Many programs are available, but something needs to be done. Teachers, administrators must step up.
Lately, in the Ottawa area, hazing has gotten out of control. Hazing used to be limited to friendly fun in Universities, it has now been introduced into high schools. Much discussion has ensued. Yet, the bottom line is that those picked on in elementary school, are easy targets during this hazing.
Silence is not golden on school hazing
September 16, 2011.
When I worked with students, it was my goal to convince the bystander not to participate and to speak truth to power. Victims must be taught not to remain so, but it is a difficult issue. I did much role play, improv activities, with victims and bullies acting out the opposite role.In Ontario’s initial anti-bullying legislation, the Safe Schools Act, vice-principals and principals were required to conduct formal investigations of bullying complaints and penalize offenders according to a gradated system. It’s also known as the “zero tolerance” act.
But suspensions do not solve the problem. And principals did not want suspensions to go on their school's records. It doesn't reflect well on their school performance scale.
THis is a problem old as dirt. It does not build character, and school bullies become workplace bullies. I have written about it.
Teasing, Bullying and Harassment
Bullying in the workplace
Bullying - something has to be done
Bullying victims are taking schools to court
Fed up with ineffective policies, parents are suing for millions
From Macleans.ca
In 2009, Daniela Cervini, a Toronto-based lawyer, was approached by a group of parents whose children were bullied at an elementary school in Owen Sound, Ont. For years, the parents claim they had been trying the prescribed channels -- meetings with vice-principals, principals, police, board superintendents -- with what they perceived as no results. They turned to litigation.
This year, four claims were filed in Ontario Superior Court against the Bluewater District School Board involving three schools, five teachers, three principals and one vice-principal. All are for gross negligence -- the failure to protect students from bullies. Each lawsuit is for $8.5 million, well above the $1-million standard in personal injury claims. Together, at $34 million, the Bluewater suits are the biggest of their kind in Canada.There are solutions, such as Norway's Olweus Bullying Prevention Program. In the past 30 years, Norway has reduced bullying in its primary, elementary and secondary schools by 40 per cent.
Spurred by teen suicides in 1983, after bullying incidents, the Norwegian government commissioned Dan Olweus, a psychology professor at the University of Bergen, to develop a prevention program. Instituted nationwide in 2001, his program is preventative rather than punitive.
In Canada, Dawn-Marie Wesley, 14, from Mission, B.C., who in November 2000 left a suicide note after being bullied by three girls at school that read, “If I ratted they would get suspended and there would be no stopping them.” There have been other court cases, North Vancouver vs. Jubran (2005), where the B.C. Court of Appeal and Supreme Court of Canada ruled the school board was liable because it had not done enough to stop the harassment of a student, Azmi Jubran.
No mother should have to face this: walking in to find their child dead by their own hand.
The stories are endless
1 comments:
I have developed a bully prevention show for elementary schools. You can see highlights of it here...
http://youtu.be/2qAvD01RD9E
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