Summary
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| The video of Quaden crying shows the cruelty of bullying. |
In “Quaden Bayles: Fundraiser for boy in bullying video hits $300,000” (2020), Yarraka Bayles uploaded the video of her child, Quaden, who was sobbing because of being bullied by his schoolmates about his dwarfism disease. Ms. Bayles intended to show the impact of bullying through her video and hoped it could increase the awareness of bullying. After the video was widespread, helps had been provided to Quaden. “GoFundMe page” raised a fund of more than $300,000 for taking Quaden to Disneyland. Furthermore, many people expressed their opinions about this issue. Gillian Martin described that some people think a dwarfism is a person of comedy, but they are human same as other people. Warwick Davis said watching this video made his upset, and he expected parents should take a role by educating their children about the bullying.
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Response
Bullying is one of the severe troubles in our society. This problem happens because people think the difference of others is hilarious and unacceptable. It can appear everywhere, including school, the place where parents believe there is one of the safest places for their children. Many children think bullying is just a joke, but the target of bullying does not funny. While reading the story of Quaden, it reminds me of my experience with bullying in school. When studying in grade 4, I teased one of my classmates because she has a big mole on her face. Every time I met her at school, I would call her, “Hey! Mole girl is coming.” and made a big laugh. In my opinion, as a 10-year-old boy, it is just a funny story. Finally, she started crying because she cannot resist my teasing. She said, “Why did you abuse me with my weak point? It’s not fun!”. At that time, her word was repeated in my head, and it made me feel guilty. I said sorry to her. That is a big lesson for me. Afterward, I told myself that I would not make fun of other characters anymore.
Bullying in school is the beginning of several risky problems for both the bully and the victim. Many scientific reports show that children who were bullied at school will have lower self-esteem. It may be difficult for the victim to maintain relationships with their classmates because there is a risk that a person who tried to help the victim may become a new target of bullying, and no one wanted to be a bully spot. Some of the classmates, accordingly, ignore bullying in their classes. Additionally, several victims withdrew to go to school anymore, and it affected their education performance. Some of them have mental problems, such as depression, anxiety, or self-destruction. In a severe case, bullying may lead the victim to decide to end his/her life. In addition, bullying does not affect only the victims, but it also causes severe results for the bully. Many youth ruffians do not know that their bad behavior can cause a permanent scar to others’ memories. And it may affect their further behaviors; for instance, various adults who use physical abuse in their families used to have an experience with bullying in school. In the end, the number of substance abuse will increase if the little tyrants do not receive a correct attitude about bullying.
As Gillian said in the BBC’s article, we are equal, so we should respect others. If everyone accepts a variety of other people, bullying will disappear. And I agreed with Warwick’s suggestion. The right attitude starts at home. Parents are essential to teach their children to respect others. Then, schools and teachers have to involve in this section by supporting their children and take action in bullying problems rapidly. If parents or teachers do not try to stop bullying, there is a risk that it will be transferred to another target. Moreover, the victims should be carefully recovered by their parents too. Don’t ignore children’s problems because you are the shelter for them.
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Question
If you are a teacher, how would you teach your children about bullying?
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Reference
- Quaden Bayles: Fundraiser for boy in bullying video hits $300,000 (2020, February 21). Retrieved from https://www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-51590984
Just a quick comment (you should write more in yours): as I read Yo's summary and his thoughtful response to the ideas in his chosen article, I immediately made connections with the ideas in the first reading in Unit 3 of Skillful, "The Development of Thought". And Yo's question for readers to think about seemed to me to follow that up by reminding of the first critical thinking question on page 48, which explicitly mentions teachers.
ReplyDeleteI'm wondering if others made similar connections that they might like to explore in responses to Yo's blog post.
(Maybe this is not so terribly short after all.)
Hi, Yo,
ReplyDeleteThank you for sharing your comment.
If I were a teacher, I would prevent bullying in school by setting up positive climate in school. This means that I would create a program that helps students develop empathy, do random acts of kindness among the students themselves and between their teachers. According to the development of though, students at the age of three to six years old are on the stage of improving their emotional—this means they focus on their feeling and needs, but their do not understand or know their classmates’ feeling and needs. I think it is a good practice for them to learn to understand the others’ feeling. The activities would be sharing toys and foods to their classmates, or saying ‘thank you’ to peers. For my experience, my teachers taught my classmates and me to do that at kindergarten school. I still remember that when I played with my classmates my teacher taught me to share toys with them and they said ‘thank you’. I did not how much I appreciated my peers, but I felt save and relaxed.