Vanessa Topete: Bullying in the District of Inglewood

Bullying in the District of Inglewood

By: Vanessa Topete

Research:

What is bullying? Bully can be anything as for unwanted, aggressive behavior within all ages of kids in school. Bully is a behavior that is repeated, and those who bully others may have a serious lasting problem as they continue to bully.

Did you know there are different types of bullying? According to Stopbullying.gov there is three kinds of bullying actions. There’s verbal bullying, were its saying or writing mean things. For example teasing, and name calling. There’s also social bullying, were it involves hurting someone’s reputation. For example, embarrassing someone in public. Then there’s physical bullying, which involves hurting someone physically. For example, hitting, kicking, and punching.

Bully has been around for many years. Bully can be compared to racism. For example, there may never be an end to racism, but we can try to stop it or change people's minds about it. Same goes with bullying, there can never be an end to it, but we can help reduce bullying and change people's minds about it. Therefore, based on American SPCC, “About 28 percent of students ages 12–18 reported being bullied at school during the school year, according to the Indicators of School Crime and Safety: 2013”. Based on this information, shows how much bullying still takes place in the school. According to Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance 2013, "reported that in 39 states about 7.2% of the students admit the reason of them not going to school due to personal safety concerns. Many students fear the physical and verbal aggression by their peers". Not only that but 70.6% of young people admit that they have witness bullying in their schools.  Bullying can cause students to not go to school, but also have headaches, stomach pain, reduced appetite, shame, anxiety, depression, and many more. In addition, there are no single factor that may put a child in risk of being bullied. Bullying tends to happen anywhere, such as cities, suburbs, or rural towns. In addition, some groups may be bullied, such as youth with disabilities, lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgendered youth. With that being said, bullying tends to take place during school, and with all ages, but specifically within the age of 10-18.

According to SPCC, here are some National Statistics

• "BEEN BULLIED
• 28% of U.S. students in grades 6–12 experienced bullying.
• 20% of U.S. students in grades 9–12 experienced bullying.
• BULLIED OTHERS
• Approximately 30% of young people admit to bullying others in surveys.
• SEEN BULLYING
• 70.6% of young people say they have seen bullying in their schools.
• 70.4% of school staff have seen bullying. 62% witnessed bullying two or more times in the last month and 41% witness bullying once a week or more.
• When bystanders intervene, bullying stops within 10 seconds 57% of the time.
• BEEN CYBERBULLIED
• 6% of students in grades 6–12 experienced cyberbullying.
• 16% of high school students (grades 9–12) were electronically bullied in the past year.
• However, 55.2% of LGBT students experienced cyberbullying".

Personal:

I chose this topic because bullying has impacted the community I currently live in. There will be three people I will talk about and share their experience when they were bully or someone they love was bullied. One of the people I will talk about will be my sister. Unfortunately she was not able to attend to the same school district/community for elementary and middle school, where I attend. Back in my days when I was in elementary and middle school, I was never bullied. I was also not aware of any kind of bullying going on in my schools. The community of my schools I attend was more of a high class community, which unfortunately does make a difference. Compare to the community we currently live in, is a mixture of Hispanic, African American, and Caucasian families. In addition, most Hispanic and African American families work almost everyday and all day, which means they tend to leave their children in afterschool programs until 6pm. Most of these kids do not get as much attention from their parents because most of them are always working. Due to the fact, that many childrens do not get their attention they want from their parents can cause them to get attention another why by bullying others.

My sister is only an 8 year old, that is currently in 3rd grade. Unfortunately she was bullied by either a 4th or 5th grader. When she started 3rd grader she started to have lunch and recess with the 4th grader and 5th grader. She usually had lunch within the same grade level as her. Once she became a 3rd grader she started to get bully by some boys that would make fun of her because of her eyebrows. As soon as she started school as a 3rd grader, my mother and I noticed something different about her. She started to tell my mom, that she did not want to go to school for a couple days. Which was strange to my mom because my sister has always loved going to school, and helping out her teachers. Therefore, when she asked a couples times if she was able to miss school my mom knew something was wrong. That's when my mom had to have a serious conversation with her, and the truth came out. She did not want to go to school because she was getting bullied because she has “hairy eyebrows”. My mom convence my sister that she does not have to skip school because of that, instead she had to stand up for herself and to tell the boys to leave her a lone and if they didn’t listen to her, then she had to tell the teacher. Unfortunately, many student do not like to let the teachers know because then they are considered a snitch which may cause more problems. Furthermore, my mom and I attend to back to school night.  I was able to witness that many parents started to complain that many of their children were getting bullied by older grade level. The teacher was in shock, and that's when I knew this was a huge social issue, because it may be going on in other school within the same district/community. And if my sister is going to be part of this community, I need to make sure to get others within the community to be aware of this social issue to make a change for the new generation.  

My friends brother, witness a bully situation and unfortunately at one point was part of it. He witness his friend being bullied by two older kids in middle school. Since they are very close friends he thought it was right to stand up for him. Unfortunately the situation did not go so well. His friend ended up being pushed in the bushes and my friends brother Oscar, ended up being punched in the face. His intentions was not to get hurt physically, he just wanted to help out his friend by standing up to the bullies. With that being said, even in middle schools there are people getting bullied. This is a serious social issue that needs to be change to improve our school district and community.

Community Members:

Beatriz Topete: “Unfortunately it's sad and heart bearking knowing that your children was bullied in school. Assuming that you're sending them to their school where it should be a save environment and being supervised by teachers.”

Oscar Ponce: “It was one of the worse moments of my life, I’ve never experienced being bullied or witness someone being bully until that day. I just got in to help out my friend because he was being bullied. I thought standing up for my friend would not cause us any harm, but unfortunately my friend and I were physically bullied that day”

Stephanie Topete: “I was mad and hurt being bullied by those boys. And yes, I did not want to go to school because I didn’t want to see those boys make fun of my eyebrows”.

“Children cannot get a quality education if they don’t first feel safe at school.”

-Arne Duncan, U.S. Secretary of Education

“160,000 kids per day do not attend school for fear of being bullied.”

-U.S. Dept. of Justice

“The child who is overweight is the most likely to be bullied.”

-Journal of Pediatrics

Sources: 
https://www.stopbullying.gov/what-is-bullying/index.html
https://americanspcc.org/bullying/statistics-and-information/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mnKPEsbTo9s