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Manasseh Jones Megan Keaton ENG 111-06 1 July 2013 We Have Become Bullies For the last couple of years society has been more aware of bullying issues in school. Television networks for children have used actors from different shows they have on their channel to speak on the topic of bullying in schools. Bullying is known for many things such as being violent, discriminative, insensitive, and rude to other people. People who display these traits try to bully people who they feel is beneath them. One question I wanted to know is why teenagers and children develop these characteristics? These causes will be addressed in this essay. In todays America, incivility is on prominent displaying schools, where bullying is pervasivesays Pier M. Forni(Diversity Inc). Adults and even our political leaders display different acts of bullying in society which makes it hard to enforce the idea that bullying is wrong into children and teenagers which is stated by experts in civility (Diversity Inc). This shows that not only is the lack of civility influencing bullying in schools, but also the behaviors adult role models display in everyday life. Forni also states that bullying and incivility are factors that lead to physical violence (Diversity Inc). The [Josephson Inastitute Center for Youth Ethics] study also found that one-third (33 percent) of all high school students say that violence is a big problem at their school, and one in four (24 percent) say they do not feel very safe at school. More than half (52 percent) admit that within the past year they hit a person because they were angry. Ten

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percent of students say they took a weapon to school at least once in the past twelve months, and sixteen percent admit that they have been intoxicated at school. (Moore) These schools have shown they have not taken enough initiative to prevent these issues from happening with these students. In a recent survey of over 124,000 students across the county, the average grade given to the school on handling bullying was a C (Moore). There is an extensive amount of research that has shown that interventions for bullying created by institutions do not assist and even hinders anti-bullying even with the consistently growing number of anti-bullying laws and increasing the pressure on schools to have these policies (Moore). Bullying has gone beyond the limit of school children and is now considered to be act within the nation which is noted by a progressive writer named Karen Harper (Diversity Inc). The public view this unorthodox treatment of people in the government as well as society. During the 2008 presidential campaign, crowds attending Sarah Palin rallies shouted, kill him over and over again referring to President Obama (Diversity Inc). Obama has called for greater awareness of the problem, saying the nation must dispel the myth that bullying is just a normal rite of passage or an inevitable part of growing up (Diversity Inc). One in four teachers see nothing wrong with bullying and will only intervene four percent of the time (Moore). In America, forty-nine states have introduced anti-bullying legislation but the toughest measures are in New Jersey (Payne and Keenan). Anyone working in a state school is considered to be a support staff and not just teachers which include bus drivers and secretaries; hence the law requires them to make reports of any form of bullying, harassment, or intimidation (Payne and Keenan). America is able to create legislations such as this, yet, each day, more than 160, U.S. students stay home from school to avoid being bullied (Moore). Like many schoolboys, 11-year-old Jonathan Seltzer was excited about making new

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[friends] on his first day of school (Payne and Keenan). By the second day the name-calling had begun and from then on he was regularly picked on by some of his classmates (Payne and Keenan). Scouring data from more than 50,000 teens across the country, researchers with DoSomething.org, a social action organization for young people, found that more than eighty percent of American high school students see bullying every week (Moore). Professor Dan Olweus, a Swedish bullying expert, states that bullies are typically rulebreaking students who often commit vandalism, have early sex, and drink alcohol. By the time they are twenty-four, sixty percent will have committed a crime. He found that bullying victims are prone to depression, while every bully and victim can cost society up to one million dollars in extra health, justice, and social care costs. (Payne and Keenan) Over half of all American students have been the victim of bullying in American schools (Moore). Furthermore, one out of ten students will drop out this year because they have been harassed (Moore). These facts that I have found in my research seem to be a bit exaggerated, but I believe there is a lot of truth in what I have studied. I do believe the social slanders in politics and between adults can influence the nature of children and teenagers and also in the effects of the lack of civility. Also based off of my perspective when I was in middle school and high school, teachers were not really involved much as far as bullying. Bullying is also starting to be considered as more of a common act or in other words something that is supposed to happen because of these things. I believe these causes are factors in the influence of bullying in schools and it is time for a change.

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Work Cited Page Moore, Jim. Sources for School Bullying Statistics. Examiner.com. N.p. 4 Jan. 2013. Web. 24 Jun. 2013. Payne, Sara, Shy Keenan. I Beat the BulliesBecause I Live in America. Newspaper Source Plus. Web. 24 Jun. 2013. The Culture of Bullying: Loss of Civility at School, Work, Politics. Diversityinc.com. N.p. n.d. Web. 24 Jun. 2013.