 |
| Graphic from NYTimes 10/08/10 |
Check out the NYT article by Pamela Paul on the current "State of the Playground".
The Playground Gets Even Tougher
Write a brief note and post online re:
1. Being a bullying victim, or
2. Witness to bullying, and intervening, or
3. Witness to bullying, and not intervening, or
4. Other types of experiences you may wish to share with bullying
Due Friday, October 15
Additional information from National Public Radio (NPR)
Bullying article and audio
Back in middle school, I would always see people bullying others. I didn't usually intervene because I'm really not the kind of person who just gets myself involved with something that doesn't have anything to do with me.
ReplyDeletei believe that we have all witnessed some shape or form of bullying, but because of the society we live in we are taught to not say anything, in fear that we may be rejected or looked upon as weird. No matter if we know that something is wrong or right, if the majority goes left, many people are going to go left. I didnt realize that it was starting to reach such young children. That's scary to think about!In a society with so many differences, why are we all dying to be the same? I can remeber in my high school days there were obvious cliques, and everyone knew their places, and when boundaries were crossed it wasn't pretty. You of course had the jocks,the cheerleaders, and "the cool kids", and then it seemed like there was everyone else. At my school, the "the cool kids" were superior and looked down on everyone else as less because they didnt have this and that..now i must admit i was one, a "mean girl" at times, most looked at me as the stuck up girl, with it all, but at that time I didn’t see it that way, but now that I am older i have seen the wrong and the error in what i was doing. Ive learned to not judge and put people down because you never know what someone is going through, or is going through and you can do serious damage to one's self esteem, and i would never want anyone to do that to me or any of my loved one's!
ReplyDelete-Brooke Carstarphen
If you are a victim of bullying it will efect you for the rest of your life. You will suffer from low self esteem and low grades. It can also make you stronger.
ReplyDeleteWhen someone sees bullying taking place, they should definitly intervene in the situation. You have to imagine yourself being the person who is being bullied and how you would want someone to help you. Everyone at some point and time in their life has either witnessed or has been a victim of bullying. Being bullied can have serious effects on a person for the rest of thier life. Bullying is wrong in every way. If you can help someone who is being bullied, you should definitly help that person out. - Anthony LaMancusa
ReplyDeletei witness a lot of people of all ages get bullied, i was always the one to get in the middle. never saying nothing to the bully but giving advice and encourging them to stand up for them selves. leaving me to be stuck with other people problems. them crying to me not knowing what to do.-Te-Aire Easson
ReplyDeleteI am not suprised that children this young are dealing with bullying. Myself dealt with it at a young age, and know that children can be very cruel and mean to those they feel are diffrent than they are. Yet i believe that it all starts at home. Today more often than ever children are being put in grown situations at home and having to deal with them. Not really knowing how to deal with them. Also the could be immitating behavior they heard,seen or learned about.Children are like sponges, they soak up everything and will often act out what the think is the right way to handle things. I think the article is right, the parent need to become more involved with their childrens social activities, also the teachers to need to be aware of whats going on, and available for the children who may not have a parent who can be there for them. As the saying goes "It takes a whole village to raise a child"
ReplyDeleteBullying is something that has been going on for numerous years throughout the world. Bullying can be as severe as physical damage or as minor as a note making fun of someone. Regardless of the type of Bullying, each individual has no right to be threatened or made fun of by someone else. I have witnesses bullying throughout my life and honestly hate seeing it. A few years ago, A kid that was a little slower and was seen by most people in high school as not normal was eating lunch minding his own business. The kid would always read a paper at lunch and eat by himself but for some reason the table behind him with these sophmore boys found it funny to mess with him. One day they decided to through food at him and play it off like it wasnt them. My buddies and i from another table came over and yelled at the kids and told them to back off. The poor kid is trying to eat his lunch peacefully and you guys are really acting imature. For the rest of the year they laid off the kid and he wasd happy. He eventually thanked us and found friends to sit with later on in the year. Doing something like this made me feel really good about myself. I cant imagine sitting by myself for half the year eating alone because i am getting made fun or people would not like me to join them. I have way more respect for kids like that than any other people out there. People really need to start thinking of the ifs especially in situations with a bully. Stepping in and taking ten minutes to tell people or a bully to back off can not only change that victums life, but may also save it.
ReplyDeleteBrandon Wypasek
I have experienced all of these. I have been bullied about my weight, I used to weight 235 lbs at the age of 14, it was not fun. But it was a motivator to lose weight. I have bullied others in the same weight people bullied me. After I was made fun of, I would find someone bigger than myself and make fun of them. It was stupid, but I was also 14. I have intervened when a friend of mine was being bullied, and with the same friend I haven't intervened.
ReplyDeleteI graduated with a small class in high school, thus we all knew eachother very well. But I still wtinessed several cases of bullying upon kids who stood out in a small school. It really showed me that we live in a culture of "sameness". I never intervened in any of the situations for fear that I would be "thrown out of the norm". I realize now that it means nothing to be in that norm, and that everyone has their own place in this world.
ReplyDeleteNathan Chambers
When i was in elementary school I was a huge bully. I would always make fun of people for stupid reasons and I still can't figure out why I did it. I guess I just thought it was funny. I was the same for the beginning of middle school, but I soon learned that I was being a total jerk and it needed to stop. Now whenever I see people bullying others I try to stop them because I've seen first hand what it can do to someone, and if that person isn't able to stand up for themselves the bullying won't stop.
ReplyDeleteRobby Hannan
I have been bullied all my life. Ever since I can remember people had picked on me for the simplest and dumbest reasons. At age 6 I was not good enough to play or hang out with people at lunch or recess. Kids made fun of me for my clothes, things i did or didn't do and things I said and or the way I said them. I was bullied through out my education growing up. I wasn't good enough or cool enough or thin enough. When I tried to make friends with people someone would convince them that it wasn't cool to hang with me. Today i believe that people at least in America are being bullied by the media, hollywood, the government (to some degree) and big corporations. They bully us to buy stuff that we don't need and sometimes don't even want. They bully us to act certain ways, respond certain ways, look certain ways. If we do or don't do these things we get labeled and when we are labeled like that other people see that and usually some people bully you for that. I would go so far to say that it is possible that birth or source of bullying comes from the previously stated groups.
ReplyDeleteHaving been bullied my self when I see bullying I get upset and see it as sense of injustice. After I see the bullying I usually get involved and disperse the group in some way. Often it is through question or confrontation. I reverse the role and bully them for a minute and ask them how they like it. I do this with people i know and with strangers. In the past strangers walk away and don't say anything but my friends seem to have learned from the experiences of realizing the effect of bullying. I hope the strangers respond in like form as my friends have but there is no way to tell since I don't ever see them again.
Neil Wonderchek
being in a penal institution I have witnessed bulying in a numerous of ways. For an example, inmates taking others comissary, meals, phone time, and more heinous acts
ReplyDeleteI have seen bullying throughout elementary school to college. In elementary school it was kids being mean because they didn't have the cool new toys. In middle school it was if you weren't in the "cool" click. In high school it was near the same and if you weren't in sports. It happens everywhere even when your adults. Experiencing it when I was young and continuing throughout my teenage and young adult years I have a feeling it will not end even through my adulthood and elderly stages in life.
ReplyDeleteTara Fought
test3
ReplyDeletei was never a bullying victim but there was times when i seen someone getting bullied and i step in and stop it we were in class it was my 8th grade year and there was a guy that was in class that was smart and did all his work and what the teacher told him to and people use to pick on him everyday throwing his bookbag and pushing his books on the floor he never stood up for his self so one day i stood up for him and told them to leave him alone and they didnt bother him in front of me again. and there were times where i seen someone getting bullied but i didnt intervene because thid guy was always bullying people at school and one day another person who was a bully. bullied him and i thought he needed to see how it felt to get bullied. me personally i dont think bullying is ok why try to make a person feel low because they are different and why would you want to mess with someone who doesnt want to defend themselves.
ReplyDeleteBullying is something that we have all been exposed to from our first days of school to our current lives at UA. Bullying when i grew up was because you looked funny, talked funny, maybe you just didn't fit in for some petty reason. In middle school and early high school, i was heavier than most of my peers and can remember the fat jokes that seemed to follow me around. It seems as though bullying has transitioned to the modern world, now individuals are bullied because they are from a foreign country or because they are gay, or poor. In one way, i feel like bullying was a part of growing up, however it should diminish as people mature and move on to college and adulthood. There is clearly a problem at hand if people being bullied or tormented feel as though they have no other place to turn besides taking their own life, and it may indicate that people have grown to turn a blind eye to bullying. Maybe it is because we wish to conform to the rest of society, and not be "that person" that stands up to fix the problem.
ReplyDeleteI went to school with a girl from 6th to 12th grade. She was always the odd one out, she was "wierd", she never talked to anyone, she just always kept to herself. I noticed this and often heard people making fun of her behind her back, but I never saw her being bullied or anyone saying anything mean to her face. Senior year the class went on Senior Retreat, we broke up into small groups of 7-10 people. This girl, that I hadn't talked to since 8th grade, was placed in my group. One of the talks we had in our group was "highs and lows." We went around in a circle and everyone shared their story of the high point in their life and their low point. When it became this girls turn she started to talk about her experience in grade school. She started at another school where she was picked on and bullied, that's why she switched to my school. Things got better for her at first but then it went down hill again. Someone in our class sat next to her and psychologically abused her and he would touch her in inappropriate places during class. I was in her class and had no idea that was going on. I never took the time to get to know her and she needed someone. I feel guilty for that now. But what I learned is that you never know everything about a person; there will always be those things that they keep hidden and someonetimes those things can damage a persons self-esteem and their life.
ReplyDelete-Erin Demko
When i was younger i was bullied a lot. It was not until middle school i became a bully trying to be the class clown making everyone laugh. That followed me to highschool and brought many people down for what i was saying.
ReplyDelete- Desmond Davis
I myself have never been a victim of bullying but I have witnessed it.I think this behavior
ReplyDeletestarts at home.Parents need to be more involved in their childrens affairs and monitor their behavior to make sure they are not bullies or a victim of bullying.If you install good values in your kids they will become great members of society.You have to also have an opened line of communication with your children.Everyday after school I ask my five year old daughter about her day at school.It's good to be aware of whats going on with your children so we as parents can find these problems early and nip them in the bud. Erika Lillie
The article was very interesting. I knew that younger children were bulling, but I didn’t know there where so many children. I have never been a bully, only when someone starts being mean to me first. I have been called names in middle school. When people would call me names I didn’t care because I would call them names back. This was the only time I could be considered a bully. I always take up for myself no matter what the situation may be.
ReplyDelete-Znobia Seawright
timfridrich@gmail.com
ReplyDeletethis article is very istering i know that everyone at some point in there lives are bullies or the ones being bullied if you think about its kinda said how many people are a vitum to this. and the porblam is just becoming yonger and yonger of age group and bullying has such a impact on peoples lives some for ever. i for one was bullyed during grade school and i fell like i still am being effected by it today. i think its said that it gets to the point of susied somtimes and the people that are doing it douse not even know what they are doing.
timothy fridrich
I think that children who bully on other children they want attention. They feel as if they bully on others then people will pay attention to them. When I was younger i used to get bullied on by other children because I was shy and quiet. They used to say all types of rude things to me that would hurt my feelings. I was never the type of child that would bully because I didnt like the way that it made me feel and i didnt want others to feel that way. I also feel that bullies bully on others because they have low self esteem and by them bullying it would boost thier self esteem.
ReplyDeleteDesteni Adams
I think that kids who bully feel bad about themselves. ive seen numerous cases a people being bullied, and its almost like we are tought not to say anything, so your not "involded". ive never been the type to bully anyone, and i myself have never been bullied, but i wouldnt wish that upon anyone.
ReplyDeletemargo vani