THE TRUTH ABOUT SCHOOL BULLYING
IF you went to school (Secondary) in the 90’s, you will probably remember some kind of school bullying which occurred in your school yard.
You must have been any one of the three: the bully himself/ herself, the victim or the spectator. Tell the truth which one were you? Okay now read on just in case you have a child or dependant who is either a bully or a victim of bullying.
From my experience, bullying was more prevalent in the upper grades of primary school up to junior secondary school. You may recall that bullying resurfaced at university when you were called “Fresher.”
In those days, whether it was at primary, secondary or university level, teachers and lecturers never seemed bothered with the bullying that was going on. Senior learners told juniors that bullying was a normal “initiation” to adulthood and that there was need for “Baptism” with new names like Zeze, fwiyo or jinx. Please do not look up the meaning of these words.
1. DEFINITION
There is no clear cut definition of school bullying but it is surely a subset of aggressive behaviour. Key words in the definition of bullying would be: hostility, provocation, intention, trauma and repetition.
Bullying is characterised by deliberate intentions to hurt someone and seemingly reap satisfaction out of possible repeated acts which must traumatise the victim.
I will go with my favourite Oxford Mini School Dictionary which explains that the word bully can be viewed as a verb meaning “to use strength to hurt or frighten a weaker person,” or as a noun to mean “someone who bullies people.” You may have noticed that certain schools record less cases of bullying than others. I would say that Christian schools experienced less bullying than government schools but of late, things have started changing.
It follows logically that school bullying refers to the type of bullying that occurs in a school or educational setting. In other words school bullying is associated with learning institutions whether it occurs in the school premises or not. But where else can bullying occur?
2. LOCATION
In primary school, bullying occurs mostly in the playground but as children grow much older in secondary school, bullying locations vary from playground, classroom, bus stops and even inside the school bus.
Bullying is common in the school bus if the teachers do not accompany the pupils. For one reason or the other, the school bus driver does not scare the pupils in any way as they do not recognise him as an authority figure unlike teachers, parents and school security guards.
Other locations for bullying are locker rooms, changing rooms, dormitories and the ablution block in general. Bullying also occurs in the school hall, gymnasium or the hall way and stairway if there is one.
This is so because teachers are usually out of sight in these areas. Nowadays, teachers do not condone bullying unlike during our primary school days where they seemed not to care. No offence to my teachers, I salute you!
Let me hasten to say that bullying behaviour does not only manifest in childhood. Is your spouse a bully? Unfortunately some individuals may grow up with their school bullying behaviour while others may develop the bullying behaviour in adulthood.
For instance in universities some lecturers may bully their students by putting unbearable pressure on them in terms of assignments, tests etc beyond normal. Let me comfort you quickly by saying that these are rare cases of sadists so don’t be scared to go for higher education.
3. MEDIUM OF BULLYING
Bullying can occur in different ways. There is what is known as individual bullying and pack bullying. In individual bullying, there is a one-on-one confrontation and it can take any form. Pack bullying involves a group of perpetrators whether in physical or verbal form. We also have indirect and direct bullying.
Direct bullying is a straight unhidden attack on someone. It can be physical, verbal or in cyber space. Indirect bullying on the other hand is like a goaround involving things like backbiting, rumour mongering, obscene gestures out of the victim’s view, making faces, or exclusion of the victim. This list of examples of direct bullying is obviously not exhaustive.
4. TYPES OF BULLYING
There are different types of school bullying. It is important for parents, guardians and teachers to know and understand types of bullying because if they can identify a bullying behaviour they can easily find ways of tackling it.
In other words, when one can identify and understand something they are half way in finding a solution. These categories of school bullying do not exist in a mutually exclusive manner but they overlap and are intertwined,
• Physical Bullying
This is a type of direct bullying which involves undesirable physical contact which the bully initiates on the victim. It is very easy to identify physical bullying because it is “visible.” Physical bullying has a wide range of unwanted physical attacks which include the following: pushing, kicking, punching, pinching, slapping, pranking, fighting, hazing, shoving, spitting, tripping, inappropriate tickling and touching. If I were to exhaust the list of physical bullying examples, I would fill up the whole newspaper.
• Emotional Bullying
Emotional bullying is the type of bullying that negatively affects a person’s emotional well-being. ther than physical interaction, emotional bullying involves factors. It also affects a person psychologically in a negative manner.
Examples of emotional bullying include the following: making fun of people, name calling, provoking, ignoring others on purpose on the pretext that they don’t exist or by keeping silent, belittling, spreading rumours about someone or even saying things that can hurt someone.
You will notice that there is a very thin line which exists between emotional abuse and verbal abuse which I will now outline. I will be quick to state that emotional bullying is likely to have more painful lasting effects than physical abuse because it tempers with the psyche of a person.
• Verbal Bullying
Verbal bullying deals with accusations in form of statements that can cause emotional distress to someone. Some of the examples of verbal bullying intersect with those of emotional bullying, therefore one would safely group verbal and emotional bullying as one and the same without being “arrested” by the experts.
The list of examples of verbal bullying may include threatening, mocking, tormenting, belittling, harassing, insulting, teasing, taunting, mud-slinging, personal abuse in form of negative comments on clothes, looks or characteristics of the victim.
• Cyber Bullying
Cyber bullying involves the use of the internet to harass, torment, humiliate, embarrass or threaten other pupils. Cyber bullying can also occur by use of mobile phones or any other digital gadgets.
Cyber bullies can also use websites, blogs, e-mail, chat rooms and text messages to abuse victims. Since there is no physical contact involved in this type of bullying, the victim gets hurt psychologically.
Cyber bullying is a very difficult thing to detect and it can go on for a long time without parents noticing. Cyber bullying is an on-line thing. It may happen that even if cyber bullying was noticed, it would still be difficult to tackle because the perpetrator can easily hide their identity.
The other problem is that it is difficult for parents to monitor their children’s Information Technology activities so it is unlikely that they would notice that their child is a victim of cyber bullying. In other words, cyber bullying may be extremely invisible to both parents and teachers.
The other problem of cyber bullying is that it may happen continuously whether the child has knocked off from school or not. The child therefore has no chance of running away from this type of bullying and they cannot do away with the internet since it is now part of modern learning.
• Sexual Bullying
Sexual bullying as implied by its name is any form of bullying which is solely based on the victim’s sexuality. Sexual bullying can be physical (inappropriate touching), verbal or emotional (looking or peering at someone lustfully, insulting) as long as it is based on the victim’s gender.
Even without stating the latest exact statistics, I can safely say that sexual bullying is likely to be perpetrated by boys to girls rather than by girls to boys.
Sexual bullying can be direct, indirect or via internet. One example of sexual bullying is when a victim is bullied into providing sexual favours to the perpetrator in exchange for something.
Other examples of sexual bullying include the use of sexual insults, sexting, groping or even posting nude pictures of a victim to someone of the opposite gender as blackmail or just to hurt them.
5. WAY FORWARD
As a way forward, all parents and guardians must know why school bullying occurs generation after generation. In the next article, I will discuss the causes and the effects of school bullying and possible preventive measures. I just hope that adult bullies will take time to read the article.