Bullying

Bullying can be found in every school in the country. It is all too often part of the way young people interact in our society. Every school must recognize its extent and impact and take steps to stop it happening. When bullying is ignored or downplayed, pupils will suffer ongoing torment and harassment. Most children who are bullied always commit suicide. Bullying can cause lifelong damage to victims. (A school's failure to deal with bullying endangers the safety of all its pupils by allowing a hostile environment to interfere with learning. There is clear, unambiguous evidence that school action can dramatically reduce the incidence of bullying. Schools not only have a moral obligation to reduce bullying, their charter agreement between the school's trustees and the Minister of Education specifically directs the school to "provide a safe physical and emotional environment (Holmquuist).

School is the center of adolescent life. The adolescent learns more than reading, writing, and arithmetic in the school environment. He or she also learns socialization skills that shape their view of themselves as well as relationships with others. Teen's face problems in school today that previous generations had not been forced to deal with one such problem is school violence. In the educational system today it is necessary, if not vital, to understand the pervasiveness of bullying. In the article by Laura M Crothers and Edward M Levinson entitled, "Assessment of bullying”, a review of methods and instruments, the authors discuss the issue of bullying as well as means and methods to assess bullying (Cabral). Bullying can range from subtle behaviors such as social isolation of an individual, manipulation of friends or emotional pain, on up to the more overt behaviors such as name-calling, verbal assault and physical assault. Basically, bullying is described by the authors of the article as "the process of establishing and maintaining social dominance through overt aggression