Bullying Takes Center Stage

By Denise Ronaldo
From the September 2011 Issue Choice Magazine

“I got dumped by this group of popular girls. They didn’t think I was cool or pretty enough, so they
stopped talking to me.”

Sadly it’s a common story: A middle school student is mocked and excluded by her classmates.
They’re mean on purpose; they want her to feel terrible. And they act this way again and again.

“I’d sit in school hearing people saying, ‘This party we’re going to is going to be awesome, and
everyone is invited—except her,’” the same person recalls.

What would you call this kind of treatment? If you said, “bullying,” you’re right. According to experts
who study it, bullying is aggressive behavior that is intended to harm, usually takes place
repeatedly, and involves an imbalance of power. Bullying takes three basic forms:

 Verbal: teasing and name-calling (online, texting, or face-to-face)

 Social: spreading rumors, excluding people on purpose, breaking up friendships (online,
texting, or face-to-face)
 Physical: hitting, shoving, spitting
The girl who was tormented by her peers was a victim of social bullying. How did she handle it?
She poured her feelings into lyrics. “The whole reason I started writing songs was because I was
alone a lot of the time,” she says.

This girl, in case you haven’t put it together, is country music megastar Taylor Swift. The 21-year-
old singer-songwriter talked on the Ellen DeGeneres Show and to Teen Vogue about the bullying
she suffered in school—before her music career took off.

Battling Bullying
Swift’s revelation that she had been bullied—and her hit song “Mean,” which is a kind of
antibullying anthem—is part of a nationwide move toward recognizing and combating bullying.
Other celebrities, including actress Jessica Alba and pop icon Justin Timberlake, have also come
forward with stories. Alba has talked about being harassed by classmates: “My dad used to have
to walk me into school so that I wasn’t attacked,” she tells Cosmopolitan. “I’d eat my lunch in the
nurse’s office to avoid sitting with the others. I’d get beaten up and picked on for being different.”
Even the White House is getting involved. Last March, President Barack Obama held a
conference on bullying, where he cited grim statistics—“a third of middle and high school students
have reported being bullied during the school year,” he said. Obama also called on adults to take
bullying seriously:

“We’ve got to make sure our young people know that if they’re in trouble, there are caring adults
who can help and young adults who can help; that even if they’re having a tough time, they’re
going to get through it, and there’s a whole world full of possibility waiting for them.”

Obama noted that he, himself, had been made fun of as a kid: “I have to say, with big ears and
the name that I have, I wasn’t immune.”

Embrace a Passion
Bullying can cause lasting harm, says Susan Swearer, associate professor of psychology at the
University of Nebraska and a bullying expert who helps schools set up antibullying programs. “We
know that it increases kids’ feelings of anxiety and depression and really becomes intolerable if
left untreated,” she says. In extreme cases, victims of bullying can become so despondent and
hopeless that they commit suicide.

What should you do if you’re bullied? Try focusing on your own interests and strengths. Swift
channeled her despair into songwriting. “I’d sit there and say, ‘This is OK because I can write a
song about this later.’ Here I am at 20, and I’m still saying that when I go through tough times,”
Swift, now 21, told Ellen DeGeneres last year.

If you have an activity that you feel passionate about—whether it’s volleyball, gospel choir, or
poetry writing—bullying may feel less overwhelming. “It can take on a different meaning because
you know there are other aspects of your life,” says Swearer, who was part of President Obama’s
bullying conference. This kind of approach also helped Alba, who threw herself into acting classes
to combat the trauma of being bullied: “The idea that for an hour I could be someone different was
amazing,” she says. “I was determined that this was something I was going to be good at. This
was a part of my life no bully could ruin.”

Ask for Help

But at the same time, Swearer adds, kids shouldn’t have to handle bullying alone, and “having an
interest doesn’t inoculate you against the pain of bullying.”
“Nobody deserves to be bullied,” says Julie Herzog, director of PACER’s National Bullying
Prevention Center in Minneapolis, Minnesota. “If you are being bullied, reach out to an adult for
help.”

Who is the right adult? Only you can decide that. “A school guidance counselor or nurse is a good
place to start,” says Herzog. If you don’t get what you need from the first adult you ask, keep
trying—you will find the right person. “One of the benefits to bullying getting so much recognition
is that schools, parents, and adults in general are getting more tools for responding more
effectively,” Swearer says. Every bullying situation is different, and your adult adviser will help you
decide exactly how to handle yours. But the general advice is usually:

 Speak up and tell the bully to stop.

 Then walk away. The bully gains power when you engage with him or her.
 Protect yourself. Do what you need to do to keep yourself safe.
Do the Right Thing
What can you do to stop bullying in your school? If you’re not a bully and you’re not a victim, you
have more power than you may think. Often, bullies behave the way they do to impress onlookers.
In fact, a recent study of middle school students conducted by researchers at the University of
California-Davis found that many bullies are kids who are reasonably popular—but they want to
become more popular. They bully to try to impress others. “Most kids who witness this either give
it tacit approval or outright encouragement,” study author Robert Faris told Time magazine.
“Those are the ones who give bullies their status.”

When you witness bullying, make it clear that you’re not impressed. Your simple refusal to react
can be a strike against bullying. If you feel you have it in you, take it a step further. “It’s hard for
an individual to stand up alone and say, ‘That’s wrong,’” says Swearer. “So find an ally—someone
who feels the way you do—then talk to the bully together and say, ‘Hey, that is really not OK.’” If
confronting the bully seems impossible, show the victim some compassion. “People who are
bullied feel that nobody cares,” says Herzog. “Reach out and say, ‘I saw what happened and I
think it was wrong.’ That can have a big impact.”

At the most basic level, the solution to bullying is simple. As President Obama said at the White
House conference on bullying, it all starts with the Golden Rule: “We should treat others the way
we want to be treated.”
The Importance of Sports and Play to Society
By Cedric Harris
Dominica News Online – Sunday 4th December 2016

About two years ago I published in your newspaper an article titled, “Let’s Take Sports Higher
and Create a Positive Vision for Our Young Athletes”. In that article I highlighted why sports is
important by stating the objectives of sports participation.

This time I want to share with your readers what I see as the purpose of sports and play from my
perspective as a physical educator for close to 20 years and my training in the field of Sports
Science.

I begin by asking these questions: What is the true purpose of sports and play? What constitutes
the essential core of these activities? How does sports and play serve humanity and societies
around the world?

I believe there are five dimensions to the purpose of sports and play. These are:

* building relationships

* education

* social change

* health

* joy

Being involved and around sports, practically all of my life, has empowered me with a better
perspective of the power and contributions of sports and play in our society. Sports and play
present limitless educational and learning opportunities through encouragement to develop skill
and personal qualities. It has been proven that athletes who learn how to perform better also learn
how to be better teammates. In addition, coaches and sports administrators should also
constantly learn, grow, and engage in educational processes with athletes and peers. Through
self-reflection sports administrators should strive to grow their teams and organizations. I believe
that all stakeholders should see sports and play education as playing a paramount role in national
development.
My formal training in the area of Sports Science and involvement in sports as a player, practitioner,
and physical educator have allowed me to see the direct power sports in action has on social
change and in the lives of many. As an active coach for over two decades, I have closely
witnessed the positive impact that sports participation has brought to many. Since “Sport” is a
synonym for “play”, why not recognize, respect, and invest in healthy leisure activity?

In Dominica we should aim to create a better and healthier society by putting sport and play on
our priority list. This can be done by strengthening sporting programs at schools and local sporting
clubs.

As most of us recognize, education is the key for the world’s long term progress. However,
learning should not only take place in the classroom. Currently, children and adolescents in
developing countries have too much leisure time, and some do not attend school. Many come
from broken families, join gangs or participate in illegal activities because of lack of direction.
Children and teens who seem abandoned by the formal education systems can be sheltered from
the many perils that abound in their communities by the implementation of “Sports for
Development” programs.

The impact of sports in society is not only measured by TV ratings or stadium attendance but also
by the positive ways it impacts lives. In 2003, the UN defined sport, for the purpose of
development, as “all forms of physical activity that contribute to physical fitness, mental well-being
and social interaction, such as play, recreation, organized or competitive sport, and indigenous
sports and games”.

Since “sport” is a synonym for “play”, why not recognize, respect and invest in healthy leisure
activities? The implementation of sports programs can be easy and cheap, and, if developed well,
can become a low cost, high social benefit venture. In order to achieve this, investment should
not only be focused on building new infrastructure but also in helping in strengthening existing
sporting structures. The amount of money and effort dispensed should be driven by the need to
create effective programs that give priority to developmental objectives and are designed to be
inclusive, enable sports to be a means for educating youth.

‘Sports for Development’ programs can become powerful tools for development and learning.
They promote participation, inclusion, human values, acceptance of rules, discipline, health
promotion, non-violence, tolerance, gender equality, and teamwork, among other things. All of
the aforementioned problems are visible in the poor communities of developing countries. These
issues can be dealt with by adopting programs that directly address them as part of their routine.

I encourage countries to look at sports through a different angle. Sports are an effective instrument
that can help improve the quality and development of our children, families and countries in
general. Each country will need to tailor its programs in order to focus on its particular problems
and obtain the results it seeks. The results will be observed in the long term. They will not
necessarily consist of an individual standing on podium receiving a medal, but an entire
generation of good citizens, prepared with the necessary competencies to face their country’s
present and future challenges.

In our country, Dominica, the government should use sports as a mechanism to: encourage young
people to become involved in healthy social activities; promote health; foster the educational
progress and personal development of athletes and sports players of all ages; achieve prestige
nationally and internationally; highlight the concepts of excellence and fair play.

Government is important to sport because it can:

* finance sport and provide facilities and services

* train sport leaders, coaches and teachers

* help organize competitions, courses, fund raising

* help promote sport and healthy lifestyles through the media; and

* develop school sport programs.

Governments should often play a key role in the development of sport, requiring good cooperation
between public authorities and sports organization. A healthy relationship between government
and sport organizations include:

* frequent communication between officials

* mutual respect

* cooperation

* clarification of roles and responsibilities of each in the development of sport; and

* financial support from government

In closing, I advocate adoption of a ‘sports for all’ policy in Dominica. Statistics indicate prevalence
and increasing incidence of chronic non-communicable diseases (NCD) in Dominica in the last
decade. This, I believe is the result of the change in life styles which include very little “sports and
play” in our society. Increased national awareness of the benefits of ‘sport and play’ and increased
easily accessed programs focusing on ‘sport and play’ will result in improved health and education
for a great proportion of the population.
Attachment
References

Harris, C. (2016, December 4). The Importance of Sports and Play to Society. Dominica News
Online.

Rinaldo, D. (September 2011). Bullying Takes Center Stage. In Choices (pp. 35-34). New York:
Scholastic.