Bullying: A Growing Epidemic.

Essay by tdesando86College, Undergraduate September 2005

download word file, 7 pages 2.5

Downloaded 145 times

"A nation without a conscience is a nation without a soul. A nation without a soul is a nation that cannot live."

-Winston Churchill.

You're fat! You're ugly! Your skinny! You stink! You're Hopeless! How many times have you heard this said to someone you know or even to yourself? Maybe it's just been to tease and not really meant to hurt. You know - "just kidding" this type of behavior may have been tolerated in the past, but no longer. Due to increased violence in High School, schoolyard bullies will no longer be tolerated. Bullying has a serious epidemic among schools.

"A new study in the Journal of the American Medical Association says bullying is a serious, widespread problem. Of more than 15,000 U.S. students in grades 6 through 10, almost 30 percent said they were occasionally or frequently involved in bullying. Over 13 percent of these kids were involved as the bully.

Another 11 percent of these kids were the target of bullying. Lastly, only 6 percent of these kids were involved as both a bully and a target." (NY-WABC) "Being bullied is not just an unpleasant rite of passage through childhood," said Duane Alexander, M.D., director of the NICHD. "It's a public health problem that merits attention. People who were bullied as children are more likely to suffer from depression and low self esteem, well into adulthood, and the bullies themselves are more likely to engage in criminal behavior later in life." (National Institutes of Health)

Many people can look at a situation, but not actually know if bullying is taking place or not. Bullying is any "abusive behavior by one or more students against a victim or victims. It can be a direct attack -- teasing, taunting, threatening, stalking, name-calling, hitting, making threats, coercion, and stealing."...