News Article 1

Get real on bullying
Section:
Review
Publication:
The Straits Times 24/01/2008
Page:
28
No. of words:
436
BULLYING among schoolchildren here is an affliction that has to be understood and controlled or it can get horribly out of hand. One study of 4,000 students cited in Parliament this week by Dr Lily Neo, MP for Jalan Besar GRC, claimed an astounding 95 per cent rate. The Education Ministry found in reported cases last year an incidence of 3.7 per cent per 1,000 pupils. The Health Promotion Board put the figure at between 21 and 32 per cent. The vast statistical differences hint at imprecise understanding of what bullying behaviour is or should be. Still, the pathology looks serious. To victims, being subjected to taunts constantly is a living hell. The authorities, school volunteers, parents and students themselves first need to agree on where they consider the line to have been crossed – perhaps when behaviour causes a person physical, psychological and emotional distress. Studies elsewhere have pointed to fairly common causes – lack of social skills, envy and resentment, short temper, addiction to aggressive conduct, and preservation of self-image. Adolescent gangs often resort to bullying in schools. Bullying may have particular cultural roots, as in Japan. It results from intolerance of differences in a largely homogeneous society. Not fitting in could even be fatal; shame from ijime (bullying) is one reason youth suicide is a social phenomenon. A Japanese government survey found 125,000 reported school bullying cases a year. Other Asian countries share the Japanese drive to do well in school and career, often leading to the "exam hell" stress that drives students to aberrant behaviour. Working parents with little time for child-rearing risk discovering their latchkey kids have become bullies or victims of bullies. Conversely, mollycoddling could turn children into spoilt bullies if they do not get their way in school as they are used to at home. Excessive enforcement of strict school rules could provoke a bullying backlash among rebellious teenagers.Singapore students presumably face a few of these risks. Some have turned to help hotlines to cope with their stress. New cases include cyber-bullying – harassment by electronic means, including blogging, anonymous e-mail and digital video. The clip that Dr Neo said she saw was a particularly vicious combination of conventional bullying and cyber-bullying. Recording and uploading the clip on the Internet, the perpetrators extended the victim's humiliation. This phenomenon called "happy slapping" – which, despite its name, includes molestation and rape as well as violent physical assault – is spreading fast and wide. Even as they get to grips with bullying, schools and parents have to be vigilant against its new and more virulent mutations