Bullying                 Jad Darwish '9A'

“You should never make fun of something that a person can't change about themselves.”  This quote asserts that people are born as they are, and they can’t change their physical appeal or become normal if they’re disabled so they shouldn’t be bullied for anything they were given. Bullying is a major disaster that is spread all around the world. There are various physical and social causes for bullying that lead to devastating psychological and academic effects on the student.

          To begin with, the physical appearance is the main instigator of bullying which has a myriad effect on the people like having suicidal thoughts and struggling in social life. Statistics have shown that 44.4 percent of severely obese children experienced name-calling, 21 percent of severely obese children experienced physical victimization, and 18.5 percent of severely obese children were excluded from group activities. Compared to normal weight people being bullied in the same way, these statistics are almost four times the other statistics for them ranging from 5 to 10 percent only per category. In addition, the physically disabled, due to being bullied, commit suicide. Some people do not consider marrying a physically disabled due them have the thought that they might have a limited social circle since they think that their only friends and mates would then be limited to the physically disabled. In addition, many people don’t encourage two disabled people to get married because they will need more in common and not only being disabled such as common beliefs, personality, mutual attraction, and hobbies. In short, normal people are the ones choosing the lives of obese and disabled people and not giving them the chance to do so.

          Moreover, social distinctions, if pointed out in a disdainful manner, can lead to a deterioration in the student’s academic results. According to StopBullying.gov, a website managed by the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services, nearly 50% of students in grades 4 through 12 experienced bullyings within a given month and more than 70% of students admit to having seen bullying occur in their school. According to the UCLA study, Jaana Juvonen, a professor of psychology at UCLA and lead author of the study, bullying and low academic achievement are frequently linked. An estimated 160,000 children miss school on any given day due to fear of bullying by other students. Every day, more than 280,000 students are physically attacked in schools and one out of ten students who drop out of school mentions repeated bullying as a factor. Moreover, being poor in an area with the elite people is another effect. Poor children were significantly more likely to report being bullied across all types in India and by some types in Viet Nam. In India, poorer children were 12 percentage points more likely to be physically bullied and 19 percentage points more likely to be verbally bullied than the least poor children. In the qualitative interviews, children described verbal bullying that made direct reference to their impoverished circumstances, whether through name-calling and insults such as “child of a destitute” or through making fun of the poor quality of their clothing or their lack of shoes.  12-year-old Kebenga, living in rural Oromia, Ethiopia, described being absent from school for three days because of not having clothes after having been insulted by peers previously. In short, bullying should be marked in red as a serious issue that should be solved.

          In conclusion, Bullying is a current viral issue, resulting from various physical and social factors which lead to a myriad of psychological and academic drawbacks. “Could a scar be like the rings of a tree, reopened with each emotional season?”