McGuire 1

Kelsey McGuire

English 1201

Profesor Trotter

7 April 2019

Reflecting Bullying and Stress

Bullying has been proven to occur most commonly amongst students in junior

high school. According to an article titled “Stop Bullying”, research has shown that

between one and four and between one and three students in the United States

mention bullying occurring at their school, either during school hours or on school

property during sporting events or other after school activities (stopbullying.org). There

are many types of bullying that occur in junior high schools. There are many different

types of bullying all which can affect the self esteem of the person being bullied. Kids

who bully and kids that are bullied are at high risk for mental and academic problems in

the future. Studies have shown adults and parents can help with bullying

(stopbullying.org). Parents can help by communicating with their kids and making it

easy for them to come and be open with them. The Tahoma High school was

interviewed, and they mentioned that their school does assemblies to reflect bullying

(Joshua Hunter). As the school has these assemblies they hope to prevent or lower the

bullying rates in their community. Other schools have tried participating in stimulations,

minimize circles, using arts to create context, and teaching kids early on about being

kind. Although schools have been trying different methods 70.6% of young people have

witnessed bullying in their school (stopbullying.org).

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As bullying is a huge issue, stress levels develop at higher rates from kids being

bullied. Prolonged stress can be detrimental to a person’s overall health and especially

in school setting, affect their academic performance. When kids are bullied they feel

lonely and can be depressed, making it difficult for them to focus on school and other

outside school activities they were interested in before they started being bullied.

Sometimes when kids know they do not have anybody to talk to it causes them to feel

even more stressed out because they do not have an outlet for their frustrations. Kids

often keep it bottled up inside for many weeks, maybe even longer. If bullying could be

stopped and even prevented, stress in young teenagers could be reduced. The Ohio

State Board of Education should consider implementing having a class for junior high

kids every day for one class period about bullying.

There are three main types of bullying that can occur in junior high schools.

There is physical bullying, verbal, and social bullying. Some types of bullying are easy

to recognize than others, such as physical bullying. This type of bullying involves some

kind of physical altercation like hitting, shoving, or damaging of another student’s

property. Verbal bullying involves name calling, insults, intimidation, or remarks insulting

a person’s sexual orientation or beliefs. Social on the other hand can ruin a person’s

reputation or involve social isolation, making another student feel singled out and alone.

All these types of bullying can harm the person being affected mentally and emotionally.

It can lead to stress, depression, and in rare cases even suicide. Many individuals

affected do not feel they can let adults know, especially in school settings out of fear of

being further harassed for “telling” on the bully.

The first reason behind why schools should implement an anti bullying class is
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because of the stress students face when they have to go to school. It can create

anxiety knowing they have to go feeling hurt, angry, and depressed throughout the

majority of their day with no escape. This class can bring attention to the issue, while

also creating a safe space for the students being bullied in school. It could make them

feel more comfortable speaking up on their experiences with a teacher or another adult,

giving them an outlet for their frustration and anxiety. It could also help them understand

why people bully others, and while there is no excuse for bullying, it may help them

realize there is nothing wrong with them, but the issue lies with in the actual bully and

just taken out on them. It could also help students who are not bullied be able to

recognize the signs of bullying. A lot of children do not even know exactly what bullying

is and if this class could show them how bullying happens and signs of bullying, they

may be able to intervene or help a person experiencing bullying through it by being

someone they can talk to. This class could potentially help a kid learn exactly what

bullying is and how it affects their peers.

Although having an anti-bullying class can be beneficial, the Board of Education

may argue that it is the parent’s responsibility to teach their kids right from wrong.

Parents should be setting the example for their kids and it is their choice what they

decide to show or teach to their own children. Regardless, bullying is often a behavior

taught or learned at home inside the house. Bullying can be picked up from television

shows, video games, or from being watched from siblings or even parents themselves.

When kids and teens become more open to video games they might become more

aggressive, and their behavior could change as a result of these experiences. Also,

parents may not even be around when bullying is happening. It is common for both
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parents to be working or for the child to only being living with one parent at a time. It is

impossible for parents to be present all the time and know exactly what their children

are doing at all times of the day. Parents can only correct what they see and know

about. Parents can educate their children on how to deal with bullying with a positive

attitude. Sometimes children let go of their stress by bullying others. People argue that

bullying usually starts in their household and if the parents would help with that, then

there wouldn’t be as much stress.

A huge benefit of this class could help to prevent kids from taking their own lives.

Constantly going to school and getting bullied can drive people into depression and into

believing there is not way out besides to commit suicide. Suicide is one of the largest

leading causes of death in the United States. Research done at Yale University, has

proven that victims of bullying are two to nine times more likely to consider suicide and

almost seven percent have actually gone through with the act. On ABC news it was

reported that almost thirty percent of students are either bullies or victims and 160,000

kids stay home from school due bullying (ABC news). Suicide is a permanent decision

that is being chosen by young people because of bullying that can be prevented. It

impacts their families, teachers, and friends who are sometimes even shocked to find

out their child was bullied because they keep it bottled up inside of them making them

more and more isolated. If this class was to be put into place, suicides could potentially

be lowered, taking the pain away from unsuspecting families and friends of the victim

and also taking the incident off of the school board’s hands. Ceremonies at school to

honor the life of a child who was bullied to the point of ending their lives would no longer

be necessary. Grief counselors would not need to be brought into families or schools to
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help the people that the victim left being, through their absence.

The school board could potentially reject this opportunity because they would

not have the staff to attend these classes. They may not want to bring on another faculty

member that they would need to compensate for their time. Some may even argue no

one would take the position because of the attention drawn to how low the incomes of a

teachers. Research shows that high school teachers make $55,000 in a year (Top

education degrees). While this income may seem like more than enough, it does not

include the time spent after school hours grading papers and all of the supplies that

teachers buy out of their own pocket. After all of these expenses and hours spent

throughout the week, their income is actual very low with the consideration of the

amount of education they receive. If the class were offered to a current staff member of

teacher, it could be argued that most of the staff would not want to have to teach an

extra class because it is more work for them, when they are getting paid the same exact

money. Also this would require teachers to research a lot and might even cause them to

go back to college. Many people would not want to go back to college for one class.

College requires lots of money, and some people do not have the time or the money for

something that they could argue may potentially not work. Lastly teachers already have

to go home and do work outside of their normal day and they would not have enough

time to do another thing on top of that.

This anti bullying class could offer kids anxiety to go down tremendously. Anxiety

plays a huge role in bullying and stress. Anxiety is defined as a normal and healthy

emotion, but it can become a medical disorder. Anxiety can lead to fear, nervousness,

apprehension, and for us to constantly worry. Anxiety is a disorder that affects many
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people. The intensity anxiety or worrying can impact future events. It may lead them to

miss out on opportunities and even isolate themselves, making them lose their friends.

Losing friends can even make the situation worse because they would be losing their

support system. One symptom of anxiety is losing sleep. When kids go to school tired it

stresses them out because they cannot pay attention and can’t get all the information

they need in their school day. Some physical symptoms of anxiety include heart rate

going up, sweating, shortness of breath, etc. During the school day some kids with

anxiety could be very self conscious about their sweating. Sweating so much can lead

to pit stains and other kids may notice that and make in front of them. Stress and

anxiety have a lot of similarities and with this class it can cause both of these levels to

go down. When kids know there all taking the same class, it helps them realize they all

need to know what is going on. Kids also do not have to worry about telling on other

kids. When someone tells on another person it can cause them to be bullied more

because they think they are not considered cool. Everybody likes to fit into the “cool”

kids because it makes them popular. People can benefit from this opportunity because

there will be no need to tell on their classmates because they will be learning about the

effects of their actions.

A downfall of this class would be the funding. Some schools already struggle with

funding inside their school district. At some schools the teachers have to buy their own

supplies because the school does not have the money to provide. Most schools have

funding that is either regressive or flat funding. Flat funding is recognized in higher

education schools. Regressive funding is taking a larger percentage of people with

lower incomes. Money matters for students to achieve things. Students may be against
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giving us something else to have funding for a class they do not want to take. This

problem causes schools to have choose wisely on how to spend their money

adequately. Having a class that could potentially be a fail, might not be their top priority

when it comes to their money situation.

Opportunities for kids to not have trauma from their school years could be an

upside of the class being offered. Being bullied can lead to traumatic stress and can

cause a mental disorder know as posttraumatic stress (National Child Traumatic Stress

Network). When kids experience trauma from bullying they can develop social

difficulties, which causes them to be a huge target for more people to bully them. The

best way to prevent this is to teach kids early on. Children when they are younger listen

more and do not talk back as much. This class could be the solution because bullying is

mostly seen at the junior high level. Bullying is seen at junior high level because that’s

when most kids hit puberty and they all of a sudden believe they are better.

The school may see this as a bad idea in their eyes because this could

sometimes make bullying increase as a study has shown. Some research had shown

when they tried an anti-bullying class at their school and it possibly increased bullying at

the school. According to this research these classes do not seem to work because it

helps bullies become better at what they do. This research shows that at least kids are

becoming more aware of bullying and is showing how harmful it is to bully, but it still

hasn't prevented bullying 100%. Another study shows that these classes have little/slow

progress (Lawernce). A study done in New Jersey says “investigations into harassment,

intimation or bullying happened in New Jersey schools in the year 2012-2013 school

year… that number decreases by nearly 5,000 from the prior year, a decrease of 19
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percent…” (Oglesby, paragraph 9). Even though the bullying went down some, there

wasn’t a huge difference. The difference does not match how much time and money

that was put into this class.

Kids could really benefit from this class because the students would learn how to

stand up for themselves. Sometimes in a situation where the children are getting bullied

or hurt from other kids, they usually do not know how to stand up to the bully. When kids

do not know how to react or what to do, they are the main target and it is an ongoing

process. These kids are so young and they are scared of what might happen if they say

the wrong thing. If a class was provided, students would learn how to stand up for

themselves and each other, causing bullying rates to go down.

Some schools would argue kids do not take the class seriously. A lot of kids do

not realize how big of an impact bullying can affect other classmates. Children do not

think about other people's feelings because it does not occur to them. Most kids bully

because they want to take their feelings out on someone else and they want that person

to feel how they feel. The problem is within the bully and they don’t like to admit that. It

takes a lot for someone to realize how they affect other people. Kids seek attention and

it causes them to be mean because they get reactions from other people. They wouldn’t

take it serious because they do not realize what they are doing wrong or they will not

see what they are doing as a problem.

A really big upside of this class would being able to communicate better. Kids can

learn in this class it is okay to talk to your parents about the situation and not to be

scared. Most people are scared because they do not believe anyone cares or maybe it

is not that big of a deal to other people. It could also help kids see their feelings are real.
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The feeling of keeping something inside for so long could possibly hurt the kid even

more. Teaching kids how to talk to their parents is one way that could make them feel

more safe about the situation they are dealing with. Most kids keep bullying to

themselves because they feel like they can not do anything to stop it. Lastly a fear

children have is telling on people because sometimes nothing is done and they get

made fun of for telling on them.

This class would not be beneficial because most schools believe people are

scared to tell counselors and their parents. Even though the class would teach how to, it

still might take lots and lots of time for them to feel comfortable. Even after the class

some kids would not want to be known as snitches. Kids are going to be mean no

matter what if they want to. The children feel like they might get bullied more because

they went and told.

Lastly a good thing about this class is it can help kids mental state. Bullying can

hurt a kids future and with this class educating them about it, it might help them

reconsider what they are doing. Bullies even suffer from bullying kids. It may make

them feel good at the time, but when they come to the realization of what they did it

could lead to them having depression. If we help the bullies, then it could even help their

mental state. Kids learning about something can open up their minds and they can

realize what they are doing is wrong. Bullies act out by drinking and doing bad things

because they are upset with themselves. If they drink to get rid of their problems it will

never go away. Drinking is a temporary fix to things and could lead to worse things in

the future. Many people do not know what to do to make things better and this class

could benefit them. It could potentially teach them other ways of getting out their anger
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or sadness.

In conclusion having a class for junior high kids to learn about bullying could

benefit in a huge way. There would be benefits to both the people being bullied and

even help the individuals doing the bullying stop. Even though other people might see

this as not being helpful at all, there is no harm in trying something. Bullying can cause

stress, anxiety, depression and many other side effects as well. Although schools may

have tried numerous things, they have not tried having a sit down class. If this was put

into place suicide rates could go down along with tensions inside of schools and at

home. All in all a junior high class about bullying could be effective and have a positive

impact on a kids future who is bullied and could possibly impact the world in many

ways.

This is a statistic of bullying because it shows six out of ten people don’t report it

because they may be scared.

This picture represents bullying because it shows what bullies are capable of saying.
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Works Cited

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information-stress/. Accessed 24 March 2019

“Bullying and Suicide.” Bullying Statistics, 7 July 2015,

www.bullyingstatistics.org/content/bullying-and-suicide.html. Accessed 24 March

2019

Katz, Brigit, and Tina Brown Media. “My Child Is a Bully | Signs of Bullying | What

Makes a Bully.” Child Mind Institute, childmind.org/article/what-to-do-if-your-child-

is-bullying/.

Accessed 24 March 2019

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Peterson, Sarah. “Effects.” The National Child Traumatic Stress Network, 10 Oct. 2018,

www.nctsn.org/what-is-child-trauma/trauma-types/bullying/effects. Accessed 24

March 2019

Strauss, Valerie. “America's School Funding Problems, State by State.” The

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2019

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Accessed 24 March 2019

“Teen Health and Wellness.” Teen Health & Wellness,

teenhealthandwellness.com/static/hotlines. Accessed 14 April 2019

“Understanding and Dealing With Stress.” What Is Stress?, mtstcil.org/skills/stress-

definition-1.html. Accessed 24 March 2019

“The Effects Of Bullying.” STOMP Out Bullying, www.stompoutbullying.org/get-

help/about-bullying-and-cyberbullying/effects-bullying.

Accessed 24 March 2019

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“Visual Analysis.” IT STOPS NOW, stopbullying8.weebly.com/visual-analysis.html.

Accessed 1 April 2019