[MUSIC] Hello, you are welcome once again to this course. Today, we want to look at bullying. What do you think constitutes bullying? It is a common word, but viewed differently by different people and cultures. In your opinion, what constitutes bullying? I want you to consider just one of the definitions. Some people look at bullying simply as using one's physical strength to hurt someone because they are different from them. It is also when someone insults and ridicules a person. What do you also think about bullying? Reflect on this for a moment. Bullying has become a school safety issue which attracts attention of school authorities, parents, governments, and other stakeholders. Wherever there is harm to children, the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child has asked countries to use agencies at the school to ensure that all appropriate measures to promote physical and psychological recovery and social reintegration of the victim is taken. That should tell us the gravity of cases of bullying in our schools which teachers need to help control. What forms does bullying take in our schools? Bullying can take the form of verbalisation. Here, we're talking about verbal bullying. This type of bullying is common in schools. It involves threats, calling names, making offensive jokes, belittling other's capabilities and at times, scrutinizing one's gender, race, color, ethnicity, religion, socioeconomic status or even political orientation. It can also take the form of physical attacks and this occurs when stronger, older and more well-built students and adults exert physical attacks on very weak students. It may be seen through punching, slapping, kicking, hitting, pushing, or destroying property: books, uniform. And the most serious one, it can be seen, where there are cases of rape, particularly gang rape. That's any form of duress that exerts physical pains on a child constitutes physical bullying. It can also take the form of alienation. This involves discriminative acts that treat a child as an outcast in school. This is often based on some prejudices that the perpetrator may hold against the victim. Some bullies encourage other students to alienate a person during school activities, groupings, games, and break periods just because they don't like them. In this sense, bullies threaten others that they will also suffer alienation if found talking or making friends with the victim. This type really affects the psychological state of a child in the school and it's something that a teacher must be concerned about. We also have what we call the blackmail bullying. This involves an act that indirectly affects the psychological balance of the victim. It is an indirect act of bullying which is sometimes hard to spot as the person involved may not himself be aware of the harassment done. It involves acts such as spreading rumors of fabricated stories which tends to blemish the public image of the victim. Breaking confidentiality which involves divulging secrets which have reputation damaging implications. It may also involve teasing, mimicking mannerisms associated with the individual, for instance, in a classroom. Then it also involves making gestures and faces behind a person's back. This is the blackmailing type of bullying. Then there's one other, which is now emerging in our society, and this is Internet bullying. This involves cyber-related attacks on persons. With the proliferation of information and technology devices, mobile phones, tablets and laptops etc., it is easier to bully others through technology mediums. This is often done through spreading false information through bulk text messaging around the campus, or inside the class; hacking others' web page, and altering its contents; posting a video of a physical abuse on the net. Children become victims to cyber bullying through Facebook, net browsing, etc. And these are issues that the teacher needs to educate children on. Now, the big question is why do students engage in bullying? One of the things psychologists have identified is previous experience. It is said that past experience of bullying by children play a major role in motivating their involvement in acts of bullying. In other words, when children have themself experienced bullying they see it as a normal thing, and so, want to exert the same experience on others based on their previous experience. Then there is misdirected frustration. People can often direct frustration, hurt, anger and difficulty, at home or in class, to others in the school. There are occasions where some children would use bullying as a means of seeking attention. Some people bully to attract attention and the lack of attention from friends, parents, or teachers, can make a person bully others, just to project them as popular, or tough. Bad home or school role models. These have been recurring in the previous lectures that we have had. Some children are bullies because of parental or teacher role model as bullies. They've learned bullying from others. In homes where fathers beat up their wives, and fathers beat up children without cause, children definitely will find such acts normal, and will want to exert such acts on their colleagues at least opportunity. They bully another to put fear in others so they would have the best shot in everything in the school. The media influence. Violent acts watched by children on the television, films, movies, and video games can make children curious to try out violent things. But don't forget that bullying has a cost, and the cost of bullying in school is great. One, it affects the individual, the victim. It creates an embarrassment for the individual. Some victims experience psychological distress, which keeps them frequently absent from school, just because of the embarrassment they get out of that. Victimisation can also lead to depression and low self esteem that can last for years after experiencing bullying in school. Students who experience bullying at least once a week are more likely to experience poorer health, contemplate suicide, and suffer from depression, social dysfunction and anxiety, and other psychological traumas. There is also the physical cost of bullying. Children who are bullied may experience physical harm, such as bruises, fractures, and also suffer anxiety. Again, it has a psychosocial cost. Frequent victims of bullying in school often suffer both emotionally and socially. Bullied children tend to experience a wide range of emotions. They may feel angry, bitter, frustrated, lonely and isolated from their peers. As a result, they may skip classes and resort to drugs and alcohol to numb their pain. And if bullying is ongoing, they may develop depression and even contemplate suicide as earlier mentioned. Also, there is an academic cost of bullying. A study conducted by the University of Virginia showed that children who attend a school with a severe climate of bullying often have lower scores on the standardised tests. Children scored lower on similar tests than schools with effective anti-bullying programmes. How do you deal with bullying? One of the things that can be done is to engage parents, school staff and other adults in the community to help children prevent bullying by talking about it, building a safe school environment, and creating a community-wide bullying prevention strategy. It may be very important for the school to have an anti-bullying policy that will guide operations. Schools and communities that respect diversity can also have protection against bullying behaviour. One other way of dealing with bullying is for the teacher to show particular interest in the welfare of each student in the school. The teacher should not just think about teaching the subjects, but also about the very living of the child by paying attention to emotional issues as well. I wish you all the best. Thank you. [MUSIC]
