Suffering In Silence

Suffering in Silence

"Every-day I would go to bed and cry myself to sleep. Their words ringing in my ear, "mush" "china" "savage" "fat" "ugly" "bitch," and all the laughter that followed, all the pointing. What do bullies get from all this? I never did understand. It didn't make them any better than I, but did ruin my life in school. No one believed me that this was happening, even the PE teacher would just laugh with the kids." (Celestine, 2004)

This story is just one of many cries for help posted on a forum for children and teenagers who have experienced bullying. Children across the country are feeling the harmful and sometimes fatal effects of bullying; Legislative efforts are needed as well as school wide programs to address the needs of victims and stop bullying behavior.

Bullying is defined as Repeated exposure, over time, to negative actions from one or more other students. Negative actions can include physical, verbal, or indirect actions that are intended to inflict injury or discomfort upon another (Olweus, 2005). States and school districts must solve the problem of bullying by creating policies against bullying and harassment, and creating comprehensive programs to stop this problem where it starts, in our schools.

Bullying is not a new concept, what is new is the growing awareness that uninhibited bullying can have serious consequences. "Bullies identified by the age eight are six times more likely to be convicted of a crime by the age of twenty four and five times more likely than non bullies to be convicted of a serious crime by the age of thirty" (Maine Project, 2004). Their victims battle thoughts of suicide or life long depression. (Boone, 2003) These are frightening thoughts, although it's not quite as frightening as the fact that between July 1, 1992 and June 30, 1999, 323 school-associated violent deaths occurred. (CDCP, 2003) The key words here are "violent deaths" and "school related". Meaning these children were killed as a result of problem at school.

States and schools have the statistics to show that this is a widespread problem, yet we as a nation are only reinforcing this behavior by doing nothing about it. When the mass murder of students occurred at Columbine High School people were quick to point the finger at music and video games. What fell by the wayside was the fact that these boys were bullied and teased through most of their school lives. In the video made by Eric Harris (one of the shooters) before the shootings, he states "People constantly make fun of my face, my hair, my shirts. I'm going to kill you all, you've been giving us shit for years."(Kimmel & Mahler, 2003)

The first obstacle is addressing people's preconceived notions about bullies and their victims. People seem to think that bullying is simply a form of teasing. What they fail to understand is that bullying goes beyond teasing with an imbalance of power. Friendly teasing is a two way street, while bullying has only victims and aggressors. (Sheras, 2002). Some people feel that it is the teacher's responsibility to control his/her students, and while I agree that teachers need to help students recognize inappropriate behavior, they cannot be solely responsible for the student's behavior. It's a common myth that bullies are mostly boys and that they pick on weak kids or "nerds," The facts are that 90% of our nations 4th through 8th grader report being victims of bullies, sadly its estimated that only 10% of these incidents are actually reported to parents or teachers. (Maine Project Against Bullying, 2004) Students and teachers need to be taught not only to recognize bullying behavior, but also how handle bullying situations. Boys do make up the majority of bullies, but they only out number the girls on a 5/4 ratio. (Sheras, 2002)

Instead of trying to justify this behavior we should be asking how we have ignored it for so long, and what are our government and schools doing about it. Several states have already passed anti-bully policies and developed and implemented anti bully programs within their schools. Unfortunately Iowa is not one of these states. In 2004 the Iowa legislature turned down legislation that would require school boards to create anti bully programs in their schools. (Campbell, 2004) This is not acceptable. The schools must be made to implement programs. The fact that so few school districts currently have these optional programs in place, show the need for legislative action.

The most effective anti-bully programs all have the following two steps as main points in their programs. First and foremost are the state policies. After the Iowa legislature turned down anti-bullying legislation, Governor