p******i
发帖数: 1322 | 1 http://blogs.greatschools.org/greatschoolsblog/2010/10/bullying-that-ends-in-suicide.html
October 14, 2010
Jon Carmichael, age 13
Hope Witsell, age 13
Justin Aaberg, age 15
Asher Brown, age 13
Seth Walsh, age 13
Phoebe Prince, age 15
Billy Lucas, age 15
All of these children — from places like Houston; Tehachapi, Calif.; and
Rushkin, Fla. — killed themselves this year. Each was a victim of bullying,
or what is now called “bullicide.” Many of these teens were also victims
of anti-gay hate crimes.
Here we are in October — National Bullying Prevention Month — and rarely
have we seen, directly as a result of bullying, such a high toll of teenage
suicides in less than a year. What’s so confounding is that now, more than
ever, there’s ramped-up awareness about bullying, more anti-bullying
programs in schools across the country, and more anti-bullying legislation
passed in 45 states.
Who do we blame now that so many bullied kids are taking their lives? The
bullies who continue their abuse unchecked? Negligent school administrators?
Lax state and federal laws? Adults who aren’t taking kids’ and parents’
complaints seriously enough?
Read news reports following most any of these kids’ suicides. The victims’
parents often echo one another, saying that their school’s administration
didn’t take strong action following repeated complaints. This is the case
with 13-year-old Asher Brown, whose parents said he was “'bullied to death
’ — picked on for his small size, his religion and because he did not wear
designer clothes and shoes. Kids also accused him of being gay, some of
them performing mock gay acts on him in his physical education class… The
13-year-old's parents said they had complained about the bullying to
Hamilton Middle School officials during the past 18 months, but claimed
their concerns fell on deaf ears.”
Or, despite undergoing anti-bullying training at Jacobsen Middle School in
Tehachapi, administrators still didn’t put an end to the bullying of 13-
year-old Seth Walsh.
(Imagine going to work and, day after day, having office mates send out
humiliating and threatening emails to the entire staff and tripping and
punching you as you walk by their cubicles. And continuing to have to show
up, without anyone putting an end to your physical and emotional abuse.)
How can we save bullied kids’ lives? Columnist Dan Savage has done his part
for GLBT (gay, lesbian, bixexual, and transgender) kids by launching the It
Gets Better Project, with grown-ups giving testimonies that, once they left
school, life got better for them. (There are compelling reasons to directly
reach out to GLBT kids: Nine out of 10 GLBT students have experienced
harassment at school and are bullied two to three times as much as straight
teens. More than one-third of GLBT kids have attempted to commit suicide and
are four times as likely to attempt suicide then their straight peers.)
There’s hope that with a strong enough no-tolerance campaign for bullying,
such abuse will virtually end. A friend who is familiar with the schools in
Norway has told me that’s what happened in that country. Home of the
original anti-bullying program, Olweus, which is being implemented in many U
.S. schools, bullying there is far less common, just through the sheer force
of creating a zero-tolerance anti-bullying culture. |
|
