Bullying

By: Ahmad Apriyanto

      What does bullying mean? To be honest, the first time I heard “bullying” was in my current campus, Sampoerna School of Education (SSE), in Educational Psychology course. At that time, I defined bullying as doing something bad to someone. For example is calling someone with any names that aimed to mock him/her. After reading some materials in Differentiate Instruction course, I learned something new such as the kinds of bullying, the effects of being bullied, and many more.

      I just know that bullying is not only done by verbal, but also physically such as kicking, hitting, and punching. Moreover, bullying is also done by ignoring, spreading rumors, and isolating which are called “relational bullying”. Next, each of types of bullying has different effects, but all the effects are coming up the disadvantages for the people who are bullied.

      Moreover, after I read some articles about bullying, bullying is not only can be done in the real-world, but also in cyber world. For example, if we send any messages contain a mock, it means we have done the bullying; even our aim is just to make a joke.

      Bullying in the cyber world is called cyber bullying. It’s not only doing bully through internet, but also from cellphones (either with or without camera). A study in Canadian reported that 23% of middle-school-student had been bullied through e-mail. Moreover, 35% of them had been bullied in chat rooms, and the rest which is 42% had been bullied through text messages, and they don’t know the person who done the bully itself.

      I have my own way to prevent the bullying in the cyber world. First, just ignore if we get any messages or text messages contain a mock. Just delete, and don’t reply it because if we respond to the sender, then he/she will feel happy because of bullying that he/she done. Second, to prevent the cyber bullying in chat room, we should avoid the “bad room” that can trigger a bad debate. By debating, mostly we will do the bullying to each other.

      The target of bullying or the bullied is commonly someone who weak, someone who has disabilities, or someone who often isolating her/himself from other friends. As I read on the article, a student who has Asperger Syndrome (AS) had been one of the bullied by his friends. The bully that he got was about theft.

      On the article, it’s mentioned that Ken was a boy with Asperger Syndrome who attends a regular school. He was great about technology, so he always buys the latest version of a cellphone or an IPod. Unfortunately, he always lost his cellphone or IPod. When he discovers that he lost his gadget, he always hears the same laugh and mock from gang boys. I conclude that the person who always steals Ken’s gadget is the boy from those gang boys.

      Obviously, this case is including as a bullying. This also something new that I learned, which is when I hide my friends’ stuffs, it means I have done bullying. I just know it after reading the article.

      I have no idea in preventing the bullying if I am the bullied with disabilities because I think if I am the bullied with disabilities, I will not aware that I am being bullied. Also, if I am a child and am having bullied, I also will not aware of being bullied. I will aware of bullied when I grow up and learn about the bullying itself, like now where I am. If I was not learned about “bullying”, I will not recognize that I have been bullied by my friend. So, learning about bullying in Differentiated Instruction course, I become more aware about bullying. I will decrease my habits in bullying my friends, and hope my friends will decrease their habits in bullying me.

      I really love one sentence on an article that I read. The sentence means we should do a good thing if we wanna be treated in such away. If we do a bad thing, people will treat the similar thing. Do what you wanna do as do what you wanna get!

      Here are some articles about bullying. Happy reading! :D

Article 1 (click here)

Article 2 (click here)

Article 3 (click here)

*if you feel the articles are unreadable, please contact me on the facebook, then I'll email you the soft copies.