What can realistically be done to stamp out bullying at schools?

Have Your Say Jul. 14, 2012 - 06:34AM JST ( 14 )

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14 Comments

3

TamaramaJul. 14, 2012 - 08:53AM JST

National legislation making it mandatory for teachers to have to report suspected cases to their administration, who are then legally bound to deal with it either themselves or by referring it to the Police, who themselves should be legally bound by the legislation to act action against the perpetrators if and when required. Criminal charges should exist to specifically address the issue if they don't already. Follow this with a comprehensive campaign to educate both teachers and students what constitues bullying, how it will be dealth with and how they report it.
2

gaijinfoJul. 14, 2012 - 09:36AM JST

Get rid of that stupid law that requires all citizens a "right" to education. Give everybody a year's notice. Any hint of bullying and your kid is kicked out of school. No questions, no second chances. What you do with your kid after that is your problem, parents. Cough up the dough to send him to another school (likely a high discipline school for bad kids), home school him yourself, or send him to work.

Make it clear that bullies forfeit their right to an education.

Give teachers bonuses for finding bullying type behavior. Give them a raise if they identify behavior that leads to an expulsion.

Give students an anonymous, exhaustive survey about how they feel studying at school, and make it mandatory that ALL RESULTS are made public to everybody, EVERY SINGLE YEAR. This will give parents another metric to choose which school they send their kids to.

There's plenty of data to support this. Whenever there's been a good school in a bad neighborhood (in many different countries), it's been largely attributed to management having ZERO TOLERANCE for anything other than studying and learning.

In Japan, the teachers teach in fear of the students, and the administrators administrate in fear of the parents.
-2

TrevorPeace1Jul. 14, 2012 - 09:47AM JST

Nothing. For time immemorial kids have been kids, and always will be. If you homogenize them you'll end up with soylent green. Let them grow up on their own, learning to tolerate or to be intolerant. It's human nature.
3

nigelboyJul. 14, 2012 - 09:48AM JST

Can't stamp out completely but the recent "search warrant" to the Education Board would hopefully set a prescedent where other Education Board should start taking "bullying" seriously.
0

BertieWoosterJul. 14, 2012 - 11:55AM JST

Open some real communication between kids, parents and teachers.

Develop a curriculum that makes sense and gives children the information they NEED to live in the 21st century. Things they can actually use.

Cut out one way authoritarian teaching and have smaller classes with TWO WAY communication between the teachers and the students.

Encourage all the children to express themselves and develop their own ideas and opinions.
0

SerranoJul. 14, 2012 - 11:56AM JST

Up the punishment.
0

jamplassJul. 14, 2012 - 06:27PM JST

I tend to agree that bulling will always be a part of schooling to a certain degee, but there should more clear definitions of what consistutes bulling and teacher and students need to be made explicitly aware of what these are. And there should be stiffer penalties for students engaging in bullying, as well as for teachers who are aware that it is happening in their classrooms but do little or nothing about it.

That said, the above may be more complicated by the nature of bullying in Japanese schools. There appears to be more group bullying happening--singling out and austracizing of students, and it is often the more academically-inclined students who are doing the bullying against lower ability students, who they resent because they take more time and attention from the teachers. This may be a reason why some teachers decide to tolerate bullying to a certain degee--until of course it goes too far, results in a suicide and gets national media attention until the next time.
0

AliasisJul. 14, 2012 - 07:06PM JST

Bullying should NEVER be approached with the philosophy that kids should just "toughen up and get over it." Guess what, many of these kids can't handle it, and how many suicides have we had in both America and Japan directly caused by bullying?

I'm going to put some responsibility on teachers. Teachers need to be trained to recognize bullying and NEVER excuse it as "a joke" or the aforementioned BS of it being a normal part of school life. Teachers need to get involved on school grounds, there needs to be monitoring. Kids need to have easy and confidential ways to report bullying, and they need to be encouraged to use these venues if they do face it. The parents of both victim and bullies need to get involved - particularly the bullies' parents, it's their job to do whatever possible to adjust their kids' behavior. If a kid is reported as bullying, they need to be severely monitored to the best of the school's ability.

And mostly, the school should make clear in its classes, to all its students, that there is a zero tolerance policy toward bullying. Go through common examples of bullying, from coercing, name calling, pushing, humiliating - so the kids themselves are quick to recognize bullying for what it is. Show value in sticking up to bullies and reporting to teachers immediately.

I don't care if this sounds like overdoing it, bullying is a stupid problem that is unacceptable, and I value the well-being of kids. Because these bullies don't grow out of it if they aren't stopped right on, the kids grow up to be bullies at work.
1

MariaJul. 14, 2012 - 08:11PM JST

Zero tolerance of bullying of any kind.

No blaming the victim.

Reinforcement, during home room / social studies and those discussion periods, of the facts that:

bullying is wrong;

seeing / knowing about bullying and doing nothing about it is wrong;

telling someone that you are being bullied / know someone who is being bullied is the right thing to do;

blackmailing and threatening someone in order to keep them quiet about bullying, is wrong.

There are no shades of gray here (and damn that woman for stealing a very useful expression) - Bullying is wrong.
0

marcelsJul. 14, 2012 - 08:55PM JST

How about depriving the bully,s to get into university,or also have the bullying on their record,so when they apply for a job,it will decrease their chances of getting a job... on the other hand if they show regret and remorse and repay for what they did or said, through community service they will have their tarnished records cleaned...Just a thought..
0

missbattenJul. 14, 2012 - 11:09PM JST

1) Why are school leaders who lie about crimes committed in their schools not held criminally responsible? 2) Why are children legally required to attend schools where they caused injury to other students or been injured, with no action taken to ensure any changes? 3) Why are children whose upbringing and home situations exacerbate behavioral problems to the point of lawbreaking NOT given any support and/or discipline until they need residential care?
0

sillygirlJul. 15, 2012 - 03:40PM JST

arrest the cretins that bully, assault, lie, cover up, commit extortion, make others bend to their will by violence, commit vandalism/burglary - as in this most RECENT case - commit various crimes on school property (this includes students/teachers/staff/schoolboard members). Protect the students (and in come cases teachers) instead of protecting the precious "reputation" of the school. reputation in these cases is complete nonsense.
0

MeanRingoJul. 15, 2012 - 09:49PM JST

Anything greater than nothing.
-3

Bob SneiderJul. 16, 2012 - 01:24AM JST

The entire culture of ostracizing people who are different has to be changed. The adults should change themselves before expecting their kids to.