Memories of sitting under the staircase, holding on to the pieces of my shattered self-confidence still play in my mind whenever I hear the word "bully". Having grown up being chubby in comparison to my stick-thin cousins, I was subjected to both harsh comments and other rather cryptic ones.
One of the most common ones are, "Oh, you're looking... healthy!". All I could do was reply with a mere "thank you" in a bid to not come across as impolite.
Although adults in my family never directly taunted me about my weight or size, my cousin who weren't as kind all reflect back on other words with remorse now that we're older.
I'm glad to say I've moved on, and the feelings of hatred have dissipated as the years passed. Still, it doesn't give anyone the right to physically, mentally or verbally bully an individual. Bullying takes place in any situation or form, and at any stage of one's life. Although the way we react to it differs from time to time, in the end, it all comes down to same thought : "It hurts."
There are many reasons why bullying is such a common occurrence, especially in schooling environment.
There are school-going adolescents who are attention seekers, jealous peers, and those hat succumb to peer pressure just too easily. As such, some of us fall "prey" to those who appear to be higher up in the "social hierarchy".
In that sense, school is similar to the food chain in the wild. The weaker ones get picked on and trampled over by the ones who seemingly have more power. Bullying in schools appears to be more common these days. We read about it int he local and international media and watch first hand video accounts of it online. Although we express sympathy and disgust, we often overlook the root cause.
When I was studying in Malaysia, I've witnessed quite a few of my peers transfering schools after constantly being verbally bullied.
Being picked on for your taste in music, body image, language fluency and even intelligence level was not uncommon at my old school. Nothing protected my peers in these situation; there were no school rules or policies dealing with bullying. There was only so much could do as friends to stick up for them as once the people who "ruled the school" spoke, everyone else followed suit.
Thankfully, I've never seen my schoolmates take drastic actions in response to all the tormenting. But I have seen the tormentors walk free, leaving the victims to resolve the situation by changing schools. Perhaps this is the cause of the never-ending chain of bullying in Malaysian schools and schools throughout the world. T
The offenders never get put off from doing what they do because there is an appeal to committing such actions and not being disciplined for it. Students are getting bolder, recording videos of these bullying "sessions" and posting it up on social networks. This indicates that the offenders simply have no fear of getting caught.
They openly reveal their faces and school uniforms and are seen to be taking pleasure in inflicting pain on others. There is little, if any, attempt at being discreet. Looking at it from an offender's perspective, one would be more inclined to repeat their actions if they've done it before and gotten away with it.
If a victim does not report a case, or takes some form of action against bullying, the offender is likely to repeat his or her actions. While the subject of bullying is occasionally brought up as an issue in schools, it generally only happens when a major incident occurs. This might put the offenders off for a short period of time, but they are likely to resume their usual routines, eventually.
In Australia, I feel that there is a cerain feeling of safety when I walk into my classroom as compared to when I was studying in Malaysia. Here, an anti-bullying charter is read out in each class room at the beginning of each school year. The charter states that there is an expectation that all members of the school community respect and tolerate individual differences.
Definitions of bullying are outlined in the student diaries we carry around everyday to our classes and a copy of the anti-bullying charter can be found in there too. The effort to eradicate bullying in schooling environment in Australia is taken very seriously and is not something to be taken lightly.
Most schools here have a zero-tolerance policy to bullying and enforce compulsory counselling or even expulsion in extreme situations to discipline students. Without the stress of dealing with bullies, a student's schooling experience can be so much more enjoyable. After all, we already have enough homework and eam stress to last us till oour golden ages.
It is difficult to enforce something as abstract as "anti-bullying", but perhaps more needs to be done within school communities to stress psychological effects that bullying has on young mind.
There is still much more work to be done before we reach a point where students are able to be educated in a protected learning environment.
1 comment:
after reading your post, i feel so fortunate that my primary and secondary school's rules was perfect.. perfect enough to control the so called "gangsters" in school. And the students were so united. Once we suspect the "bullying" would take place, there's always a student who would inform the discipline teacher.
it's kind of sad, whenever i see a video clips of a students who likes to bully one another. while others were standing there watching and recoding it. =.=ll i was wondering, how come they never stop such things happen but instead joining the crowd.
Post a Comment