Ryan Zhu, 9, eats his lunch in the cafeteria of his predominantly white elementary school in Seattle. He is aware that his peers look at him differently. However, being naturally introverted, he doesn’t stand up for himself.
“Are you eating poison?” teased one of the older kids. The children connect whatever is reported in the media about China, such as poisonous food imports and contaminating diseases, to Ryan.
Several of Ryan’s classmates are neither bullies or bullied, but they too are affected by it.
“Recent research confirms that bullying affects all students whether in high school or elementary school—even those who only witness it,” said Arne Duncan, secretary of education.
According to the National Center for Education Statistics, over 70 percent of students play some kind of role in bullying, including witnesses.
“Bullying can negatively affect children who observe bullying going on around them—even if they aren’t targeted themselves,” posted a government anti-bullying website.
According to the Office for Civil Rights (OCR), bullying will truncate students from reaching their fullest potential. It creates a fearful, disrespectful, and negative environment for learning.
A stop and prevent bullying movement has been sweeping across the United States, with new cyberbullying laws, and annual anti-bullying weeks. President Obama personally hosted an anti-bullying summit this past March, as he himself was picked on as a child for having “big ears.”
“We must dispel the myth that bullying is just a harmless rite of passage,” Obama said.
According to a government anti-bullying website (stopbullying.gov), if a child is being bullied for his or her race or disability, the parent should seek help from the U.S. Department of Education on Civil Rights.
But will that really solve the problem?
“I don’t think bullying can ever be fully stopped. Parents and teachers can talk to their kids about it, and it will definitely mitigate the situation. But there are very few children that will obey their parents 100 percent [of the time],” said Ziwei Zhu, Ryan’s older sister.
The second annual Bullying Prevention Summit was held Sept. 21; a two-day event conducted by the Department of Education.
National organizations, teachers, students, and parents whose children have committed suicide as a result of bullying, gathered to share their experiences, and progress on anti-bullying efforts throughout the country.
Suicide Prevention
One of the attendees, Eileen Moore, had a niece who was extensively bullied—and eventually committed suicide—after emigrating from Ireland to the United States. Moore published a guidebook called “You Are Not Alone.” It is a suicide prevention book for dealing with bullying and its victims, as well as raising awareness of the seriousness of bullying in the United States.
“We try, the school tries, but these children do not seem to understand. …I fear for my daughter, mostly I fear for her from herself,” said a troubled mother from Pennsylvania, in a letter sent to Education Secretary Duncan.
The Office for Civil Rights has “greatly stepped up enforcement of civil rights laws,” Duncan said in a statement.
According to Duncan, to tackle bullying on a mass scale requires a “systematic paradigm shift,” and lines of communication must be opened to change the “cultures in our schools.”
Duncan also mentioned that MTV has worked with MIT Media Lab in producing Over the Line? a Web and iPhone app where young people rate and share personal stories of how technology has actually made social interactions more complicated.
Over 9,000 young people have submitted stories about bullying, with 3,000 respondents. The research community will use this information to comprehensively understand what “crosses the line from innocent to inappropriate.”
“We are hopeful this will fuel innovation in the realm of cyberbullying prevention,” Duncan said.
A new law in Texas will widen the definition of bullying to include cyberbullying. Hawaii also has a recent law, which requires the state to monitor schools’ compliance with anti-bullying policies.
