In schools, bullying is a social problem that gives the school a negative image in today’s world. Bullying makes school a dangerous environment for students to learn in because of fear among the students. Bullying occurs in many forms in school: it can be in the form of humiliating one fellow student, or using the advantage of being strong to intimidate other students. Bullying can be physical, social or verbal. Physical bullying involves injuring fellow student physically, whereas verbal form of bullying implies that students tease each other. Social bullying occurs when students isolate from each other or exclude themselves from the general community in school. (Besag 125)
Bullying has negative impacts on students in school. It can affect both students who are victims of bullying and bullies themselves. Students who are victims of bullying usually feel not respected in school. They often face discrimination against them and feel outcasts. Such bullying effects in students may leave one out school social life because students may start to fear being involved in school activities and events.
Also, bullying can cause long term depression and anxiety among the victims of bullies. Victims of bullying usually have few friends at school because they feel worthless and have high anxiety of others. Thus, the victims isolate themselves from the rest of the students in school. Other students usually do not associate with the victim of bullying because they fear they may also be bullied. In addition, they think their friends will hate them for associating with these victims. (Swearer et al. 168)
However, bullies themselves have problems. They may end being violent people in the society because of what they have gone through in school. Bullying makes them more vengeful in their minds, and they live in hatred towards other people in the society. Sometimes, it happens that both bullies and victims of bullying skip school. Bullies skip school because of their bullish attitude, while victims of bullying miss the classes because of their fear to be bullied. Still, skipping the school regularly leads only to low performance in school, as well as dropping out of their schools, which leaves little chances for bright future. (Olweus 83)
Schools should not allow students to bully each other in school. Schools need to train and counsel students about the effects of bullying in one’s life. School staff should solve conflicts that arise in school to make it a safe place to learn. Victims of bullying should be helped in overcoming its effects and moving on with life. Students should come up with methods of solving conflicts on their own, thus reducing the number of bullying cases in school.