http://www.thebostonchannel.com/news/22987784/detail.html
The article is about the suicide of Phoebe Prince, after she was bullied by other students at South Hadley High School in the state of Massachusetts, USA. The investigations revealed that she was bullied three months before her death, and even on the day of Phoebe's death, she was subjected to verbal harassment and physical abuse in full view of employed teachers. The problem discussed in the article is bullying in schools.
I propose that more severe laws need to be passed to prevent bullying and these laws need to be enacted. There should be severe penalties including jail time for students who bully and termination of employment for teachers and faculty witnessing such abuses and not reporting them immediately. If we take this solution, students will be seriously aware of the problem and the cases of bullying will decrease in the schools, because students will be severely punished if they bully someone else. Moreover, this solution will prevent teachers to ignore the bullying problem, because if they don't pay attention, they'll lose their jobs. Children who are being bullied shouldn't be left alone at this critical part of their life and development, because they are more vulnerable. I think that the students who bullied Phobe need to be severely punished and held accountable for their actions. Teachers who witnessed this abuse also need to be held accountable as well because they did not try to stop it. However, severe laws will make no difference to the bullying problem unless parents intervene. There are some recommendations that parents can used:
-Don't tell the child to ignore the bully.
-Don't blame the child for the bullying.
-Emphasize with the child by saying the bully is wrong and it is not the child's fault.
-Don't encourage physical retaliation.
Teachers, and parents need to make rapidly and quick decisions and the incident of bullying needs to be investigated immediately and given top priority by the legal authorities if necessary. We should take the solution proposed because bullying is a serious situation, and it needs immediate attention.
2 comments:
I agree with your problem completely, because it seems to be a growing epidemic all over the world and not just the U.S. However, it seems like it would pretty hard to give children and teenagers jail time for bullying. Although the bullying can go to the extreme, most of the time it is just name calling and things of that nature. I do agree with the decision that both teachers and parents should get involved. It would just be a little difficult to punish the children like that, so I think it should be left to the school to enact the punishment unless it goes to such an extreme that the local government has to step in.
Bullying has been a growing epidemic in the United States and I agree that action needs to be taken. While jail time may not be feasible, students who bully need to be held accountable. If one instance has been noticed by a faculty member, the student should be warned, then if the abuse keeps occurring the students parents should be notified of the behavior and the student should be fined. Faculty should record what is being said or done to the student being harassed for proof, and students that cause someone to commit suicide should be held accountable for murder.
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