Take a stand against bullies

Few see it in action but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist.
   Playgrounds and schoolyards are no longer the preferred location for bullies to ply their trade. Nowadays bullies threaten and torment their victims with messages typed on Twitter and Facebook, and through emails and other online social networking services.
But cyberbullying is every bit as harmful as schoolyard bullying, and perhaps even more. So it’s good to see the Alberta government promising a systematic provincewide effort to go after and punish schoolyard — and cyberspace — bullies as part of its new, proposed Education Act.
“I want to make sure that in the province of Alberta we have a uniform code of conduct clearly spelling out what is and what isn’t allowable in schools relative to students’ behaviour,” Education Minister Thomas Lukaszuk said Feb. 14 after introducing Bill 2 in the legislature.
“That will include verbal abuse, physical abuse, homophobic abuse, cyberspace abuse, and the list goes on and on.”
Lukaszuk said, in a Canadian Press article, that school boards will submit to his department their plans on handling bullying. They will then be compared to an over-arching definition of bullying to make sure there is a one standard of what will and won’t be accepted.
“The fact is we need to standardize this, particularly as kids move from school and class to class, that this same level of expectation will be placed on them,” he said.
The act allows school officials to suspend students for up to five days and, if they feel the behaviour is so injurious or the student so unrepentant, they can ask the local board to expel the child for longer periods as required.
Remember being pushed around on the playground or viciously taunted by classmates? If so, you’re not alone. A new survey has found that half of all Canadian adults were bullied when they were in school. And as the research grows on the long-term impact of bullying — on self-esteem and mental health — the survey also reports that one-third of those same adults believed the abuse they suffered as kids had a lasting effect.
A bully’s torment is not a right of passage. Another study found 89 per cent of adult respondents believed bullying poses a “serious threat to the long term well-being of children and teenagers.”
There is no one-size-fits-all solution, especially when it comes to cyberbullying, which, because of the bully’s ability to remain anonymous, can be particularly vitriolic and harmful. But taking a stand and saying this form of abuse will not be tolerated is a great start.
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