Written by Joel Pablo Salud / Special to the BusinessMirror
Wednesday, 09 September 2009 19:34
VIOLENCE between children, particularly bullying in schools, is as real as the bruises and cuts they bear on both their young bodies and psyches. Bullying, according to a training lecture drafted by the US Department of Education (“Exploring the Nature and Prevention of Bullying”), is the “intentional and generally unprovoked attempts by one or more individuals to inflict physical hurt and/or psychological distress on one or more victims.
There must be an imbalance of physical or psychological power, with the bully actually being stronger or perceived to be stronger than the victim. The bullying may be direct, with face-to-face physical or verbal confrontations, or indirect, with less visible actions such as spreading rumors or social exclusion. Although a single attack on a victim if severe enough can be accurately described as bullying, the term more often refers to a series of negative actions that occur frequently over time.”
After all the efforts to curb violence against children, bullying is the one thorn on the side of education that hardly gets noticed by the authorities. Since those involved are children, society seems to find it rather a waste of time and public funds to address.