Are school really doing anything to help reduce bullying? While teachers and school staff are able to catch some bullying in the act, there are so many other bullying attacks that adults never see and kids never report. About 1 in 4 teachers see nothing wrong with bullying and will only intervene 4 percent of the time (dosomething.org). This means that if that 1 teacher saw an act of bullying, they would keep walking and do nothing about it. Knowing this, would you let your child into a school that possibly has teachers that would ignore an act of bullying?

What is bullying? Bullying is unwanted, aggressive behavior among school aged children that involves a real or perceived power imbalance (http://www.stopbullying.gov/). There are different types of bullying today. Bullying can be verbale (for ex. teasing, talking about hurting someone, spreading rumors, etc.). Bullying can also physical (for ex. attacking someone by hitting them). But what people don’t know is that there is a new type of bullying that has risen through the ages. Ever since social media has been introduced, cyberbullying has taken over. Today about 37% population of teens own smartphones (news.cnet.com) and almost every teen has access to the internet. Some believe that cyberbullying has increased the possibility of getting bullied.

Schools. This is where most cases of bullying start. All it takes is one person to start the act of bullying. A study shows that more than 20% of bullying victims end up in jail (http://www.dailymail.co.uk). About 160,000 students skip school due to bullying. Now if the bullying continues 3,200 of these students will end up in jail. Now what about the other 80%. 10% of them will attempt to commit suicide but only 7% will succeed. That’s 16,000 students trying to commit suicide! And what’s worse is that 11,200 students will succeed! (http://www.bullyingstatistics.org) Rebecca Sedwick, a 12 year old girl, killed herself on Tuesday, September 10th, 2013. Why did she kill herself? Bullying. This girl was being bullied for 1 ½ years. Rebecca Sedwick became the youngest member of a growing list of people who have committed suicide. She was bullied by a 15 year-old middle school student who urged her to kill herself. While Rebecca was being bullied her mother complained to school officials for several months but nothing changed. After this tragedy no new laws were passed to help stop bullying in schools. (newyorktimes.com) One way that people can help bullying victims by staying by their sides to help them stay positive.

Bullying has become a huge problem in our schools today. If we don’t resolve this problem NOW, it could be too late.

Sources:
http://www.dosomething.org/tipsandtools/11-facts-about-school-bullying
http://learning.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/09/18/how-big-a-problem-is-bullying-or-cyberbullying-in-your-school-or-community/
http://www.stopbullying.gov/kids/facts/
http://news.cnet.com/8301-1035_3-57573990-94/teen-smartphone-ownership-skyrockets-in-u.s/
http://www.bullyingstatistics.org
http://www.dailymail.co.uk