Some Thoughts On Bullying
Cross-posted on the Burlington High School Principal’s Blog
There’s no doubt that the release of the documentary Bully will lead to some deeper discussion on bullying and what we can do to reduce the number of incidences of bullying in our schools and communities. Discovery News posted a great article on the topic last week titled Why Do People Bully? and I think that this a question that we miss sometimes after hearing the horrific endings to some cases of bullying on local and national news.
While the uproar leads to a renewed focus on punishing bullies, I think it moves us further away from the solution. In order to reduce bullying, we need to see what causes it and ensure that our schools educate students and establish cultures of care which do not tolerate the mistreatment of any student.
Here are a few of the excerpts from the Discovery article that we need to keep in mind:
There’s no doubt that the release of the documentary Bully will lead to some deeper discussion on bullying and what we can do to reduce the number of incidences of bullying in our schools and communities. Discovery News posted a great article on the topic last week titled Why Do People Bully? and I think that this a question that we miss sometimes after hearing the horrific endings to some cases of bullying on local and national news.
While the uproar leads to a renewed focus on punishing bullies, I think it moves us further away from the solution. In order to reduce bullying, we need to see what causes it and ensure that our schools educate students and establish cultures of care which do not tolerate the mistreatment of any student.
Here are a few of the excerpts from the Discovery article that we need to keep in mind:
- “But now we’ve shown that there is a peer socialization process — that bullies tend to have more friends,” said bullying expert Dorothy Espelage, a psychologist at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
- experts agree that peer influence is crucial in accounting for bullying. “If your peer