Can Education Bring Peace? The question almost sounds leading. If education cannot bring peace then what can? As a child I was bullied in elementary and middle school. The experience of being bullied was traumatic to my childhood. I was constantly made fun of because of my size, height, and skin completion. I spent elementary through middle school years in Far Rockaway, New York. I lived in a highly populated immigrant community. Majority of my classmates were from mostly Latino, Caribbean, Asian families. However, the American born students were few. Despite the racial mixes within my student body I was a victim of racial bullying because my skin color was darker than most. Patricia Crisswell’s gives meaningful advice on combating bullying in her article “Bullying: The advice you got is wrong. Here’s what really works.” I agree with Crisswell’s approach of empowering our children through building their confidence. She phrases it best when she says, “If we empower our children to stand up for themselves-and their friends-they’re less likely to be victims and more likely to maintain a balance of power, allowing their confidence to grow.” Luckily, I had parents who empowered me and helped me realize the smart and beautiful individual that I am. However, my school administrators failed in trying to address the problem. If our schools today can advocate Peace it will eliminate bullying in the schools where the root of the problem lies.
Thank you for sharing this, Kareen.
Mimi
I agree, Kareen. I think that Criswell makes an excellent point in saying that children need a sense of empowerment. The other part of Criswell’s article that struck me was that our educational systems have been putting efforts to eliminate, or decrease, bullying in our educational system. However, what we have done so far clearly does not seem to be working. I think that while our children need to, as you’ve said, learn to build confidence, I also feel that in order for bullying to become less prevalent the adult population must be educated in effective ways to manage bullying that occurs. Amanda Paulson mentions this in her article. She points out a “study found that when young people victimized by moderate-to-severe bullying reported the incidents, the situation improved just a third of the time.” This statistic hit me by surprise. The children who are willing to take action and report acts of bullying are unable to see much of an improvement because of the response to bullying.
Dealing with bullying needs to change, both in educating children to have a sense of empowerment but also in educating our adults in effective ways to deal with the discontinuation of ongoing acts of bullying.