I love watching movies and dramas about school life. Surprisingly,
there are always bullying situations in these dramas, and when I read the BBC
News article “ Self-harm 'motivated primarily by bullying' ”, I realized that bullying is a serious
problem which happens to many teenagers around the world.
The article reports that young people self-harm in order to release
their difficult emotions mostly caused by bullying. A study has shown that
right support can help in reducing the number of self-harming people.
I have to admit that, in the part when I was in
middle-school, I sometimes indirectly participated in bullying my classmate.
There was no aggressive behavior, but every student in the class socially
isolated one person. Although I did not start this action, I also ignored and
excluded him from my group. I had never realized that I was involving in
bullying. At that time, I only thought that if I talked to him, everybody in
the class might dislike me and perhaps, I would be the next target. When I
recall the time, I feel really sorry to him. Followed by being in high school,
I deal with this situation once more. Many friends told me that they used to face
bullying, such as teasing, name-calling, spreading rumors, and leaving out on
purpose. However, some people might think that these verbal bullying and social
bullying seem not to be very cruel, since the targets do not physically hurt or
lose their possessions. In contrast, these kinds of bullying do hurt ones
feelings deeply.
In Korea, the country which is famous in plastic surgery, many
Korean students decides to do plastic surgery since they have faced teasing.
Some of them have been isolated because they are not beautiful enough for their
friends. Generally, young Korean who faces bulling problem is struggling in
finding her solution in several ways. One
of my idols, a Korean smart student, faced bullying when she was in middle
school. At first, she was very depressed and cried every day. Then, she solved
this crisis by ignoring those absurd circumstances, focusing on studying hard,
and finally she could overcome those difficult situations. However,
unfortunately, many young people choose to hurt themselves in order to express
their distress. The worst thing is some of them decide to end their lives. It
is so sad that young people can hurt each other terribly and make other
students feel very awful.
I actually understand people who self-harm as a result of
bullying. When I was very angry or distressed, I really wanted to release those
feelings, sometimes by hurting myself a little bit. So, what’s about a person
who has had a lot of pressure for a long time? In my opinion, self-harming
people need someone who truly understands them and gives them encouragement and
good advice. However, in reality, these problems have not been solved
correctly since most people usually keep their problems in their mind and occasionally
explode their emotions severely.
We should battle this situation by stopping bullying other
people both physically and mentally, moreover, being careful not to bully
ourselves. Of course, we sometimes cannot avoid difficult situations, but we
have to give encouragement and first, stop saying bad words to ourselves.
Hurting ourselves is absolutely not a right solution.
__________
Reference
Buchanan, M. (2014, February 27). Self-harm 'motivated primarily by bullying'. BBC
News Education & Family. Retrieved March 8, 2014 from http://www.bbc.com/news/education-26357962
In's post reminded me of my own school days. I was never really bullied, but I left out of many things - I was always the last to be picked for sports teams and so on. It didn't worry me a lot - I hated sports and much preferred to sit on the sidelines reading a book. I guess I was a bit of a nerd.
ReplyDeleteIt also brought some unpleasant memories of primary school - where I either helped in or said nothing about the bullying of weaker kids. I suspect that human children are not naturally very nice - my brothers and sisters and I fought a lot, and were also sometimes pretty awful to each other. Maybe my memories are not reliable, but it seems to me looking back that as we got older, we became much nicer people. In fact, perhaps we become real human persons only at a later age, and after our base, natural instincts have been replaced by some better civilized behaviour that has to be learnt.
Maybe someone who has studied psychology knows something more certain on this topic. It's certainly a thought provoking post for us to think about, for me anyway.
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteI absolutely agree that In's attitude towards this situation is totally right, we should handle this situation by stopping psychical or verbal bullying, and Peter has an interesting point, it reminds me about Kohlberg's theory- States of Moral Development which mentions about when we get older, our morality have been changed into Post conventional morality that means people are caring about other people and start thinking about society in a very theoretical way, (Colby and Kohlberg, 1983) they would all want certain basic rights, such as liberty and life, to be protected (Crain, 1985).
ReplyDeleteIn my point of view, for abused people clearly need someone who could listen to them and gives them some support, but the most important thing is how to make them get stronger. Helping them learn more self help skills are a better idea for these people who are dealing with painful issues and their problems to learn methods for helping themselves.