By Kaitlyn Argue
EMS Press
Traverse City East MS
1st Place
Division MS, News Writing
Bylined Opinion Article
Olweus is our school’s attempt to fix something they cannot control. Bullying starts with the students and can only be ended with the students. You have to defeat the problem at its source.
I personally believe our school administration is attempting to fix the stereotypical type of bullying. The kind you see in movies where someone knocks a student’s books out of his arms on purpose or trips him in the hall. They seem to think that’s what’s happening here. But to be honest, I don’t think that kind of bullying happens here at East. The only kind of bullying I see is cyber or maybe just a few words thrown back and forth.
The Olweus anti-bullying program re-quires that we spend part or all of every Monday resource talking about how to stop bullying. Some teachers don’t follow up on on this responsibility so even if Olweus did make a difference, there are students who don’t get the opportunity to utilize it.
Ironically, instead of students being upset about this missed opportunity, most are grateful to spend their resource in another way.
The Olweus program seems to only ad-dress situations that don’t happen here. Lessons consist of inspirational videos, discussion questions, slideshow presentations, and situation play-outs.
If any of those activities could have an effect on a student’s mindset to hurt another student, then it would be a miracle.
I’m not minimizing the effects of bullying on young people. I know — partly from all those inspirational videos — that it can cause lifetime emotional damage. But I don’t think the Olweus program can stop it.
If someone is mean, he or she is mean. I don’t know if there’s a way to change them from the outside. But bullying doesn’t have to lead to all bad.
Someone who is bullied might become a stronger person. Learning to rise above adversity is part of life. You need to learn to stick up for yourself. If you’re getting bullied, stand up and refuse to take it. You’ll be better in the end.
Victims of bullying also learn how important words are and how much impact they have. Again, that’s a life lesson that will only benefit you.
Back in the day, people had to deal with things on their own. Today, we baby each other too much. We don’t expect anything out of ourselves. We can’t tolerate any pain or discomfort. That kind of approach to life will not serve us well.
A better approach to bullying would be to teach kids to deal with it. Instead of going after the bullies, teach the victims the skills they will need to overcome bullying. Seeing videos of bullying over and over doesn’t inspire us. It might even make us immune to the inspiration that we’re supposed to feel.
Don’t worry about the bully. Worry about yourself. Get over it. And if you can’t get over it, get help to do that. You may be a victim but using that as an excuse can affect you more than the bullying itself. I don’t think you can learn how to do that in a video.