Bullying: Replies, Rebuttals, Confessions, and Catharsis

By María Luisa Arroyo and Magdalena Gómez

Physical, emotional, verbal, and now cyber bullying are an increasing problem in our nation’s schools and within our children’s social networks. How can we understand it? Community leaders and activists Gómez and Arroyo worked with children, teenagers, and parentsboth the victims and the bulliesto put together this searing anthology of original essays, poetry, plays, and commentary on how bullying has affected their lives.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Skyhorse
• Release date: May 1, 2012
• ISBN: 9781620871713

Book preview

INSTITUTIONS

Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent.

—Isaac Asimov

Family

Unquestioned Traditions

Workplace

Internalized Institutions

Narelle Thomas

(written at age sixteen)

Why Schools Don’t Work

School is not working as it should because in school there is no time to socialize; there are bad attitudes and negative feelings like stress, anger and discomfort. People are taking their lives because of these things. If schools are meant to prepare people while they are young in order to help them to learn and understand things better for when they get older, then the system should be updated as the times and people change.

The school schedule needs to change because many people aren’t learning effectively because of it. There are about seven classes in a row for most schools. It’s not healthy for people to be sitting for that long. Sitting constantly makes some people antsy and tense or lack energy. People don’t usually get a chance to breathe unless it’s time for lunch. At some schools the students don’t even get to go outside in the nice weather. There should be a gym period and a period to go outside so that the students don’t feel as trapped and have more breathing time to catch up with themselves. They would be more relaxed and open to learning.

Classes seem to last for so long and there are a lot of them. There should be less academic periods a day since people learn in different ways and do better when things aren’t so concentrated into so many time slots. That would help with people’s non-caring attitudes and improve the amount of people paying attention and doing homework. There should be physical and mental days where a lot of mental work is best done on mental days and physical on physical days.

There are right-brain and left-brain dominant thinkers, so it is better to accommodate both types to really make sure that no child is left behind. There are two halves to a whole and without both there is corruption, because they are interdependent and neither is more important than the other. The right brain deals with the big picture, while the left brain deals more with a specific piece and separates things. Right-brained people need visuals more and use art-oriented things more. Left-brained people see the things that are in front of them, while right-brain thinkers see possibilities. Right-brain thinkers see more of how things work and process. Left-brain thinkers see strategies and patterns more. Left-brained thinkers like their comfort zones and what they know, while right-brained thinkers tend to like risk-taking more. Activities that should be used are ones that activate and exercise both sides of the brain; things would work out better for everyone. Students should also be taught or shown in at least three different ways for people to understand. Since people learn in different ways students should also be able to listen to their MP3 players as long as it isn’t too loud to disturb anyone and when they aren’t doing group work or have to be listening to the teacher, because oftentimes people like listening to music for a stress reliever.

For students to be more attentive and interactive they have to eat well. Since people have so many allergies a suitable lunch or breakfast should have non-gmo (genetically modified organisms) food, more raw green vegetables, whole grains, fruits and beans and less meat, dairy, starches, sugars and salts. There should be foods that are good for people with diabetes and fruitarians and vegans too. Bad eating habits cause people to be hungrier and sleepier and so, their energy gets depleted because their foods don’t have energy or many nutrients. If a more nutritious breakfast and lunch were served people would feel better, be less hungry throughout the day and there would be less people absent from school because of illnesses.

Certain subjects don’t have the effects on students that they could. People usually learn things better when they feel that they can relate things to themselves or other things that they know or are learning about. The school history books aren’t very inclusive of certain groups of people. It doesn’t include much about Latinos to the point where some ask is there anything about Latinos in the history book? Many important events are missing in the books and aren’t included in the curriculum. Africa shouldn’t only be included for a week during Black History Month, and neither should Latino history only during Hispanic Heritage Month, to name a few. There should be inclusion in the curriculum throughout the year. Students feel their stories are left out of the history books so they don’t connect history to themselves unless they associate it with something portrayed as bad. The people of African descent may feel victimized since one of the most emphasized things in the history books is usually slavery. Students really take things like that in and if people aren’t explained things in detail and clarity they may begin to become ashamed of themselves and find things outside of themselves because they can’t identify with anything positive in a textbook. In English classes there should be more diverse literature besides Greek and Roman. Just because we live in America, it doesn’t mean that writers from different places shouldn’t be in our curriculum because America was built by people from many places and many people continuously come here. Students would learn to appreciate people from many cultures if they were exposed to them. Writings are translated so there shouldn’t be a problem. Youth should also be included in the books too, because students would also appreciate that and it would help them to see that if they work up to it then they could have their work expressed to help other