Togetherness in the classroom and beyond

The concept of team work should be well understood from a young age, there should be a sense of inclusion. Everyone should be treated equally and there should be emphasis on understanding different kinds of people. From the school environment to work atmosphere, there is the experience of meeting various kinds of people.

A topic that needs to be discussed is how people at school and university adapt to their surroundings and school bullying is a concern. It is a kind of bullying that exists in an educational setting. It is an aggression shown by students to harm another person. It affects the mental and physical well-being of the victim, and to really understand what bullying is all about, there are categories in which it is classified, let us explore.

Physical bullying:

Here the perpetrator will use physical means such as kicking, hitting and sending out violence threats.

Cyber bullying:

This involves teasing and sending threat messages via electronic means through social media, phone, chat or email. It is not easy to identify the perpetrator because they can pose as anonymous or use other accounts to hack the victim’s account.

Relational aggression:

Here the perpetrator will resort to gossip, start a rumor or exclude someone from a group.

School bullying is a serious matter, 70.6% of young people have said that they have been bullied and 70.4% of school staff have witnessed bullying. The impact of bullying can result in the victim suffering from depression, anxiety, eating disorder, substance abuse and other mental health disorders such as social anxiety and anti-social personality disorder. The victim can also resort to self-harm, and they do not perform well in academics.

What can be done to prevent bullying?

From a young age students should be taught about inclusion about respecting and appreciating different cultures and ethnicity. They should be taught to not discriminate based on color, gender and religion.

They should be taught to understand the importance of team work from a young age and how to identify various kinds of personalities. They should be given training on how to respect one another and not differentiate based on learning abilities and physical appearance.

School teachers and counselors should educate students on understanding sexuality and they should be taught to respect the LGBT community. A topic on gender equality should be introduced as well.

Students who are newly introduced to electronic means will be intrigued and curious, and teachers  and school counselors should educate them on the harmful effects of cyber bullying and what a serious crime it is.

It is essential for teachers and school counselor to evaluate the family background of students. There is possibility that a student will have a parent who has committed a crime, and he/she is prone to bully other students. School counselors should intervene with parents and student and stress on the importance of good behavior. Such students should not be excluded.

In a classroom there are different kinds of students from various backgrounds, some will be from normal families and others from broken families. Teachers and school counselors should educate students on how to treat everyone equally, show empathy and understand each other.

Counseling sessions should be conducted for everyone and also for students who have eating disorder and who abuse drugs and alcohol.

When the concept of bullying prevention and equality is taught at an early stage, students are likely to carry morals and good behavior attitudes with them that is needed in the workplace. Most importantly there will be better quality of life.