Bullying in Schools

566 Words3 Pages
Bullying is the act of repetitively negative, hurtful and disrespectful behaviour towards other individual’s. Bullying can be direct or indirect actions. Direct bullying can be kicking, punching or any form of physical abuse; indirect varies from spreading rumours, name calling and even exclusion from social activities. It was professor Dan Olweus from the University of Bergen that was one of the first to recognise what effects school bullying can have in the 1970’s. (Rigby, 2007) Bullying has become an alarmingly huge part of today’s school society. It comes as an even bigger concern that not only is the bullying restricted to the school yard but now days many adolescents have access to social media sites such as Facebook and twitter along with mobile phones. This brings a much bigger issue to bullying within the school as it makes it a lot harder for teachers and parents to analyse and control what is happening between peers. Something that we often overlook is that bullying can also happen between teacher and student. Either the teacher or student can be the bully/victim. Students may feel they are the victim of a bullying teacher/ staff member when performance goals are set and an individual or group of students feel that the task is unrealistic, or when the teacher/ staff member punishes the student when his/her performance is not up to standard. Teachers/ staff members may feel they have become a victim of bullying when a student or group of students constantly torment or harass them. They may also feel they are a victim if they have a student that is frequently disobeying what is being asked of them and their school does not implement effective behavioural actions to help. Research conducted for the year 2010 by www.bullyingsatistics.org revealed that about 160,000 students in the U.S evade school daily in the dread of being bullied. The website
Open Document