“Jumping off the gw bridge sorry.” This Facebook status was the last anyone heard of 18-year-old Tyler Clementi before he committed suicide after his roommate secretly taped and broadcasted him having relations with another male.
15-year-old Phoebe Prince, a high school freshman, endured relentless bullying after a brief romance with a senior football player. After the constant bullying became too much to handle, Phoebe hung herself in her closet.
A 16-year-old Croatian girl, Sladjana Vidovic killed herself because students teased her about her accent.
These three young students, as different as they are, share one commonality: they all took their own lives as a result of bullying gone too far.
Bullycide is another word for a suicide as a result of bullying. The recent suicides of five teenagers, who were literally bullied to death, serve as hard proof that it is a real threat and must be stopped. The old age method, which calls for ignoring the bully or telling him or her to “stop it” has proved to be hopeless. The truth is bullying is hard to prevent especially when it’s done online, in the form of cyber bullying.
According to a recent survey conducted by Dan Olweus, the proclaimed founding father of research on bullying issues, 17 percent of American students, grades 3 to 12, reported being bullied two to three times a month or more within a school semester. The National Education Association estimates that more than 160,000 children miss school every day because of fear of attack or intimidation by other students.
These statistics are disheartening when we consider the fact that 40 states have some sort of law that makes bullying illegal. For example, in Conn., Governor Jodi Rell signed an anti-bullying law in 2008. This law, a revision of a previous law in 2002, required each Connecticut school board to develop and implement a prevention and intervention strategy to put a stop to bullying.
It required schools to investigate all reports of suspected bullying and hold interventions with the bully, victim and each student’s parents. It mandated each school board to submit its bullying policy to the State Department of Education by February 2009 and to annually report the number of verified acts of bullying to them.
In addition, the law changed the definition of bullying from “ridiculing, harassing, humiliating or intimidating acts repeated over time” to acts “committed more than once against any student during the school year.” The law included other specific requirements like mandatory bullying prevention training for teachers, administrators and pupil personnel and consistent monitoring of students in hallways, outdoor areas, the lunchroom, and other specific areas where bullying is likely to occur. With such a solid and exacting prevention policy in place, it is a wonder to think bullying is still as prevalent as recent studies show.
According to the 2010 report by the State Department of Education, by February 2009, less than one-third of districts sent a copy of their plan to the state. State records also show that 29 school districts, charter schools and state schools did not report any incidents of bullying in the schools years 2006-2007, 2007-2008 or 2008-2009.
The executive director of the Connecticut Commission on Children Elaine Zimmerman calls these statistics “questionable.” After considering these statistics, it is not unreasonable to speculate that the problem with bullying does not necessarily lie in the policies to prevent it but rather in the failure of the schools to properly implement them. Here are some examples.
Take the case of Tyler Clementi. After discovering his roommate had video tapped him having sexual relations with another male, he reportedly complained about his roommate to the residential advisor at his University and requested a room change. However he made his thoughts clear when he tweeted “The school (probably) won’t do much of anything”.
In the case of Phoebe Prince, Phoebe’s mother reportedly went to school officials and told them that her daughter was being bullied and something needed to be done. However, it is clear that not enough if anything was done because Phoebe hung herself a week after this.
Anti-bullying policies and reported cases of bullying are not being taken seriously. A majority of educational institutions have anti-harassment policies in place but fail to enforce them. For example at Rutgers University where Tyler Clementi was a freshman, a clearly defined Student Verbal Assault, Harassment and Defamation Policy was already in place before the incident.
After Clementi’s suicide the New Jersey Senator Frank Lautenberg spoke of plans to introduce a federal legislation that will require colleges and universities to have anti-harassment policies. But the University, as many do, already has a policy intact. The policies failed Clemnti; the interpretation had to have been taken more seriously.
The only foreseeable way to prevent bullying is for schools to ensure that they have strong anti-bullying and harassment policies in place and are implementing them effectively. When bullying is reported, schools should waste no time investigating immediately.
Also, it is necessary for victims of bullying to feel safe and supported. Schools should take compulsory steps to make certain that victims of bullying are not at risk. Overall, schools, parents and the like should educate children about the potentially serious consequences of bullying and the importance of accepting differences.
Leave a Reply