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Stop Bullying in Irish Schools
 national |
rights, freedoms and repression |
opinion/analysis
 Friday July 15, 2005 13:51 by Justin Morahan - Peace People
If we hold our peace the stones will cry out
"Make no mistake, if your child is at school in Ireland he or she is in the middle of a monstrous bullying culture" Now that school holidays are here and bullied students who for months couldn't sleep o'nights may now (or may not) be able to take a welcome break from hell, it may be a good time to shout out that bullying in Irish schools must stop.
All of us showed indifference in the past to many elements of our society where people were bullied. People were sent to hell and told to make the best of it. In some cases, efforts have recently been made to uncover and to some extent repair the injury suffered. Institutions have been closed down, people prosecuted and jailed, money paid out. This is not to say that wrongdoing has been rectified or that the people who so suffered should be happy. At least the problem has been recognised and something done to prevent it .
But schools remain standing. Schools where young innocent children are tormented day in, day out, in a culture where bullying is tolerated. The teachers often don't know about it. Children believe that it's either wrong or unpopular or (more often) downright dangerous to rat on fellow students who act the feudal lords over their lives. Principals tell the assembled students that "Bullying will not be tolerated here" or "this is a non-bullying school". This will bring a hushed silence in a classroom or at an assembly. But the bullies know it as a lie. They know that no matter how often these words are spoken, there will be no follow-up. They will get away with it. Although nearly 31% of children attending primary schools and 16% of students in Irish secondary schools are bullied (according to Dr Mona O'Moore of the Anti-Bullying Centre in Trinity College), some Principals and some teachers will still tell you with a straight face "At least we're blessed here in one thing - we have no bullying"! What they really should be saying is that there is no serious method of uncovering the extent of bullying in the school and no serious system of dealing with the enormous amount of work that would be involved if the bullying were uncovered.
Meanwhile some poor little innocents say goodbye to Daddy or Mammy at a school door to begin a phase of life for which they have no preparation whatever. Bullying is insidious, can be secretive, can be terrifying. A boy or girl can go home and cry himself or herself to sleep, night after night. Some parents expect them to "toughen up". Some parents try to help. Some never know. If the school is helpless to make a change, the bullying becomes more terrifying. Some children have taken their own lives.
I have tried to put a system in place to prevent bullying in secondary schools in Ireland. It is "the Box and Interview Method".
I have described it fully in my website at http://homepage.tinet.ie/%7Ejustinmorahan/bullying
I would like people to use it as much as possible
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Comments (6 of 6)
Jump To Comment: 1 2 3 4 5 6Justin
Having looked at your model why has this not been piloted nation wide ?
May I add that in my experience the anti-bullying agenda in schools must run in conjunction with the discrimination and bullying culture in workplaces.
Community responses to bullying, do they exist ?
Keep this thread alive.
Thanks for your positive comment Gilbert.
I think that workplace bullying is a continuation of bullying at school. I have seen "bullies" graduate from primary to secondary school and bring their "victims" with them.
At one stage (about 12 years ago) there was a flurry of activity here about stopping school bullying. You could hardly pick up a newspaper without comment on it. For a number of years Brendan Byrne, Mona O'Moore, Sticks and Stones, Vivette O'Donnell and others did trojan work with some good effects. The Dept of Education published excellent Guidelines.
The coal face however was in the school yard, the classroom, the corridors, the closets. After an initial splurge of interest and activiity by some school authorities, interest waned; the goal appeared unattainable; ordinary recommendations such as "creating an anti-bullying atmosphere" in schools or delegating the work to prefects gave the impression that a system was in place - when in fact such systems were chimeras that created greater havoc for victims who felt they were being told that all possible steps had been taken to rescue them.
The next step was inevitable: a new focus for some of the experts: the new buzz word was "Bullying in the workplace". Trade unions got involved and have themselves done good work. The tragedy in this was that for many this focus replaced rather than complemented the earlier focus on school bullying.
Even teachers at their conferences were constantly talking about bullying in schools - meaning almost always the bullying of teachers by Principals,students or other teachers. All very important.
Bullying is both vertical and horizontal. Teachers bully one another, students bully one another.
On the other hand some Principals and Vice-principals bully staff and students; some staff bully Principals and VPs, students bully teachers, teachers bully students.
A similar thing happens in the workplace. Did you know that a female employee of the National Museum stood for two and a half years from morning till night outside the museum holding a placard stating that she had been bullied by a "superior"? She got little or no redress.
It will take effort beyond belief to turn back the bullying tide that has been our culture for years.
Re the system I have outlined, I will be very glad to get any help that would make it popular.
Institution bullying will continue in my opinion until laws of safe discloser are enacted in Ireland and psychological and emotion injury is seen as criminal. At the present time Ireland and the government in particular, just aren’t ready or willing to have this much disclosure or openness. We live in a country that has and continues to suppress the truth and avoids social problems, the same environment exists in workplaces and schools. In fact the educational system and the church have in fact done much to perpetuate a culture of silence and fear. Evil exist where good people do nothing.
In fact there is little that exists to stop an organisation intimidating witnesess.
It took an employee of eircom nearly five years to get redress for a sustained campaign of bullying.
A recent High Court judgement awarded her nearly €90,000 in damages for breach of contract with costs on top.
The HR manger left the company weeks after the case, and the week after the judge delivered her judgement the HR Director resigned (incidentally this man was a member of the Government appointed task force on bullying).
Despite having all sorts of processes in place to prevent this type of thing eircom were heavily critisied in Court .
The Case centered on mis-treatment carried out by some of the most senior managers in eircom.
If large companies like this get away so lightly its no wonder profit still takes precedence over an employees life.
Bullying may be rife in our schools but what happens when you have teachers or principals bullying young defenceless children? Is there any procedures that can protects them from this ongoing problems.
While I would agree that bullying from teachers needs to be tackled, I don't believe it's as big a problem as bullying bewteen children.
Much of the problem is the myriad of ways that bullies can now taunt their 'prey' - bebo, text messages to name the two that spring to mind.
And often, the bullies' parents might not be interested or care that their little Johnny/Jenny is bullying someone and making their life a misery.
I think it's often like the court system here...you see guards bring known scumbags to justice and then the judge hands down some mockery of a sentence. If proper action isn't taken by school authorities, then it leaves someone who's reported bullying open to bullying themselves, if indeed they weren't the victim in the first place. That needs to change. Now.