Bullying and its Impact on Education: A Personal Experience

This article discusses the impact of bullying on education, with a personal experience of the author. It covers statistics, types of bullying, and its effects on students. The article also talks about the importance of good company and teacher-student relationships in preventing bullying.

Running head: BULLYING
Bullying
Name of the Student:
Name of the University:
Author note:

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There are certain things in the process of education that distracts students from their
motive. The act of bullying influence children and they suffer academically. Their test scores
gets declined, they acquire a sense of fear for going to school and ultimately it affects their
overall education. It is something that can be regularly seen reported in the media. However,
it is to note that bullying refers to the act of aggressive and unwanted behaviour among the
school going individuals that involves perceived or real power imbalance (Cornell and
Limber 2015). To this context, I would also like to share my experience of it. I too have
experienced it and I must say that it was very difficult for me being isolated from everyone.
When students get isolated they cannot think of anything else and gradually they become the
victims of depression. Bullying is an issue that could take place in any stage of education.
People think that this happens among the secondary and higher secondary school students or
in colleges but it is also to note that sometimes, kids are also bullied in their primary schools.
However, it is the most among the secondary school students because the elder students then
start making fun of their juniors. Being seniors they think themselves superior to their juniors.
It is very hard for the new students to adjust in such an environment.
There are huge amount of statistics in regards of bullying. Dr. Elizabeth Naseem, in
her countless number of articles about bullying, has examined where bullying prevails in the
everyday experience of school among the children. She has designed and implemented many
pupil led anti-bullying initiatives and has developed many mentoring programmes for the
pupils who frequently get engaged in bullying in order to help them in refraining from
bullying (Donegan 2012). According to her research, the most common form or bullying is
name calling and that the risk of being bullied gets decline with the increase in age. It has
also been found from the Anti-Bullying Alliance of 2016 that each one among four children
are reported as being bullied a lot or always. Bauman, Toomey and Walker (2013) in this
context have also said that the males are more likely to be victimised of bullying as compared

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to females. Also, the children who are eligible for the free school meals too are prone to be
the victims of such act.
My situation in the secondary school was quite tough. I had to adjust in the new
environment as I was new to the country. It is hard for the new comers to adjust in the school
and it was hard for me as well. Everyone go through this situation when they move into new
school or when they come from primary school to secondary school. It is difficult for most of
the people to go to other school as they are scared of whether or not they could make any
friends or if people will bully them. I moved to England in 2011 and I started my education
there from secondary school. In the beginning, because of language barrier, it was difficult
for me to communicate with my class mates. Therefore, I used to avoid talking to them
because I was scared if people will make fun of me for my different accent and language
problem. The fear of saying something that doesn’t make sense stopped me from interacting
with people. The bullying didn’t start in Year 7 because at that time I used to stay in a room
where all the foreigner students used to stay. However, it became more difficult in Year 8
because it was then when I started attending proper lessons and people start questing me
about my background, ethnicity and physical appearance. As per Law et al. (2012), “The best
response to bullying in not to respond”. I used to follow the same. I used to ignore people
because I didn’t know how to response as my English was not that good; but after each
passing day, it started getting worse. I never told my parents about it because I thought they
would get worried in vain. My parents cannot speak English either, so I did not want to
disturb them by telling about my situation which can make them worried and disturbed. So, I
kept it to myself and never told anyone; I told my English teacher who too used to belong
from by ethnicity and religion, but she did not take any action. She heard my complaint and
left that issue there itself by telling the culprits not to do the same from next time. I found it

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very disappointing and shameful as everyone in the class was making fun of the fact that I
told to a teacher about that. From that day, I decided not to tell to anyone about my problem.
It is not just hard for the people who come from different country, in fact it is harder
for a child of year 7. The reason behind this is that they come from a completely different
school setting. In primary school students are been taught differently and they are been
looked after differently. Whereas, in secondary students have to become more independent
and they need to start looking after themselves. For example, finding out their classes and
having different class for each subject. Also, when students in primary school stay in the
classroom for lunch time, it is easy for them to make friends. However, in secondary school
year 7 students have to find friends, or they have to be alone in the playground. Some
students take the advantage of such situation of theirs and they start bullying a year 7 student.
When I started in the year 7, I didn’t know where to go or who to talk to. It never felt
good because it was different from my school in India. I used to think that I can never make
friends here because I am new and I cannot speak English as well. But, slowly as I grown up
in the school I made friends; however, every year I see people from year 7 being lonely and
sad. I used to talk to them and ask them why they are so sad and the answers were- the school
is too big, they cannot find their friends, or their friends become someone else’s friend. This
was the major issue because students start getting to know other people who came from
different primary school and they leave their old friends. It is hard for a student to be alone
during lunch time because they get a fear of being bullied. I know a girl from year 7 who
used to cry in lunch time because her friends started bullying at the family background she
came from; she always stayed in the art class for lunch time. It was all started in secondary
school. She once said me that they were nice to her in the primary school but they had change
then after coming to secondary school. It is to note that students get influenced by elder
students and they learn things like bullying.

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I also experienced bullying in secondary school; where people bullied me for coming
from different country, they bullied me on my looks and religion. Another thing they used to
do is to bully me for my name, which is quite similar to Shappi Khorsandi (famous
comedian), who talked about her school experience in the book called ‘A Beginner’s Guide
To Acting English’. Her book is not an academic book, but she talked about bullying and her
experience from coming to different country. In her school people found difficulty to
pronounce her name so people called her by Shappi. Similarly, people found my name
difficult to say so they start calling me Pal or Pallu from Palwinder. It was difficult for me to
concentrate in the lesson because people start shouting ‘pallu’ during the classes. It distracted
me from my lessons. I never had confidence for telling teacher what was going in the class
because of what happened to me in year 7.
There are several impacts that bullying have on a child. Some of them are:
 Isolation
 Distraction from the lessons
 Anxiety
 Low self esteem
 Depression
 Family problems
 Higher risk of suicide
A school can be hard for anybody when he or she gets distracted by many things.
However, there is always a good thing, you just have to be confident with who you are and
never let other people to make decision for you. The poet Shane Koyczan also shared his
experience on February 2013 at TED2013. He shared his experience how people judged his
dream and started saying them ‘silly’. Everyone will try to put you down for the dreams that

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you have but it was opposite for me; my maths teacher who supported me and motivated me
to become teacher. She said that the country who belong to has nothing to do with your
dreams and career. My teacher showed me the right path and she encouraged me to follow
that path. They were always happy with my work. She was my inspirational; by looking at
her I had the thought of becoming a teacher. She encourages students to give their best and
she support students when they need it. I gained so much confidence by talking to her
because I always talked to her in English; this motivated me to talk to in English with other
teacher or students. I felt like I will be bullied in anyway so I should try and improve my
English by speaking with other people. I was very lucky to get the supports from my teachers
because their support helped me to go through the academic year.
The secondary school is not just about bad experiences of bullying; there is a lot more
that you can earn. I have earned teachers respect; I gave up few times in school, but teachers
always supported me. I didn’t get much support from my family as much as I got from the
teacher. In year 11, I finished my GCSEs and for A levels I decided to stay in my school’s
sixth form, but my maths teachers left the school; that was the moment where I felt like I lost
my path again. I didn’t want to give up, so I tried to give my best and prove my teacher right
who had faith in me. However, in first year of sixth form I felt like I lost the track because
there was so much going on, the pressure of A levels and other things. The comments from
the other students started again and it felt like everything was repeating again. Earlier I was
talking about how year 7 students can be influenced by other students. Similarly, it happened
to me, the girl who used to bully me with her friends at the start of year 12 she became my
friend in my art class. As she was there by herself, her friends were doing different subjects. I
and my friend started talking to her and we both got influenced by her so badly; we did every
thoughtless thing that we been avoiding for last five years of our life. We missed our lessons,
walked out from the lessons and started not listening to our teachers. The worst part was

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when she was making fun of our juniors. I was there with her laughing about it too. She
didn’t just make a fun of students infect teachers as well. Slowly, we started realising we are
becoming just like her because when one of the teacher who knew us from the start said to
me “I can’t believe you are the same girls whom I taught in year 8”. I felt like crying then
because I became so bad that I used to get red card every single day. I knew whatever I did
was wrong, but I was mature enough not to get influence by this girl. There would be no
difference in between me and her then.
I never bullied anyone but laughing with her at other people is just bad as bullying. I lost
the respect that I had earned from the teachers. I could never make an eye contact with them
while going to them because I was ashamed for what I did. I needed break from the school
because I wanted to sort everything out. I always used to think she was doing bad things so it
is nothing to do with me; but I found this interesting quote on the article “you cannot keep a
clean reputation hanging out with messy people”. I realised that day when RE teachers said to
me he don’t see me as the same person before. I noticed the change in myself as well and I
decided to change my behaviour. I never talked to that girl; bad company in the school can
make big change in your life. Without realisation it will make you a different person, your
perspective of thinking change and the point of view of seeing different things changes. I
have been there, and I wanted to give another chance to myself. Therefore, I thought if people
try to change themselves then bullying can be stopped, for the influence of good over the
bad.
The education is not just effected by students around you in fact it might effect form the
teachers too. Every teacher is different and the way they act with students is different. Some
teachers have emotional relationship with students and some do not want to get involved in
their issues. I have experienced different student – teacher relationship. The best experience
was with my Maths teacher, she was the best person I met in my life. I found maths

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department best in my school, I feel like staff members in the maths department were helpful
in my school. However, there were teachers that I met who were mean to students, they will
make jokes about the students in front of the whole class. These teachers always pick on few
students and try to act funny. They always tried to make the lesson bit funny, but it can effect
badly if students take it seriously. For example, one of such teachers used to pick on two
students the mostly the one who was from Italy; once the teacher started asking everyone
what’s their favourite food; he skipped that Italian guy on purpose and then said I know you
going to say Pizza or Pasta. The whole class started laughing; this was the one of the
example, he always made these kinds of jokes in the class. It can be disturbing for some
students. Although he never said anything to me because I was the quiet one and he thought I
might take jokes seriously.
My secondary school was about bullying but in higher education it was about pressure of
study; in year 12 I became one of the bad people and in year 13 whatever I did in my
coursework for whole year; I lost my work in the end. I didn’t have any backups of my work;
that moment was depressing for me I had to start everything again. The business studies
teacher was supportive for all students, most of the students left the coursework till the last
minute. I think the business department did their best to support students, they had after
school classes and weekend classes so, and students can work in school. It helped me a lot to
do my coursework. I think the best teachers are who understands student’s needs; I met few
teachers in my school who weren’t nice. But the other understands the students and supported
them when needed. This was my experience in secondary school and higher education with
the teacher. I believe teachers should understand student’s situation in order to help them
with the situation.
Overall, the experience of Secondary school and higher was difficult for me. I always
wished if I was born here, in England, I would not have face such issues. However, I realised

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that this is not right to think of. The fact I came from different country gave me an identity, I
took that in positive way and I achieved my goals. Now that I am in University, the
experience in University is going well. I feel like I became more independent and I have a lot
more freedom that I needed. I enjoy being around with my friends. This is the best experience
I had but the Secondary was an adventure that was unforgettable.

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References:
Bauman, S., Toomey, R.B. and Walker, J.L., 2013. Associations among bullying,
cyberbullying, and suicide in high school students. Journal of adolescence, 36(2), pp.341-
350.
Cornell, D. and Limber, S.P., 2015. Law and policy on the concept of bullying at
school. American Psychologist, 70(4), p.333.
Donegan, R., 2012. Bullying and cyberbullying: History, statistics, law, prevention and
analysis. The Elon Journal of Undergraduate Research in Communications, 3(1), pp.33-42.
Law, D.M., Shapka, J.D., Hymel, S., Olson, B.F. and Waterhouse, T., 2012. The changing
face of bullying: An empirical comparison between traditional and internet bullying and
victimization. Computers in Human Behavior, 28(1), pp.226-232.