The phenomenon of Bullying in Schools

The school inspection committee submitted its report on the topic of ‘bullying in schools’ in December 2006. The committee had consulted 209 books, 728 peer reviewed articles and 94 dissertations on the subject prior to submitting the article to the government authorities. Surprisingly, Bullying was a phenomenon that was occurring in most schools in India but the phenomenon seemed to have crossed all geographic, socio-economic and ethnic boundaries. Books categorized it into two different types: direct or indirect and also in as physical, verbal and gestural. There is a growing concern among children is cyber bullying, especially among older children. In the schools in India, the culture is such that the boys are bullied physically more often than the girls. But the girls indulge in a different form of bullying spreading rumors and emotionally threatening of those they do not like. These are all considered indirect forms of aggression. There are different forms of these aggressive acts that according to a child psychologist have negative effects on the physical and psychological well-being of those children who are frequently and severely targeted. The forms of bullying are as follows:

• Verbally Insulting language
• Provoking another by language or behavior
• Name calling
• Spreading malicious rumors
• Offensive anonymous phone calls
• Teasing
• Rude SMS and e-mails
• Slapping
• Spitting at someone
• Throwing objects
• Threatening body language
• To show that someone is someone unwelcome
• Racial bullying – when the bullying is directed at someone because of their racial identity
• Gender based bullying

Cyber bullying is one of the most advanced forms of modern day abusive behavior observed among school children. Cyber bullying often takes place between children who attend the same school. Such children when repeatedly targeted with offensive and threatening messages can make them depressed. In such cases bullying takes a criminal turn and children can become obsessed and possessed with the act of bullying when they see their victims suffer. It is widely reported that as the bullying reduces children grow older. Most psychologists say that children with a tendency to bully other children are brought up in difficult homes where abusive language, threats and physically bullying behaviors become the role model. Some children have never been punished for doing wrong in their homes or have been neglected so much emotionally that they have grown up to become spoilt brats. As a result, the child develops a relationship between their parents which is stressful, poor and abusive. Child psychologists have identified two main types of bullies: The malicious ones who have been born with psychopathic or sociopathic tendencies. This has been observed in children with who take a pleasure in hurting animals and those who are basically non-malicious but use bullying as a defense mechanism.

"Every pupil has the right to a safe school and the responsibility to stop bullying” remarked the principal of a popular middle school in Dhanbad recently in the spotlight for its new anti-bullying team which was making waves amongst the student community.