SHORT COMMUNICATION 315
Bullying’s New Dimension
By
Roger Behra
Bullying among elementary and high school boys has been normal behavior since the classroom situation came into existence. It has always been part of the philosophy in America´s schools that “boys will be boys”. Bullying, however, has become quite widespread during the past decade and recently has taken a new twist: boys are now bullying girls and girls are now bullying girls. And these new types of bullying mean business.
Among the boys bullying girls it has gotten quite vicious. Some of the bullying between them takes place on the school grounds, but that leads to trouble for the bullies. That has forced the boy bullying the girl to take place mostly off the school grounds where anything goes. In early February, 2012 some boys began bullying a small group of girls. One boy forced a girl up against the side of a car. He pinned her there, unzipped her jeans so the jeans would fall to the ground, which to everyone. The girl screamed very loudly and kept it up until a car stopped and collared the boy bully until he was arrested. Boy bullying girl can became very serious at any time.
Also in February of 2012 an after school bully session away from the school area took a very tragic turn. Two young girls got into a bully fight over a boy. It was not a ferocious battle, but one girl was slapped hard to the side of her head, and later the same night she developed a very bad headache, got very sick, and died. That led to a very serious investigation.
Parents are also victims of bullying. Their son or daughter can be doing the bullying. Their son opr daughter can be bullied anywhere at anytime. Or day can take matters into their own hands like one father did. He went to the house of the boy who was bulling his son. That led to a physical altercation between father and bully, the arrest of the father, and legal action in the father´s future.
Parents are very worried now that their children are not safe away from home on school days. It is a genuine and justified worry every school day. Since bullying starts with the bullies it can only end when they stop it. But that does not seem very likely. It is too much a part of America´s school day culture among the teenage group in the schools. It is extremely sad any kind of bullying goes on. It is emotionally destructive. It is physically harmful. It´s a great worry for the school officials and parents. And in the long run it is just another huge cultural black eye that American´s have to face every school year.
R. B.
5-26-12