“60,000. That is the number of children that stay from school every day because they are being bullied” (Simmions). Enough to overflow the Citizens Bank Park in Philadelphia. The issue of bullying has existed forever, and if it was bad in 1996 when a 14-year-old-boy was arrested on the charges of “kidnapping, assault, and torture.”(Kiger) because he thought it was “okay”, just think about how bad it is now. Bullying is not a subject that should be taken lightly. People are losing their lives because some other kid thought they could torment them every day at school. Everyone says that all we have to do is find the problem and get the victim help, but that’s not all we could do. In addition to getting the victims help we should be getting the bully help as well.
This issue is so big that even huge corporations, such as the Cartoon Network are getting involved. They outwardly support a bill that “would make schools that get federal funding state that bullying is not acceptable. The bill also would emphasize bullying prevention and would track bullying incidents for accurate statistics” (Simmons). They also created a campaign “Stop Bullying: Speak Up”. Senator Bob Casey of Philadelphia went to Harding Middle School to help support this campaign. While speaking with seventh grader Raina Mills she told him that “Students can help by reaching out to and comforting victims of bullying”. This proves that even kids understand that this is such a big issue so why cant the teachers.
According to Patrick J. Kiger “School officials are often to blame for the prevalence of bullying, because they frequently look the other way when bullies physically accost other students, rather than taking strong measures to stop the violence”. This is exactly why the bullies need help too. If they, once caught, were put into therapy in school they would learn that they no longer need to make others feel small just so they feel big. We also need to get these bullies help to try and ensure that they do not “graduate to killing” or “go on to commit adult crimes” as “sixty percent” do (Kiger). Kiger also states that “ eight percent of suburban high school students thought it was okay to shoot someone who had offended or insulted them, and twenty percent thought it was appropriate to open fire if someone stole from them”. If that does not open some adult’s eyes, I have no idea what will.
“In 2006 a 13-year-girl, Megan Meier killed herself after a classmate’s MOTHER posed as a teenage boy on a MySpace site and harassed the girl” (Leslie). This is just one case of hundreds where bullying ended in the victim committing suicide. The only solution to this is to crack down on how schools are handling bullying. We should have hall monitors between classes to make sure kids don’t get beaten up in the hallways, we should have teachers in the cafeteria, and these bullies need to be caught. We need to be able to notice bullying early on so no case ends up with the death of a child. Once the bully is caught the victim should go to counseling in school so the issue cannot be avoided. Some may say that no one should make the kids go to counseling, but if they don’t go and the help they need, they may continue to live their lives in fear of being bullied again or continuing to change or hurt themselves because of what the bully said. A case as recent as last month ended with “Tyler Clementi jumping to his death after a roommate posted videos of him engaged in sexual activity with another male”.
In the case of Alex, a boy from the documentary Bully, felt he had to let kids beat him up so he could have “friends”, telling his mother “But if they aren’t my friends, then what friends do I have?”. Another big problem is that kids are being bullied because of their sexual orientation. Senator Al Fraken of Minnesota “Offered an impassioned plea for the law to include language specifically protecting LGBT students (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender).” These kids deserve to do anything any straight child can do. What gender you like, how you look, and the way you dress should have nothing at all to do with how you treated. Not having protection for LGBT students has caused at least the death of “Seth Walsh, an openly gay 13-year-old who killed himself last year” because the law did not “prevent schoolmates from repeatedly harassing” (Education Week) him.
Bullying is not a matter anyone should just shrug off or push to the side. Schools need to be proactive in helping to catch and get these bullies help. After the situation is being handled the only solution to making sure it does not happen again is to send both the victim and their bully to counseling. The victim needs it so they know they are loved and cared for and the bully needs it so they can understand that they don’t have to feel like thy need to put others down to grow their own self-esteem.