Scheme to stamp out playground violence
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An escalation of physical violence and emotional bullying in schools has sparked a major investigation by the children's commissioner amid increasing concerns about pupil safety.
The move follows research showing violence toward New Zealand schoolchildren is high compared with other developed countries and that bullying is one of their biggest fears.
Education Minister Chris Carter will today unveil his own anti-bullying package to make schools safer. It is in response to a spate of high-profile attacks on schoolchildren and an increase of alerts from teachers about violent and disruptive pupils.
The package will include resources written by pupils to encourage in-class discussions about bullying and changes to the way the Education Review Office assesses schools' anti-bullying programmes.
Children's Commissioner Cindy Kiro said physical and emotional violence was a problem in all schools and an issue of public concern. It was consistently highlighted by children as one of their gravest fears and could have devastating emotional effects on young victims.
"The effects of bullying are massive. We've had cases at the most extreme where young victims have actually taken their own lives.
"We need to know that if a child is being bullied, they're able to disclose that and that something effective is being done to keep them safe."
Loss of self-esteem was the most likely effect. Use of the Internet to commit "cyber" bullying or text bullying made things worse by exposing victims to a wider audience, Dr Kiro said. Bullying appeared to manifest itself differently between genders.
Boys used more overt, physical violence and intimidation. Girls were more likely to use "relational aggression" or social exclusion on victims - "behaviours that harm others through danger or threat of danger to relationships or feelings of acceptance, friendship or group exclusion".
Research undertaken nationally since 1999 and several recent attacks had highlighted school violence problems and triggered the investigation into school safety, Dr Kiro said.
A recent study showed 15 per cent of secondary school pupils were often bullied and 9 per cent were bullied at least weekly. That was significantly higher than international statistics.
"It appears that we do have high levels of physical and emotional bullying in New Zealand schools in comparison to other countries. This is historical. We've had this for quite some time in our schools," she said.
Her investigation would consider the nature and extent of violence and bullying against schoolchildren, the effectiveness of anti-violence initiatives and future policies to improve school safety.
"I'm going to try to get a sense of how widespread it is. The whole point is about how we build a culture of non-violence towards children. That includes at home, in schools and other community settings."
The investigation would include interviews with pupils, teachers, principals, and key stakeholders in the education sector. A report would be made public in February.
"I hope there will be a discussion with the minister of education. There may even be changes that happen to the teacher-training curriculum.
"There are implications right across the school spectrum, I would have thought."
- © Fairfax NZ News
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Six cuts of a rattan cane on the hands is a quick and satisfactory punishment for both girls and boys. It would go a long way towards showing children what discipline is about.
The only way to be safe at school is to
Get Out of It.
Such places are centres of institutionalised child abuse: exposure to bullying, drugs, pornography, normalisation of homosexuality, prostitution & promiscuity; and as HB said at comment #4, rapidly declining academic acumen. Why put children through this? Bring them home and teach them about the real world yourself.
Yet again, there's focus on the bullies, but none on the competence of the victims to avoid and defuse bullying situations. So the victims continue to have "victim" practically tattoed on their foreheard, ready for the next bully to pick on 'em.
I think something defintely needs to be done, some sort of disincentive for bullys. I think the cane or detention (helping the janitor), or apologising infrount of the class/ school assembly should be in place. This is coming from someone who has experienced it firsthand right throughout highschool and has considered taking their life on numerous occasions.
Antony- I agree, which is all the more reason to involve parents and wider family when there's bullying going on and see what can be done in the family situation to prevent it.
Joanna- that's really unfair on both you and your kids. Did you have anyone to complain to about their misconduct?
John- Right, because teachers hitting kids with canes is so much better than kids hitting each other ;) Teaching kids how to stand up to bullying without resorting to violence IS valuable learning.
I was both bullied and a bully during my years at primary school. Most of the time I was a nice kid, but I won't deny I was a little madam sometimes. I believe teaching empathy (can that even be taught effectively??) would be a good way of dealing with it. I think in retrospect that would have worked for me.
Bullying is NOT a part of life, and nor should it ever be. You might as well claim that domestic violence is a part of life. And no sane person would ever believe that.
And let me assure you, bullying has been in schools for far too long. You can't blame NCEA for that.
Given the demographics of this site, a large proportion of those who think that bullying *is* a part of life were probably bullies themselves, and I'm sure many of them are well-respected members of society with high paying jobs.
As for bringing back the cane...let me get this straight. If a child is a victim of domestic violence it is wholly unacceptable (and it is!), but if a child is whacked by a law-and-order teacher in the name of "discipline", it's okay?
Children in this country are pampered. If the teacher has to so much as glare the pupil in a disciplinary manner, thats the child cue to call upon the intimidation card. if teachers cannot discipline the kids, and parents are usually too busy to bother, its no wonder that the crime rate for this country is increasing. Talking about it is not going to solve anything, some form of discipline needs to be enforced. Fear of retribution is what will keep the child from being a bully, or atleast will make him think twice before acting. It's sad to see that children are able to get away with so much since their parents and teachers arnt allowed to discipline them properly.
Bullying is a natural part of human, primate and social animal behaviour, as the strong establish their dominance and the weak learn their place. As a child, I learned my place as being mid-range - bullied by teh top dogs, while I in turn bullied those weaker than me. Kids just need to deal with it, and the weaker ones will find their own niche and be better people for it. The top dogs usually end up the most uninteresting adults anyway, so what goes around comes around. Let human nature take its course and don't make such a big deal out of it.
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Good book on this topic (although american) Odd Girl Out, 'the hidden culture of aggression in girls" Rachel Simmons, Harcourt Books. Working in a Secondary School and dealing with this problem on a daily basis.