[Reader-list] Article on bullying in schools

[Chintan Girish Modi]

*Excerpts from http://www.teacherplus.org/cover-story/stand-up-to-the-bully

Stand Up to the Bully!*

Five months ago, a 14-year-old student in Mumbai died because of a prank
played by his classmate.

I read in horror as Deepti Khera of the *Hindustan Times*, reported, “The
boy had taken a sip of water from his bottle, and soon after complained of
pain in his throat. When he started to choke, the school authorities
panicked and called a doctor, who advised them to rush the teenager to a
hospital. During an endoscopy at Jaslok Hospital, the doctors found a soft
board pin lodged in the boy’s intestine. The school later found that one of
the boy’s classmates was responsible for putting the pin in his water
bottle.”1

This could have happened in my school. The dead boy could have been one of
my students. So could the boy who put the pin in the bottle.

I shared the news report with some of my colleagues, and there was
immediate recognition of the fact that we had to do something about this in
our own school. We began talking about what we could do, the different
spaces we could utilize, and how we could do this *with* students and not *
to* them.

It takes a brave school to refrain from saying, “No, such things don’t
happen in our school. Our children are not like that. They are not capable
of mean things.” That kind of talk just closes any available opportunity
for dialogue or growth. Bullying happens everywhere; in schools, homes,
workplaces; among children, among adults, and between adults and children.

Thankfully, some schools are beginning to openly acknowledge the presence
of bullying on their campuses. Some even have an anti-bullying policy or
are working on drafting one. And there seems to be a move towards a
realization that working to stop bullying needs to be a whole-school
effort, not the sole priority of the poor counsellor who is often dumped
with this responsibility.
To read the entire article, visit
http://www.teacherplus.org/cover-story/stand-up-to-the-bully