Essay Sample about Student Bullying

The study explored bullying in college by students and teachers and teachers.  The reports of a sample of 1,025 undergraduates indicated that 24.7% had seen students bully other students occasionally and 2.8% very frequently, 5% had been bullied by students occasionally and 1.1% very frequently, 12.8% had seen teachers bully students occasionally and 1.9% very frequently, 4.2% had been bullied by teachers occasionally and .5% very frequently, while 3.2% had bullied other students occasionally and 1.9% very frequently. Male students bullied significantly more than females. Student bullying was predicted by having seen other students bully, and by having been bullied by both students and teachers (Chapell, Mark; Casey, Diane; De la Cruz, Carmen; Ferrell, Jennifer, 2004). In this essay I am going to talk about how negative words can affect people deeper than what meets the eye. I am going to discuss bullying, discrimination, and mental health. But on the flip side, we are also going to talk about how just being nice can change everything.

When I think about bullying, I think about being 13 years old in 7th grade and having to be careful about everything I say or do around the other brutal 7th grade “popular” mean girls. From a young age my parents drilled into my head “If you don’t have anything nice to say don’t say anything at all”.  This was my first experience or lesson with how words can affect people and be a powerful weapon. Trauma from childhood, low self-esteem, and insecurity are a few of the major causes of being a “bully”. Studies show that students who experience bullying are twice as likely as non-bullied peers to experience negative health effects such as headaches and stomachaches. (Gini & Pozzoli, 2013). 

There are many reasons for someone to feel like they need to “bully”. The first is wanting to feel superior. This means by making a person feel small, it causes the bully to feel bigger. They assert their dominance to feel stronger or more powerful. This comes from a lack of stability of lack of self-worth. On top of what is going on in the bully’s head, they have caused long lasting damage to the other person.

The next reason is low self-esteem. Low self-esteem is a major drive for bullying. This also goes hand-and-hand with the need to feel superior. The bully bullies’ other people to make them feel the same way they are feeling about themselves. This is also a vicious cycle for people to put others down.

Another reason why people bully others is childhood trauma. This has a great effect on how people relate to the world around them as they grow up. Verbal and mental abuse are two of the most common things most people consider childhood trauma. The reason childhood trauma causes people to bully others comes from stress and anxiety inflicted as a result of the trauma.

Finally, the last reason I am going to talk about is underlying mental health issues. Underlying mental health issues like depression or anxiety are common triggers for people who put others down. When you have a condition like depression or anxiety, your brain isn’t working the way it should. When dealing with these conditions you experience decreased control over your emotions, and this can lead to an outburst in negativity that brings on bullying.

Studies have shown that people who have been bullied are far more likely to bully others. Bullying is a defense mechanism, but it is a vicious, toxic cycle because not only does it bring the bully themselves down, but it brings others down as well.

We don’t realize the impact we make on other people. We also don’t realize how important we are to others. What I mean by that is, yes, we don’t realize the effect we have on others, but we also don’t realize how we influence other people’s everyday decisions. For example, When I get ready in the morning, I’ve started to notice that I self-consciously think about if other people will like my outfit. I think this comes from high school when I would get ready, do my makeup and hair because I knew I was going somewhere and was going to be there for 7 hours. But when I would get a complement at school about my hair, or makeup, or outfit it made me feel like I was on cloud 9. So, in the midst of the pandemic, when I was only going to school twice a week, I would make sure those two days I looked on point. My hair was always done, my makeup was always done, and I really pushed myself not to wear sweatpants or joggers to school because it always made me feel good when I got complimented. This is what I am talking about when I say we don’t realize how things we don in our everyday life affect other people. My friends at school never knew that their one complement kept me motivated to look my best when I went to school because it boosted my mood and helped my mental health trying to cope with dealing with the pandemic.

On the flip side people can also develop mental illnesses like depression and anxiety because of interactions or relationships with people. Our words can also hurt others even if we don’t intend on hurting them. Going back to my example in high school, I had a friends named Megan who was going through her own issues on top of the pandemic and somedays it was hard for her to get ready and come to school, which I had understood because I went through that a little bit myself, but when we would walk together in the hallway and I would get a complement from a mutual friend of ours, it would sting a little. I am not saying what our friend did was wrong, but the power our words have can bring someone all the way up to cloud 9 but may plumet another person all the way down to rock bottom. Our words can hurt others, even if we don’t intend to hurt others.

Another example of how the power of words affect others is from a scientist and author named Masaru Emoto. In Emoto’s experiment, called the test of spoken words, He placed two cups of uncooked rice into two mason jars and put on the lids. He labeled one of the jars “Thank You” and the other “You Fool”. He placed the jars in an elementary school classroom and had asked the children in the class speak to the jars, telling the jars the corresponding message that was written on the jars every day for thirty days. After the thirty days Emoto brought home the rice and cooked it. When he cooked the insult rice it was shriveled into a black gelatinous mass. But when he cooked the Thanked rice, it was white and fluffy. Emoto’s experiments proved that energy generated by positive or negative words can actually change the physical structure of an object.

Both of these examples show how negative words affect us and our mental health. But I did some research on how it works in our brains. Positive words, such as “peace” and “love”, can alter the expression of genes, strengthening areas in our frontal lobes and promoting the brain’s cognitive functioning. Hostile language can disrupt specific genes that play a key part in the production of neurochemicals that protect us from stress. However, a single negative word can increase the activity in our amygdala (the fear center of the brain). This releases dozens of stress-producing hormones and neurotransmitters, which interrupts our brains’ functioning (Therese J. Borchard, 2018). Because our brain uses repetition to learn, the more we use negative words or phrases it becomes a habit. Repetition increases our mental validation of anything we are exposed to, which is why it works so well in political propaganda.

The final thing I am going to talk about is Discrimination. Discrimination is the unjust or prejudicial treatment of different categories of people, especially on the grounds of ethnicity, age, sex, or disability. For century’s discrimination has been around for many people of color, but I am going to focus on the African American culture. I am going to talk about the tragic death of George Floyd.

George Perry Floyd was an African American man who was murdered by police officer (Derek Chauvin) in Minneapolis MN, during an arrest after a store clerk suspected Floyd may have had used a counterfeit $20 bill. Officer Chauvin, one of the four police officers who arrived on the scene, knelt on Floyd’s neck and back for 9 minutes and 29 seconds. As George Floyd was taking his final breaths, gasping for air, he was trying to tell the officer “I can’t breathe”. After his death an explosion of rage spread across the country and then globally. Floyd’s death inspired international protests where his last words “I can’t breathe” inspired people to not only keep fighting for themselves and others but fight for George Floyd. This drew new attention toward police brutality and discrimination and treatment of African Americans. George Floyd became the face of one of the largest uprisings in modern American history. (Barbot, Oxiris 2020)

In conclusion the power our words have over not only our lives but so many others that we don’t even realize is crazy, and it is so hard to think about what we are saying so carefully to not hurt anyone. But all we can do is be nice, think about how you want to be treated, because it’s not that hard to hold the door open or complement someone on their shoes. And just like I said in the beginning, “if you don’t have anything nice to say, then don’t say it at all"