For the past five decades, the issue of bullying in schools has charged significantly.

During the 1960s and below, the behaviour of bullying was praised and expected from the
children because it was regard as school experience and part of the character building. They
believed that bullying was not harmful and part of growing up (Gregory, 2016). However, the
issue becomes serious and was taken more seriously in the coming years. Waters and
Mashburn (2017) choose the definition of bully from Olweus (1993), who was a pioneer in the
research related to bullying which defines the bully as an imbalances of strength, an act to
show the strength which must be a repeated action and occur repeatedly through time.
Imbalance of strength emphasize on the one or more students have the advantages of size,
physically or emotionally and very different on fighting or arguing (Waters & Mashburn, 2017).
The act of bullying is treating other people usually who was seen as a weak or isolated, roughly
with the intention of showing one’s strength. The victims will feels powerless and fear the
bullies. Bullying is an aggressive behaviour, which can be performed physically or
psychologically repeatedly with the victim and intent to make them feel insecure,
uncomfortable and isolated from other people (Salleh & Zainal, 2014). Thus, the issue of
eliminating in bullying schools is indeed very difficult to achieve and I agree with the statement
that bullying is an issue that is difficult to be eliminated in schools

In order to eliminate the bullying issue in schools, the root cause must be identified and
removed completely. There are many reasons why a child becomes a bully. If we can identify
and eliminate all the reasons for a bully to do the act of bullying, only then we can successfully
eliminating the issue of bullying ion schools. One of the most obvious reasons for bullying is
the culture of bullying itself. According to the Olweus and Breivik (2014), the repeated bullying
from senior to junior has repeatedly occurs throughout the schools duration every year. As a
newcomer in schools, they either witnessed other senior student bullying other students or
become the victims themselves resulting anger and dissatisfaction that bottled up over the
years. When they have grown up, they seek kind of revenge by bullying other junior students
in order to satisfy themselves. They also do the act because they thought it was perfectly
normal for older students to be respected by the other students. This scenario happened a lot
in the boarding school in Malaysia. It has become a tradition and be passed down to younger
students every year.

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 Moreover, the culture of bullying did not start in the schools only. The other starting
point of this violence can be from home or the family itself. As a child, witnessing his father
asserting the control and physically abuse the family can leave a scar in his life. There are
many possible ways to cope with the violence inflicted in his family every day. One way of
coping is to accept that violence is normal for those who are strong. His father beating his
mother is okay because his father is strong and his mother is weak. So, in order to be
respected in the world, he also must be strong and assert the power by bullying other people.
The other theory is because he does not want to be beaten by others. Hence, he hurts other
people instead to be the one who got beaten. This also has become one of the most common
causes for the students to bully other students in schools. The broken family and dysfunctional
family are common in Malaysia and the child are always to be the victim. They will grow up
thinking domestic violence and hurting other people are natural part of life and will continue to
believe until they become an adult.

Furthermore, the other root cause of bullying is the influence of movies and media in
the internet. Nowadays, children are bombarded with gadgets and technology from a very
young age. With so many accesses to the data throughout the world, they tend to find or look
to the data which are inappropriate for them. As the children’s minds begin to develop, they
receive and interpret data from what they learned and watched. From there, it will continue to
develop their personality and shape them into what kind of person they will be in the adulthood.
Some movies like KL Drift and KL Gangster are packed with comedy and entertainment for
adults. But for children, they interpret the movies as experience in life. Apart from the action,
these movies also exhibit bad behaviour, unhealthy habits, cruelty, violence and inappropriate
words which may not do any good to children. Action heroes and villains are very often shown
drinking, smoking and taking drugs. Children are known to imitate the style and behaviour
pattern of their favourite hero. Besides, children of young age group easily pick up the punch
lines or dialogues of their favourite hero and speak confidently in front of others. Parents find
it a very proud moment when their children narrate such dialogue in front of others, but if such
thing is limited up to just saying in front of others than it is okay. What if the children start to
do more than that? With violent movies children are exposed to some unwelcoming ideas that
including murders, abuse, suicides, arrogance, rudeness, and stealing, cruelty and doing
mean things for accomplishing goals in life. Research has shown a sudden rise in the killings,
abuse and arrogance from kids in school and college campuses and the research and
relatively connected the medium of movies as the prime source.

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 Throughout the year, there are many anti-bullying programs that have been launched
in the schools. Although the programs have had reduced the bullying in schools, the overall
methods of the programs themselves are reactive strategies (Gregory, 2016). While the
programs focusing on to improve school climate, they also implements the practices like
punishing bullying behaviour and reporting bullying. Even though reporting bullying, reacting
and responding to bullying are critical aspects in handling the bullies, these do not prevent
bullying from happen in the schools. Thus, the anti-bullying programs itself are not as effective
in eliminating the bully issue in schools.

In conclusion, if there are strong indications that have resulted from experiences,
especially if it is more persistent and systematic, it is very likely to continue the issue of bullying
in schools (Olweus & Breivik, 2014). Eliminating bullying is like preventing water from leaking
out in the damn. There are so many holes and once it covered, a new hole pops up in the
hidden area escaping the scan. Thus, this proved that the issue of bully is very difficult to
eliminate in the schools environment. This problem must be handled delicately by all the
teachers and parents all the time. It will take lifelong in order to contain the bullies in the
schools and from spreading to the younger generations.

(1176 words)

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