 Introduction

Schools are the stepping stone to our success. This is where we learn lessons
that we can apply and use in the future. Aside from our homes, this is where we
discover ourselves, find new friends, and make memories and new experiences. School
is our gateway to the bright future we want ahead.

Institutions like this houses different kinds of belief, cultures, physical appearance
and race. It possesses a diversity of students and all of them have their own way of
being unique and different. But sometimes those differences prevent students from
being themselves because of the thought of bullying.

Bullying is the feeling of being troubled whenever you go to school, that

overwhelming nervous feeling you feel once you step on the entrance of your school.
Bullying is like a storm. It doesn't care about whatever it is on its path nor the damage it
will bring. Those words are like knives stabbing the person being bullied while hurting
them physically marks a scar that will make them remember every pain and suffering
under that hands of the bullies.

Bullying isn't just about the violence one receives but also the words that make
an emotional scar. A school should be a place where they should learn but sadly some
students see it as a battleground where they need to keep quiet for their survival. A
school is where they should be free and express themselves but because of bullying,
students limit themselves because they feel that one wrong move everyone will judge
them Bullying is a poison that paralyze students from being free.

It has become an unsolved issue in every school all over the world. How do we
stop it?

1
 What Is Bullying?

Bullying is the use of force, coercion, or threat, to abuse,

aggressively dominate or intimidate. The behaviour is often repeated and habitual. One
essential prerequisite is the perception (by the bully or by others) of an imbalance of
physical or social power. This imbalance distinguishes bullying from conflict. Bullying is
a subcategory of aggressive behaviour characterized by the following three minimum
criteria: (1) hostile intent, (2) imbalance of power, and (3) repetition over a period of
time. Bullying is the activity of repeated, aggressive behaviour intended to hurt another
individual, physically, mentally, or emotionally. In order to be considered bullying, the
behaviour must be aggressive and include:

 An Imbalance of Power: Kids who bully use their power—such as physical

strength, access to embarrassing information, or popularity—to control or harm
others. Power imbalances can change over time and in different situations, even
if they involve the same people.
 Repetition: Bullying behaviours happen more than once or have the potential to
happen more than once.

Bullying is not the same as conflict between people (like having a fight) or disliking
someone, even though people might bully each other because of conflict or dislike.
Bullying can happen anywhere. It can be in schools, at home, at work, in online
social spaces, via text messaging or via email. It can be physical, verbal, emotional, and
it also includes messages, public statements and behaviour online intended to cause
distress or harm (also known as cyberbullying). But no matter what form bullying takes,
the results can be the same: severe distress and pain for the person being bullied. 

 History of Bullying

Bullying has been a critical issue in schools for decades. Looking back to the
18th century peer-on-peer harassment was just as commonly seen as it is today. Of
course, during that time bullying was newly recognized and little understood. What may
be seen as violent behaviour today might not have been in that time. While bullying in
schools remains a critical issue, throughout the years several events and studies have
taken place that have made a significant impact on bullying and have expanded its
meaning in many ways.
The term bullying has changed drastically over time. In the 18th and
19th centuries bullying was mainly viewed as physical or verbal harassment commonly
linked with, “…death, strong isolation or extortion in school children…” (Koo, 2007). Any
type of aggressive behaviour was simply seen as mischief and a normal part of
childhood. In fact, according to Koo (2007), bullying was thought of as an innocent
“misadventure” or “misbehaviour” among schoolboys (p110). This type of bullying was
clearly observed at King’s Boarding School in the U.K when a twelve-year old boy was
killed from bullying behaviours by his older classmates (Koo, 2007, p110).  The

2
schoolboys involved were not held accountable for his death because the school viewed
the behaviour as a normal misadventure among the teens (Koo, 2007). It may be fair to
say that this situation would be viewed much different today and that the bullying
behaviours then were viewed as a normal part of growing up among children. 

The term bullying was not publicly recognized until a well-known newspaper
made a publication of this behaviour. In 1862, after almost seventy-two years of
publications the daily newspaper, The Times wrote their first story on bullying when they
reported a soldier allegedly died due to bullying (Koo, 2007, p109).  The Times were the
first to voice the critical issues of bullying and the major consequences that can follow
(Koo, 2007). The writer especially highlighted how the soldier underwent “systematic
bullying” in the army and was treated as an, “…object of constant vexations and attack”
(Voo, 2007, p110).  This story may have been shocking to many people because
society then did not view the behaviours that caused this death to be harmful. In that
time bullying was accepted by many as normal behaviour. However, as bullying became
more prevalent, it began to draw more attention from researchers who wanted to know
more about this new phenomenon. 

Historically, the most significant turning point for bullying took place in the mid-
1970s. Dan Olweus, a research professor of psychology, was the first to conduct an
intensive study on bullying among students using his own systematic researching
methods (Voo, 2007, p112). He created the Olweus Bullying Prevention Program
(OBPP), which had significant results in reducing school bullying (Hazelden Foundation,
2007). Olweus’s efforts contributed greatly to the fight against bullying because it
brought awareness, initiated other professionals to conduct research, and vastly
expanded the meaning of bullying (Voo, 2007). Olweus’s efforts have made a great
impact on school violence and helped to bring safety back into schools.

Indeed, school violence has never ended. In fact, the consequences of bullying
reached its peak when two teen boys shot and killed many of their classmates after
allegedly being victims of bullying. In 1999, Columbine High School experienced one of
the worst high school shootings in history. This event caused worldwide devastation due
to the situation itself, and because it uncovered the raw truth behind bullying. In the
same time frame, bullying took another negative turn. With easy access to the internet,
many teens have started using cyber space as a playground for bullying. As more teens
have resorted to using cell phones and social networks to communicate, cyber bullying
has become a major issue. Presently, cyber bullying is on the rise due to social
networks such as Facebook and twitter where information can travel in seconds to a
countless number of people.  

In response to these matters the federal government has created laws to crack
down on these behaviours. Similar to the Olweus Bullying Prevention Program,
legislators have implemented programs such as, No Child Left Behind to help keep
schools safe (Edmondson & Zeman, 2001). In fact, to assure school safety the federal
government has linked school funding to school safety laws, giving schools no option

3
but to implement these law in order to receive funding (Edmondson & Zeman, 2001). To
greatly lower school violence, the government has to create policies that hold bullies
accountable and support victims. Linking school funding to school safety laws is an
effective way to ensure schools are becoming safer for students.  

Today, bullying is viewed much differently than it was in the 1800’s. It took many
years for the term to be identified for the serious problems it presents. Due to
researchers like Dan Olweus, gaining true understanding of bullying is now possible.
Educators have been able to gain insights of these issues so they can help stop them
from occurring. Indeed, with the growth of technology bullying will be difficult to track
and school administrators will have to stay current as electronics continue to change. It
is difficult to determine what the future of bullying will be, yet as the government
continues to mandate school safety laws and begins to strictly hold bullies accountable
for their actions, schools will become a safer place for children.

 Types of Bullying

There are many different types of bullying that can be experienced by children
and adults alike, some are obvious to spot while others can be more subtle. The
different types of bullying that we look at below are some of the ways that bullying could
be happening.

1. Physical bullying

Physical bullying includes hitting, kicking, tripping, pinching and pushing or

damaging property. Physical bullying causes both short term and long term damage. 

2. Verbal bullying

Verbal bullying includes name calling, insults, teasing, intimidation, homophobic

or racist remarks, or verbal abuse. While verbal bullying can start off harmless, it can
escalate to levels which start affecting the individual target. Keep reading in this section
for techniques to deal with verbal bullying.

3. Social bullying

Social bullying, sometimes referred to as covert bullying, is often harder to

recognise and can be carried out behind the bullied person's back. It is designed to
harm someone's social reputation and/or cause humiliation. Social bullying includes:
 lying and spreading rumours
 negative facial or physical gestures, menacing or contemptuous looks
 playing nasty jokes to embarrass and humiliate

4
  mimicking unkindly
 encouraging others to socially exclude someone
 damaging someone's social reputation or social acceptance.

4. Cyber bullying

Cyber bullying can be overt or covert bullying behaviours using digital

technologies, including hardware such as computers and smartphones, and software
such as social media, instant messaging, texts, websites and other online platforms.
Cyber bullying can happen at any time. It can be in public or in private and sometimes
only known to the target and the person bullying. Cyber bullying can include:
 Abusive or hurtful texts emails or posts, images or videos
 Deliberately excluding others online
 Nasty gossip or rumours
 Imitating others online or using their log-in

 Why Bullying?

In every community we have, problems or issues are inevitable. These are

results of conflicts made by people or group of people living within the community. Of
course, if there’s a problem, there are also bad effects with it. That’s why people always
seek for solution to address every problem they face. A school is one of the simplest
community we can give as an example, and there’s no exception in terms of having
issues. All schools are facing issues that affect their whole community including the
students.
It is globally known that bullying is now one of the biggest social issue the 21 st
century is facing. This occurs specially for school-aged people which is very dangerous
because this is also the time for us teenagers to build ourselves. We’ve chosen this
topic because it is the most evident social issue we have in our school Talisay
Polytechnic Institute compared to other issues. Also by choosing this topic, we can have
the opportunity to speak out our thoughts about bullying, to tell everyone every detail of
bullying, and the possibility of addressing it.

Here are some of our observations in our school:

 Behaviour

If you would spend a day at TPI and observe its students, you would probably
conclude that we are all cheerful in a lot of ways and it doesn’t seem problematic at all.
But there is one issue we have observed and thought that it is a serious thing.
In every group of students, there’s always a superior one or more. Some are
evident and some aren’t. Most students of TPI seem happy or energetic with their

5
friends or groups but the real thing is, they base their actions according to what the
superiors want to. They act just to impress other people and scared to show their true
selves.
How is it connected to bullying? It is one of the principle of bullying, to satisfy the
desires of others. Make one wrong move and for sure, students around you would make
fun of you or else, hate you. This shouldn’t be happening, all students should feel free to
express themselves without worrying of what others would say. Those students who
antagonize others just because of his/her dislikes to him/her are already a bully. That’s
how bullies start, some are unconsciously being one. That’s why we think bullying is
hard to stop from our school because of this unnoticeable root.

 Immaturity

After all, we’re still young and we cannot blame ourselves for being immature. It
requires experiences in order to be one, some are blessed to be matured at a young
age but most students of TPI are evidently still immature. If only all of the students are
mature enough, such issues would be lessen. With maturity, a person can absorb a
situation differently and would act righteously. For example is when a student surpass
the other one in terms of grade, a mature student would not take that as an issue and
would probably think that it is a normal thing to happen. On the other hand, a matured
student also wouldn’t look down at his/her classmate he/she recently surpassed.
Bullying starts from thinking immaturely.

 Lack of Discipline

The main reason everyone will think why a student would bully a fellow student is
because of lack of discipline. Although TPI students are known for being great in lot of
aspects, undisciplined students also stand out. We believe that some students are not
properly taught of self-discipline that’s why bullying became a big issue on our school.
These students became comfortable of being undisciplined and over time developed
bad traits and mind-sets.

These kind of students are the main bullies in our school. They bully because
they just want it. They feel good whenever they’ve hurt someone, plus, they feel cool
seeing their friends praise them as they do these bad things.

6
 Bullying in Talisay Polytechnic Institute

BULLYING CASES IN TALISAY POLYTECHNIC INSTITUTE

33%
40%
Verbal Bullying
Social Bullying
Cyber Bullying
Physical Bullying
No. Of Students who answered no.

20% 3%

3%

My team and I conducted a survey on TPI’s students about bullying containing

these following questions:

1. Have you ever been bullied? If yes, what kind of bullying? If no, what do
you think is the worst kind of bullying from the choices mentioned above
and why?
2. Do you think bullying exist in your class? If yes, what kind? Is it intentional
or unintentional? If no, do you think that we people bully others without us
even realizing it? Why or why not?
3. What will you do if you’re being bullied or someone being bullied?
4. What factor do you think is most prone to bullying?

Interpreting these data, the survey shows that the verbal type of bullying is the
most common type of bullying at Talisay Polytechnic Institute, followed by physical then
cyber and social. It is observable that only few number of students, 10 out of 30,
answered that they haven’t experience being bullied. On the other hand, out of 30
students, 20 said that bullying happens inside their classrooms which means out of 30
classes in Talisay Polytechnic Institute, bullying happens on 20 classes. According to
survey, whenever or when the time comes that they will experience bullying, 77% will
report the incident to the authorities, 20% will avoid the bullying and the 3% will confront
the bully.

11 out of 30 students admitted that they have bullied someone. Out of that 11
students, 7 said that it was unintentional while 4 admitted that it was intentional. Though

7
it is the bully’s fault why bullying occurs, students said that physical appearance is the
most common factor that makes students prone to bullying with 23 votes out of 56
answers, 15 voted for gender, 9 for financial status, 6 for social status, 2 for age and 1
for race.

In summary, these are the content of the answers of the students of TPI to the
questions mentioned above found on our given survey:

The students of TPI answered that the worst kind of bullying is verbal for they
believe that that type of bullying affects greatly our way of thinking and behaving. They
quoted “words are more painful than physical one” and clearly stated that being hurt
through feelings is their worst fear. It affects their emotions and mental health.

The students also said that they, students, bully without realizing it because of
insensitivity. Most common example is them telling offensive jokes to their fellow
students.

The students said that bullying happens in school because this is a place where
students feel they can be that powerful for they are surrounded by people with their
ages. School is prone to bullying for it is composed of young-aged people who lack
basic knowledge of how to properly behave in accordance to their surroundings.
Students have different beliefs and views about behaving to their surroundings.

For them, to be able to stop bullying in school, it must be reported to the

authorities, the school must have programs that provide awareness about bullying and
students must be taught of proper ethics and values needed to respect and gain
willingness not to have malicious intent to their fellow students.

8
  Interpretation of Data

Considering the fact that schools are composed of students and students ranging
from 12-18 years old have simpler mind-sets, therefore bullying cases in school can be
considered as shallower compared to serious issues happening at real world. But it also
means that students have shallow interpretation and perspective about bullying. So
even though cases in schools can be simple, it is very dangerous, for students have
shallow interpretation and may have or may have not the ability to cope with these
situations.

It can be also the reason why such a kind of bullying is the most common type in
schools. An average human being would probably conclude that verbal bullying would
be the most common type of bullying dominating in an institution. Though there are
some serious cases of physical bullying in schools and it is always the content of news
in terms of bullying, the most common is verbal. Students with such ages mentioned
above are scientifically proven to harass a fellow student only by simpler ways for their
knowledge of evilness are not that wide compared to adults. Verbal bullying is less
dangerous but the repercussions can be just as harmful. It can have a detrimental effect
on a child, especially when a child is already shy or have low self-esteem. During these
times, a teenager is continuously developing his/her mental, social and emotional skills
and with verbal bullying, he/she may separate from other teenagers and feel unwanted
and unworthy. Being the subject of verbal cause can easily destroy a teenager’s self-
confidence and enthusiasm to learn and grow. Verbal bullying tends to affect teenagers
emotionally and spiritually for a long period of time.

Next, the second most common type of bullying occurring in TPI is physical
bullying. Students with these ages are hungry for gaining power. To obtain power and
the fear of many, physically hurting someone would be the most effective way. Another
reason is students are not that good in handling emotions and are most likely to express
their emotions physically.

9
References:
https://www.stopbullying.gov/what-is-bullying/index.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bullying

10
https://www.humanrights.gov.au/our-work/commission-general/what-bullying-violence-
harassment-and-bullying-fact-sheet
http://bullying190.blogspot.com/2012/10/history-of-bullying.html
https://www.ncab.org.au/bullying-advice/bullying-for-parents/types-of-bullying/

11