I was disturbed that many in the media portrayed the bullied boy, Casey, as a hero for fighting back. A Current Affair noted that he had "finally stood up for himself," as though up until then he'd been somehow morally weak and that the only true way to stand up for yourself is to use physical force.
I empathise with the boy who had been bullied, victimised and assaulted repeatedly before retaliating. But I think if we want to use the word "hero," we should look at the girl at the end of the video.
After the assaults, a friend of the bully comes forward to retaliate against the assault on the bully. The girl walks over and stands between them and assertively tells the bully's friend to back off.
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One of the things that alarmed me in that video was the number of bystanders doing nothing or, worse still, filming the violence. The standard we walk past is the standard we set.
That girl was amazing. The fact that she came forward to stop the violence, in a nonviolent way, is to be celebrated and encouraged in all schools.
Teachers are of course responsible for doing everything they can to stop bullying. But the reality is that in 85% of cases, bullying takes place when there are no adults around. That's why it is so important to create a school culture in which bullying is not tolerated and bystanders are encouraged to step up and say: "It's not on!"
Get real about bullying:
Even today there are still some people who think bullying is just harmless name-calling. Bullying takes numerous serious forms:
• Verbal-name calling, teasing, verbal abuse, humiliation, sarcasm, insults, threats;
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• Physical-punching, kicking, scratching, tripping, spitting;
• Social-ignoring, excluding, alienating, making inappropriate gestures; and
• Psychological-spreading rumours, glaring, hiding or damaging possessions, malicious texts, email messages, twitter or Facebook comments, inappropriate use of camera phones.
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