With the 2018-19 school year getting underway across the region, many students are probably looking forward to spending good times with their friends and colleagues over the coming months.
Whether it's formal school functions such as classroom projects or less formal activities such as field trips, school time can be both rewarding and fulfilling.
Unfortunately, past experience has shown that for some students, schools can sometimes be scary, unpleasant or even dangerous places because of bullying.
And as long as some students are not able to enjoy the full school experience because they are threatened, intimidated or otherwise abused, the entire school community is harmed.
The Chinook’s Edge School Division’s Welcoming, Caring and Respectful, Safe and Inclusive Schools procedure defines bullying as “repeated and hostile or demeaning behaviour by an individual in the school community where the behaviour is intended to cause harm, fear or distress to one or more other individuals in the school community, including psychological harm or harm to an individual’s reputation and is marked by an imbalance of power.”
There are four common types of bullying outlined in the procedure:
- Verbal bullying is repeated name-calling, sarcasm, teasing, spreading rumours, threatening, making reference to one’s culture, ethnicity, race, religion, gender or sexual orientation, unwanted comments.
- Social relational bullying is repeated mobbing, scapegoating, purposely excluding others from a group to cause harm, humiliating others, gestures or graffiti intended to put others down.
- Physical bullying is repeated hitting, poking, pinching, chasing, shoving, coercing, destroying possessions, unwanted sexual touching.
- Cyber bullying is repeated use of the Internet or text messaging to intimidate, put down or spread rumours about someone, including anonymous acts.
Despite the best efforts of many stakeholders over the past number of years, bullying unfortunately remains part of school life for far too many students.
With that in mind, teachers and staff in every CESD school should be encouraged to do all they can to uphold the division’s Welcoming, Caring and Respectful, Safe and Inclusive Schools procedure in 2018-19.
- Singleton is the Mountain View Gazette editor
