and suicide. And most

definitely improve on training teachers, school officials and students. That extensive training for

students, teacher, and school officials and the involvement of parents would particularly be

effective to show their responsibility to create an environment where bullying is unacceptable.

When it comes to school rules, policies, what and how they take on the issue of bullying

and suicide is mostly determined by laws. Some laws include how far can schools intervene,

what measurements must be taken, what must be provided, what are the schools and students

rights, and more. Some think that since schools now have laws to follow and this would help and

maybe solve the issue of bullying and suicide, however, that is not entirely true. Laws

established for schools and their policies when it comes to bullying are not that effective and

doesn't really make much of a difference. They only scrape the surface of the issue. The law,

which is nothing more than a statement that bullying is not allowed and without any mechanism

to ensure that schools and districts actually follow through with their obligations, these laws do

essentially nothing to help prevent bullying (Temkin, ​HuffPost)​ . That being said, this brings up
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the issue that schools are not doing enough to reduce and prevent bullying and suicide because

they are doing the bare minimum that the law requires but even with that, laws are also doing the

bare minimum to deal with the issue also. There was no improvement in rates of bullying when

the states added new and revised bullying laws when they were enacted. State anti-bullying laws

was not and is not to actually prevent bullying but instead serve to “send a message that all

incidents of bullying must be addressed immediately and effectively, and such behavior will not

be tolerated” (Temkin, ​HuffPost)​ . By stating this, it means that laws do not and cannot serve as

the mechanism to actually address the issue which means that schools can choose to do more

than the laws state but most schools don't do so.

Since schools policies and laws go hand in hand when dealing with bullying and suicide,

it can be for the better or worse. As mentioned previously, state laws require and encourage

school staff to report known incidents of bullying, most states give school districts flexibility in

their procedures. And to some educators, zero tolerance means that a certain form of misbehavior

will not be ignored (​Monitor on Psychology​). The practice of zero tolerance at schools can be

somewhat effective but can also not be effective as most people think since it fails to address the

needs of students who bully and could have a chilling effect on reporting by children and adults.

As mentioned previously, schools should require and give training to teachers, school officials

and students, which the state laws require or encourage districts to do. With that being said,

school should give training, however, all the funding for programs and the training can make it

seem impossible. And with the programs and services such as motivational speakers,

presentations, videos and curricula to reduce bullying are not that effective since they lack

scientific evidence of their effectiveness.

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With all reasons being said that schools are not doing enough to reduce and

prevent bullying and suicide, here are some things that schools should improve on.

Schools should first improve on the awareness and to be able to increase awareness is

work on training for teachers and staff. Teachers and staff not knowing what counts as

bullying and not knowing what bullying is the problem when trying to intervene. For

schools to be able to reduce bullying, schools should have the parents be involved and

both being able to help the victim and the bully to understand why the bullying is

happening. The main problem when it comes to schools not doing enough to prevent and

reduce bullying and suicide is the connection with the laws about the issue. As mentioned

before, schools policies and laws go hand in hand when dealing with bullying and

suicide. I believe that the laws are not doing enough and since the laws are not doing

enough, schools are not doing enough. Laws should be improved for schools to be

required to do more on policies and training. However, since the laws are only scraping

the surface and not being specific, schools should be doing more than what the laws

claims to do but the thing is that they do not have to which is the problem. The problem

for schools do more than the bare minimum that the law requires takes time and money.

Most schools don't have the funding to give training and teach students how to handle

bullying, and provide/hire more trained people to be on staff to help students and be a

support system. However, schools should find ways gain funds to at least to start the

process of improving. When it comes to a serious problem, the problem should be

handled seriously. And that being said schools should make more time and keep

improving to deal with this serious issue of bullying and suicide among students.
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The issue of bullying and suicide has been increasing over the years and is known as a

serious problem and a problem that should be and determined to be solved. And the place where

bullying and suicide can have the most impact is in the school setting. Some argue that schools

are doing all that they can when it come bullying and suicide, however, schools are not doing

enough to intervene in bullying and suicidal situations. Some say that schools are providing

programs and awareness events in which helps students and is effective. This is not fully true,

schools are doing the bare minimum when it comes to programs, awareness, training teachers,

reporting, helping students/victims on bullying and suicide. And state laws on school policies on

bullying are also doing the bare minimum which is also not enough to reduce the issue of

bullying and suicide. If people are more aware on this serious issue of bullying and suicide there

could be a significant amount of change that could be done. And if people are willing to face the

fact that schools and laws are not doing enough, the real change can happen. And can happen if

we motivate other to change the laws and raise funding for schools to improve in programs,

training, more staff and more. If we are able to do this, not only will we be able to reduce

bullying and suicide, we would be able to prevent it from happening in schools all together.
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Works Cited

Batsche, George M., and Howard M. Knoff. “Bullies and Their Victims: Understanding a

Pervasive Problem in the Schools.” ​School Psychology Review,​ vol. 23, no. 2, June 1994, p. 165.

EBSCOhost​.

Cornell, Dewey G., and Susan P. Limber. “Do U.S. Laws Go Far Enough to Prevent Bullying at

School?” ​Monitor on Psychology,​ American Psychological Association,

www.apa.org/monitor/2016/02/ce-corner​.

Kalman, Izzy. “Why Anti-Bully Programs Aren't Working.” ​Bullies2Buddies​, 24 Aug. 2015,

bullies2buddies.com/why-anti-bully-programs-arent-working/.

King, Keith A., et al. “High School Health Teachers’ Knowledge of Adolescent Suicide.”

American Journal of Health Studies,​ vol. 15, no. 3, June 1999, pp. 156–163. ​EBSCOhost.​

​Lindstrom Johnson, Sarah, et al.

“Parental Responses to Bullying: Understanding the Role of School Policies and Practices.”

Journal of Educational Psychology,​ vol. 111, no. 3, Apr. 2019, pp. 475–487. ​EBSCOhost​,

doi:10.1037/edu0000295.

Temkin, Deborah.. “All 50 States Now Have a Bullying Law. Now What?” ​HuffPost​, HuffPost,

27 June 2015, ​www.huffpost.com/entry/all-50-states-now-have-a_b_7153114​.

Whitson, Signe.“What Parents Can Do When Bullying Is Downplayed at School.” ​Psychology

Today​, Sussex Publishers,

www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/passive-aggressive-diaries/201203/what-parents-can-do-whe

n-bullying-is-downplayed-school​.