Bullying in Schools

What is Bullying?

Bullying is unwanted, aggressive behavior among school aged children that involves a real or perceived power imbalance. The behavior is repeated, or has the potential to be repeated, over time. Both kids who are bullied and who bully others may have serious lasting problem. Bullying is when someone is being hurt either by words or actions on purpose, usually more than once, feels bad because of it, and has a hard time stopping what is happening on them.

Types of Byllying:

1. Verbal Bullying: which is saying or writing mean things, e.g. teasing, name calling, inappropriate sexual comments, taunting, threatening, etc..

2. Social Bullying: sometimes referred to as relational bullying, involves hurting someone’s reputation or relationships, e.g. leaving someone out on purpose, telling other children not to be friends with someone, spreading rumors about someone, embarrassing someone in public, etc..

3. Physical Bullying: involves hurting a person’s body or possessions, e.g. hitting, spitting, pushing, taking or breaking someone's things, making mean or rude hand gestures, etc..

Cyberbullying:

Cyberbullying is bullying that takes place over digital devices like cell phones, computers, and tablets. It can occur through SMS, Text, and apps, or online in social media, forums, or gaming where people can view, participate in, or share content. Cyberbullying includes sending, posting, or sharing negative, harmful, false, or mean content about someone else. It can include sharing personal or private information about someone else causing embarrassment or humiliation. Some cyberbullying crosses the line into unlawful or criminal behavior.

The most common places where cyberbullying occurs are:

• Social Media, such as Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, and Twitter
• SMS (Short Message Service) also known as Text Message sent through devices
• Instant Message (via devices, email provider services, apps, and social media messaging features)
• Email

         
         Health and Human Services, U. S. (2017). Stop Bullying.

Lebanese Education: from East into West

Lebanese education was nearer to Eastern philosophy before the Syrian crisis. Technology was defined by having very old computers at schools having one period of computer weekly, and teachers were using physical attack and abusive words as punishment.
Along with the Syrian crisis and interference of United Nations in their education in Lebanon, they got with them new rules of education that contribute with the western philosophy of education. After that, technology became more integrated in schools and universities, there became more restrictions on diplomas and especially teaching diploma and masters that are said to become a main condition in the official tournament of contract for teaching secondary levels.
Also from that time, physical and verbal attack was forbidden in schools but without finding the alternative. So that students became more bold and rude with teachers having no sanction.
Therefore, the Lebanese education is moving from being based on eastern philosophy into western philosophy but with a lot of loss and mess. There is no clear schedule and goals set by the ministry of Education and Higher Education in Lebanon. However, it’s a matter of holding on to some philosophies and ideas of East and collecting some philosophies from West randomly.

Ozmon, H. A. (2019). Philosophical Foundations of Education.

Mahmoud, I. (2020). Progress of Lebanese Education .

Realism

From this very general philosophical position, the Realist would tend to view the Learner as a sense mechanism, the Teacher as a demonstrator, the Curriculum as the subject matter of the physical world (emphasizing mathematics, science, etc.), the Teaching Method as mastering facts and information, and the Social Policy of the school as transmitting the settled knowledge of Western civilization. The realist would favor a school dominated by subjects of the here-and-now world, such as math and science. Students would be taught factual information for mastery. The teacher would impart knowledge of this reality to students or display such reality for observation and study. Classrooms would be highly ordered and disciplined, like nature, and the students would be passive participants in the study of things. Changes in school would be perceived as a natural evolution toward a perfection of order.

For the realist, the world is as it is, and the job of schools would be to teach students about the world. Goodness, for the realist, would be found in the laws of nature and the order of the physical world. Truth would be the simple correspondences of observation. The Realist believes in a world of Things or Beings (metaphysics) and in truth as an Observable Fact. Furthermore, ethics is the law of nature or Natural Law and aesthetics is the reflection of Nature.

Realists do not believe in general and common aims of education. According to them aims are specific to each individual and his perspectives. And each one has different perspectives. The aim of education should be to teach truth rather than beauty, to understand the present practical life. The purpose of education, according to social realists, is to prepare the practical man of the world.

Maheshwari, V. K. (2015). Realism - as a Philosophy of Education.

Existentialism

Existentialists have been quite consistent in their recommendation of educational aims which are in harmony with their philosophical views… Existentialism is concerned principally with liberal education, freeing man from his isolation and his anonymity, freeing his mind from the confusions that prevent him from seeing his situations and his powers.

According to existentialist, education should make a man subjective and should make him conscious for his individuality or ‘self’. Being self conscious he will recognize his ‘self’ and he will get an understanding of his ‘being’. Individuality lies on self-realization, a motivating force, from an existential perspective; a sense of self-identity is gained by how an individual relates to and values his or her relations. The purpose of education is to build character, to optimize potential and creativity and to enhance the quality of life through knowledge, and then from an existentialist perspective bureaucratization needs to be replaced by humanization.

Education should train men to make better choices and also give the man the idea that since his choices are never perfect, the consequences cannot be predicted.

The ultimate aim of education is to make man conscious of his destination, to give an understanding of his ‘being’ and ultimately lead him to his heavenly abode. So, it is clear that the existentialism accepts the principle of liberal education.

Maheshwari, V. K. (2011). Existentialism - As an Educational Philosophy.

High Standards, High Expectations

Commitment to the incrementalist belief can show up in teachers' behavior, classroom practices, school structures, and even conversations with one another.

Teachers set standards of performance they believe to be rigorous, important, and appropriate; find out where students are in relation to those standards; and adapt instruction to accommodate students' differences in readiness levels (current knowledge or skills), learning and processing styles, and motivation.

They don't pull back, give up, or dilute expectations and academic press for any of them.

They send positive expectation messages to all children regardless of their learning or language differences.

They seize every opportunity in regularly recurring classroom situations to reinforce the messages children get that their teacher believes they can do it and won't give up on them.

Teaching policies and practices are conscientiously geared toward instilling in children life-liberating beliefs.

Teachers teach students and parents about attribution theory and make effective effort an explicit agenda to combat the entity theory.

They don't expect all students to learn at the same rate or meet standards at the same time, especially when there are wide differences in their prior preparation.

But teachers take it as their responsibility to constantly examine and manage their biases for seeing current student performance through the lens of innate ability, teach children to believe in themselves, and explicitly teach them how to work not just harder but smarter with appropriate strategies.

All teachers can create the conditions where unmotivated children want to put forth the effort and this should be an integral part of all our work.

In classroom practices, teachers invest in discovering ways to build confidence in students (belief in themselves and their capacity to achieve) and in teaching them how to invest their effort effectively.

Saphier, J., Haley-Speca, M. A., & Gower, R. (2012). The Skillful Teacher. United States: Research for Better Teaching, Inc.