Some News about "bullying"

Bullying is the act of intimidating a weaker person to make them do something.

Bully is a person who is habitually cruel or overbearing, especially to smaller or weaker people.


Bullying became a big problem in school and in social.
Here is news that is about bullying.


Saturday, November 10, 2007
Schools take bullying seriously
Prevention is the key at middle-school level


Everyone likes a laugh -- no one more, perhaps, than children.
Too often, though, the joke comes at someone else's expense.
"Most of the time when it happens, people just laugh," said Pricilla Lara, an eighth-grader at West Middle School in Holland. "It's really funny until it happens to you, then it hurts," said Laura Zavala, also an eighth-grader at West.

Bullying is a problem for middle school-aged children as well as the upper grades -- and some area schools believe prevention is the solution.
Holland Public Schools started a committee this spring to brainstorm ways to prevent bullying after 8-year-old student Nate Harder was beaten up on a school bus and walked home with a bloody nose.

David Laman, a Holland school board member, leads the committee. Laman, a professional child psychologist who works at the firm Developmental Enhancement in Jenison, says that the topic isn't discussed often enough.

"We need to send a clear message: This is what you do when someone is bullying you," he said. "Historically, we haven't said as much about it as we could. We need to get out there and talk about it."

Holland's West Middle School will kick off Bully Awareness Week Monday, listening to officials speak about the need for respecting each other. The event was organized by West counselor Robert Medellin, who says "an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure."
"This is my ounce of prevention," Medellin said. Students will hear motivational speakers Rob Holladay and Rachel Simmons speak about how to avoid bullying.

Earlier in the month, students listened to 16-year-old rapper Jonathan "Baby Jay" Gutierrez with the anti-bullying group Operation Respect sing and talk about respecting others.
Tylor Wierzbowski, a sixth-grader at Harbor Lights Middle School, could use a few friends. Wierzbowski has started faking sick, hoping to skip school.

"I like school," he said. "I just don't like the bullies. They just pick on me and hurt my feelings."
Wierzbowski's complaints are familiar to his mother, Rinda Glass, who was mocked in school because of the shape of her face. "I was teased in school, because I had a birth defect," she said. "It's a tear-down -- and it affects people later in life."

West Ottawa Public Schools started a school-wide positive behavior support system this year.
"We've defined lessons for all of our schools and are teaching those lessons," said Cindy Dymowski, assistant superintendent for student services.

But when bullying occurs, teachers may not immediately know how to react. For that reason, some teachers at Zeeland Public Schools have a short 15-second speech printed on the reverse side of their school name tags.

I think this is a good information about the bully.