This essay paper will be analyzing two cases that have happened in my school. The first case is physical bullying and the other one is drug problems. In most schools, the cases of bullying and the use of drugs are very common. These are among other factors that prevent students from achieving their goals and objectives in schools.
First case of physical bullying
Just like many schools, in my school there is that culture of bullying the new and the junior students. In the last few months, there is young man who joined the school as a new student. As usual other students who are expert bullies, made some physical harassment to the young man. Unfortunately, one of the bullies used a hard object to hurt the young man and landed on the victim’s leg.
The young man was seriously hurt to the extent that he could not walk by his own. The school rushed him to a healthy facility, while some staff concentrated on looking for those bullies for a questioning session. The healthy facility decided to amputate the leg as it had some serious injuries. After the administration proved that the bullies were behind those serious injuries, the three of them received a strict punishment of expulsion.
Second case of drug abuse
The second case is about drug problems in our school. This has been a major problem in several schools. In our school, there were incidences drug abusers caused severally. However, there was a time when some students who later proved to have taken some drugs, caused chaotic disturbances that disrupted the whole learning in the school.
These students were shouting, to an extent that the learning process was stopped to allow for investigations. These two students claimed to be doing some refreshments but they were shouting at the top of their voices. At first, the management thought that, these two students were insane and the first actions were to take them to a healthy facility.
However, everyone was questioning him or herself of how two fellows could suddenly become insane at the same time. At the healthy facility, several tests were done, and proved that the shouting were as an impact of drug abuse. The healthy facility workers tried to reduce the effects of the drugs by giving them some prescriptions, as they awaited some counseling.
After few months of counseling, the school and the security personnel interrogated the two young men to reveal the sellers and the sources of the drugs. The school managed to determine the sellers and to put some restrictions to avoid more entry of these drugs.
Problems and issues behind physical bullying
Physical bullying is the worst form of bullying in schools. It is considered as the most threatening as it may lead to death for the victim. There are several cases where some physical injuries have cost the victims life. Most of the cases, victims try to assume the first attempt of the bullies, while the continued attempts scares the victim and he or she tries to take some actions (Nofziger, 2001).
If the victim becomes reluctant to enduring any other attack from the bullies, there becomes a likelihood of some actions against the bullies. If the victim decides to endure it becomes a routine for the bullies to be attacking him or her daily, and may lead to some serious injuries.
The victims, who have become victim severally, suffer both physically and mentally. The mental aspect occurs because of the fact that the victim was unable to defend himself or herself, and the feeling of being powerless affects the victim mentally.
Physical bullying in schools starts as something very mild, such that it may become hard for the victim to differentiate it from a normal conflict. For a student to determine the physical bullying, he or she should watch the behaviors of the bullies and see whether they are exceeding the bounds.
For instance, doing something to hurt the victim or to annoy him or her, and the bully does the same behavior regularly for a significant long time (Kevorkian & DAntona, 2008).
For the bullies they even to take control over the lives of their victims, after hurting them they tend to have the power and authority on the next step to take. Bullies can also be determined through their rough actions and they do not apologize, after harming their victims. Physical bullying involves, hitting, slapping, kicking, and even pinching among others.
Parents and teachers have been wondering where the causes of these bullying behaviors could be. There are possible reasons that may lead to a child becoming a bully in future, and the parents and the teachers should be very keen on them. To begin with, the home atmosphere where the child comes from may be a great factor, if it is unfavorable and uncomfortable for him.
For instance, in cases where the parent abuse and fight with one another while the children are watching. As the children are growing, they tend to copy the habits of their parents or that of their guardians. Such violent actions are a bad show to the growing children.
The school is another factor, especially where the bullies’ acts are not punished according to their bad behaviors. Schools should take strict actions against bullies as they distract the learning atmosphere (Espelage & Swearer, 2004). Lack of strict punishment of bullies may lead to the behaviors increasing within the school.
The peer group effects may be another factor, where a child learns some violent behaviors from her or his peer groups. It is the duty of the parent to interrogate the friends of their children and advise them accordingly. If parents discover that their children are getting involved with bad groups, they should take a quick step of talking with their children.
Moreover, availability of weapons is another factor that may lead to a child becoming a violent bully. When weapons readily available to a child, he or she finds it easy to acquire them and make use of them. Children acquire these weapons illegally and use them to hurt or even kill their victims (Omoore & Minton, 2004).
The school guards have also a duty in preventing bullies in school. Regular supervision of the students’ lockers and bags is a very essential exercise that security guards would act on, and if they happen to find anything wrong, the school authority is supposed to take the right step.
As the children grow, proper support and advice is necessary to them especially when they are undergoing some stressing moments. Constant stress may result to a violent child in future if not handled carefully. The best time a parent can remove the violent attitude from the child is when they are about to join the school.
If parent fail at this stage, it can be a challenge later in life when trying to control the behavior of such a kid. Tender love and care can help greatly the parent to control such an attitude from the children.
Problems and issues behind drug abuse
The issue of drugs has become so common in schools, especially the middle and the high schools. Drugs should not have a place in the society. The students who are drug users show some signs like weak performances in school, because of their irresponsible behaviors of failing to attend classes and not doing their assignments. The statistics show that the percentage of the students who are drug users is increasing day by day.
In schools, it becomes hard for the parents or teachers to determine the students who are taking drugs. Sometimes, the drug users show some signs that are unusual like having blood shot eyes or bearing some marks on their necks (Sussman & Ames, 2008).
A child may keep on complaining on experiencing some serious headaches, and most of the time feeling disoriented. The behavior of tying belts or scarves on furniture in form of a knot is also associated with drug users.
Students give reasons of taking drugs but they forget the long-term consequences of taking those drugs. They take to solve the short-term problems but there are left to bear the long-term major problems.
There is a study that showed that 90% of the teenagers confessed that they have taken alcohol, 50% confessed to have used marijuana, and the rest to use cocaine and other hallucinogen drugs. In the United States, more than 100000 deaths are because of drug uses, through suicides, road accidents, violent offences, and industrial deaths (Karch, 2007).
Some students have been giving reasons why they take drugs such as peer pressure where everyone is taking as the coolest thing to do. Some students think that taking drugs will solve their school related stress.
Students face the challenge of feeling shy or having a low self-esteem, and some think that taking drugs would help to compensate these feelings. If a student fails to accomplish his or her goals in school, fail in a relationship, or fails to satisfy himself or herself, he or she will turn to drugs to act as substitute for all those shortcomings.
Drugs are poisonous depending on the amount the user is taking. A student may take a small amount of drug to act as a stimulant, but this may become as a daily routine. Daily drug abuse makes the student to become addicted and starts taking it in greater amounts hence suppressing his or her activities.
Some even forget the repercussions and start taking it in very large amounts due to addiction, and they end up dying or behaving like insane people in school. Some students have dropped out school due to health problems caused by use of drugs.
Drugs affect the normal functioning of the brain, and affects important body organs like the liver. When such body organs are affected and cannot function properly it can be hard for any person to undertake his or her normal life activities.
Apart from the several reasons that students give as the reasons why they take drugs, it is also a duty of the parents to monitor the behavior of their children. Some children learn this behavior of taking drugs and alcohol from their parents, and hence the parents should be a role model to their children (Richard, 2010). Some children turn to drugs and alcohol as away of solving challenges they face in life.
Parents and teachers should intervene and help them to solve these challenges. If these children may receive some help to solve, their challenges through counseling, showing them love and care, it would be hard for them to turn to drugs.
Parents should as well watch the peer groups of their children, if the children are involved with bad groups that are abusing drugs, parent should take a step of advising their children. If a teacher or a parent discovers that a child is abusing some drugs, it can never be late for that child to start receiving counseling and quit from that habit. Severally, drug addicts have been contracting serious diseases by sharing the needles.
Due to constant use of drugs, their minds do not function properly, to an extent of not realizing the dangers of sharing the needles.
Handling of the physical bullying case
In the first case, the three bullies who were concerned in the case received a punishment of expulsion from the school, but that was not an equal punishment depending on what they did to their victim. Having these three, bullies caught did not imply that the rest of the students in school were innocent. There were also some other bullies, the only difference being that they were not caught.
Some better actions of even involving the school security team to handle the case was better, considering the other student was in hospital after sustaining serious injuries. To the rest of the students some measures were supposed to be taken to avoid such a serious case to occur again in the future.
The school could have involved some trained volunteers to ensure that the school is under keen supervision by adults. These trained personnel would specialize with the high-risk areas where bullies like hiding as they attack their victims, and this would have greatly reduced the effects of physical bullying (Carpenter & Ferguson, 2009).
In cafeterias and other social places, they should be designed in such a way that the children of the same age share the seats without letting the seniors mix with the juniors. Seniors and juniors should only interact with the presence of an adult supervisor.
Other ways of reducing physical bullying in schools is engaging the students in several activities that will involve everyone when they are about to go for recess, as this is the time most of the bullies take advantage. When the students are travelling in the same bus, some seating arrangements should be done such that, the high school students, the elementary students, and those of the middle school seats separately.
The school should also make an extra effort of specifying the behaviors that are expected, and the rues and regulations to be adhered to especially the high-risk areas. With all these measures taken into actions, all the bullies in the school would start changing and respecting the juniors.
Bullying whether physical or emotional should not exist any where in the society. The bullied children, who have become victims severally, lack appropriate time to recover from the previous attacks, and this affects their performance greatly. The victims sometimes find themselves making destructive choices, which lead them to more problems. Sometimes they decide not to go to school again, and pretend to be always sick.
For those who will try to attend the school, mostly they will skip some lessons and hide somewhere, which is a risk of some other problems (Rigby, 2002). The way the school decides to deal with the bullies should be a lesson to the rest, such that any student would fear to be involved in such a case. No such a case should go unpunished, as this would increase such cases in schools.
Handling of drug abuse case
In the second case, there was application of justice by involving the guiding and counseling team, and the security team to take actions. However, some issues also needed regular attention to make the habit die completely in the school. The places that can help in solving these drug-abusing problems include homes, in youth social meeting, and in learning institutions (Karch, 2007).
Starting with the parents at home, children should be enlightened with the dangers involved by taking drugs. Seminars and literature to enlighten these children should be encouraged by parents and ensure that their children attend.
Youth are very fond of watching movies, and the parent should take this opportunity of buying movies that are discouraging use of drugs for their children to watch. Schools should also invest in training some special people to be handling such cases, as they teach the students the dangers of getting involved in drugs.
Recovering from drug addiction counseling should be a continuous process, but not a matter of months; patience and the commitment of the victim and the counselor are expected. A lifetime process requires the victim’s commitment and patience (Abadinsky, 2007).
The students were supposed to go through the counseling process together with others who would also be addicted for a long period to ensure that the habit is forgotten.
The two students who were abusing the drugs were a good sign of many more that were also making use of harmful drugs. Relying on catching the students who are abusing drugs may not solve the problem fully, as some will never be caught until they die of excessive use of drugs.
It was the responsibility of the school to take some steps of introducing some sources of discouraging the use of drugs through some trained personnel. Thorough check up of the students’ bags and lockers should be a regular exercise in effort of trying to determine the type of drugs that the students were using.
There are people who also act as suppliers of these drugs to students, either inside or outside the school compound. The strictest punishment should be obvious to the sellers of these drugs, as they are the ones who encourage these students to buy the drugs.
All in all the young students who commit the criminal offences of bullying or abusing drugs should be taken to the juvenile detention centers for their behaviors to be rectified at the right time. A child may continue committing more and more serious crimes until he or she start committing series of them.
Through the juvenile Delinquency Rehabilitation, there are programs that help these young people to stop committing crimes. These programs involve mostly discouraging the use of drugs or create a therapeutic assistance for families to use.
At times, a child may be suffering from psychological problems that may be causing him or her to commit some crimes, and this type of a problem can be detected through these programs (Richard, 2010). Many young people have reformed through the juvenile delinquency programs because of dealing with experts who have experiences in such cases.
For any form of a crime committed by the young people, it becomes the responsibility of the parents, teachers, and the guardian to act. If they observe any queer behavior from these youngsters, they should take the right steps of trying to rectify those behaviors.
To some extent, a child may give a deaf ear to the seniors and continue misbehaving. Such parents should try to seek for assistance from Juvenile Delinquency programs as soon as possible before the child start causing harm to others.
Reference List
Abadinsky, H. (2007). Drug Abuse: an introduction. Oxford: University of Michigan.
Carpenter, D., & Ferguson, C. (2009). The everything parents guide to dealing with bullies: from playgroung teasing to cyber bullying. Oxford: Everything Books.
Espelage, D., & Swearer, S. (2004). Bullying in American schools: a training manual for teachers, parents and other professionals. New York: SAGE.
Karch, S. (2007). Drug abuse handbook. London: CRC Press.
Kevorkian, M., & DAntona, R. (2008). 101 facts about bullying: What everyone should know. London: R&L Education.
Nofziger, S. (2001). Bullies, fights, and guns: testing self- control theory with juveniles. New York: LFB Scholarly Publishing.
Omoore, M., & Minton, S. (2004). Dealing with bullying in schools: a training manual for teachers, parents and other professionals. New York: SAGE.
Richard, W. (2010). Drug Abuse prevention: A school and community partnership. New York: Jones & Bartlett Learning.
Rigby, K. (2002). New perspectives on bullying. London: Jessica Kingsley.
Sussman, S., & Ames, S. (2008). Drug abuse: concepts, prevention, and cessation. New York: Cambridge University Press.