Bullying: a tradition and a cycle in education world

A few years ago we were much surprised by the news that occured about the violence committed by students. A IPDN student killed by torture that have done by the seniors who performed on the basis of 'development' and 'correction' of mistakes made by the student. Still attached in memory how Cliff Muntu a IPDN student who allegedly died due to persecution by his seniors at IPDN. Cliff Muntu just one of many cases of bullying which can raised to the public. Based on the research by IPDN lecture, there are more than 30 cases of suspected unnatural death caused by persecution. The cases occurred in the long span of time, and is alleged to have become a tradition at the institute. not only that, the violence in the MOS or better known as the orientation period students often occur. According to the Secretary of the Indonesian Child Protection Commission that the violence perpetrated by the senior to the new students tend to increase. In 2007 recorded 55 cases of violence, whereas in 2008 there were as many as 86 cases. Certainly not without reason that the older class act tough against a new student. Usually the rough action was triggered by a mistake made ​​by new students. Moreover, it can tiggered by pent-up anger that when the person is still become new student or a younger class.

Then, What bullying is ?

Bullying is an aggressive behavior is repeated by one / group of students who have power, to other students who weaker, with the aim of hurting the person. Bullying occurs when a person feels persecuted, frightened, intimidated, by the actions of a person either verbally, physically or mentally. They feared that such behavior will occur again, and they felt helpless to prevent it. (Andrew Mellor, antibullying network, Univ. of Edinburgh, Scotland).
Usually the act of coercion or harm occurred in a group, such group of students at the school. It could be the shape is the act of hitting, pushing, taunting, threatening, seize money, harassing, dub, terrorize, slandered, spreading rumors, discriminate, etc. Today, the bullying not only be done in person, but can via e-mail, chat, internet which contains messages that offend other people.

Kind of bullying:   

• direct physical contact (hitting, pushing, biting, pulling, kicking, locking someone in the room, pinching, scratching, also including blackmail and destroy the goods owned by others)
• direct verbal contact (threatening, humiliating, degrading, disrupting, give a call name (name-calling), sarcasm, condescending (put-downs), criticizing / mocking, intimidating, swearing, spreading gossip)
• direct non-verbal behavior (see the cynical, stuck out his tongue, showing facial expressions are condescending, mocking, or threatening; usually followed by physical or verbal bullying).
• undirect non-verbal behavior  (one's silence, manipulating friendships that become cracked, deliberately exclude or ignore, sending anonymous letters.)
• Sexual harassment (sometimes categorized the behavior of physical aggression or verbal)

Why someone do bullying??

As has happened in the case of IPDN and some other cases, bullying is a cycle,actually someone who do bullying is a victim of bullying before. As a victim, they form a wrong thingking that bullying can be 'justified' even though they feel the negative impact as a victim. So, why them just silent and not talk to the other ???. One of the reason could be parsed from the results of the survey: most victims are not want to tell their experiences to the parties that have the power to change their mindset and stop this cycle,like the school and parents. Victims usually keep silent when bullying occured because of they scared will get more intensif bullying. As a result, victims further can absorb the 'philosophy' bullying obtained from seniors. victims have the perception that the doers do the bullying because:

• Tradition

• Revenge because he used to be treated equally (according to male victims)

• Want to show power

• Angry because the victim did not behave as expected

• Gain satisfaction (according to the female victim)

• Envy (according to the female victim)

The victim also perceive themselves to be victims of bullying because

• Striking appearance

• Not to behave in accordance

• Behavior is considered impolite

• Tradition

What the effects of bullying?

One of the effects of bullying are most obvious is physical health. Some physical effects which are usually caused by bullying are headache, sore throat, bruise, chapped lips, and chest pain. Than, in extreme cases like the incident that occurred at IPDN, these physical effects can lead to death.

Other impacts are less visible, but long-term effect is the decrease in psychological and bad social adjustment. When subjected to bullying, victims feel a lot of negative emotions (anger, revenge, angry, depressed, scared, ashamed, sad, uncomfortable, threatened) but are powerless to deal. In the long term these emotions can lead to the emergence feelings of inferiority that them is not valuable.

Difficulty adjusting to the social environment also appears on the victims. They want to move to another school or out of school, and even if they are still in school, they are usually distracted academic achievement or often deliberately absent from school.

The most extreme of the psychological impact is possibility arrise some disorder psychological that occurred to the victims, such as excessive anxiety, always feel scared, depressed, suicidal, and symptoms of post-traumatic stress. From the information above, we can see how bullying can give bad effects to educational world especially for the students.

How to prevent and solve bullying??

All people can become victims or even become perpetrators of bullying. Comprehensive policy is needed, involving the entire school from teachers, students, principals to parents, whose goal was to bring all components of the school was about the hidden dangers of these bullying behaviors.

The policy can be either anti-bullying programs in schools, among others, by way of intensified supervision, understanding the consequences and effective communication can be performed among others with campaigns Stop Bullying in the school environment with banner, slogans, stickers and stop bulying themed workshops. All this was aimed at least to minimize or even eliminate altogether bullying behavior in school.

Expected by the school's policy is no longer a scary place and make the trauma but rather serve as a safe and fun for students, stimulate the desire to learn, socialize and develop all potential students' academic, social or emotional. Schools can be the safest place for children and teachers to learn and teach as well and make an independent learner, knowledge, achievement and morality.

Beside that to prevent and suppress acts of bullying in schools, there are few efforts that can be done by the school, particularly in primary schools as the first formal educational environment for children. So far, most teachers do not pay attention to what goes on between students. It is important that teachers have the knowledge and skills about prevention and how to overcome bullying. Schools should support groups for events attended by all students. Furthermore, schools provide access to a complaint or a forum for dialogue between students and schools, or parents and schools, and build the school rules and clear sanctions against acts of bullying.