Champions for Youth

My Perspective on Bullying:

Written by Ashley Flippen, IUPUI School of Social Work

Bullying in my eyes is unacceptable. I feel like there are times when it is taken too lightly and not dealt with properly. Especially in the school systems. I have a second cousin who went to a private catholic school and she is partially deaf. She has hearing aides to help her hear. She is 20 years old and has a speech problem due to being partially deaf. She came home one day crying to her parents saying she never wanted to go back to school. When her parents asked why she said that there are girls that are making fun of her because she couldn’t talk right. They even pushed her down on the playground and turned up her hearing aids so they would ring. And if you don’t know when that happens it is very painful for the person that has them. Her parents were outraged and went to the principle office to talk with them. When telling the principle the story he said that there was nothing they could do because none of the teachers or anyone had seen these actions. The principle assured her parents that nothing like that would ever happen in this particular school. Her parents were frustrated but let it go this time. They talked to their daughter and told her if it happened again to go straight to the teacher. A few months passed and the students started picking on her but this time would do it when the teacher wasn’t around so my cousin couldn’t tell. She went home again crying and her parents went to the principle office again. Still they wouldn’t do anything. Her parents ended up pulling her and her brother out of the school because of this.

All of this could have been avoided in my eyes if the principle had dealt with it from the beginning. I feel like the teachers or principle should have set the students who were doing the teasing down and given them punishment. This is a prime example of the education system brushing bullying under the rug instead of dealing with it firsthand.