Student Full Speech 03: Jessica Gonzales, Bullying in Schools

Gosh, Emilio, watch what you're doing! You know what? You need to get out of this chair right now cause this is my chair from now on. Look, it even has my name written on the back of it. So move—now! Wait, are you crying? Look everyone, he's crying! Oh my god! You know what? Maybe I should start calling you a crybaby! Crybaby,crybaby! By a show of hands, how many of you have been a bully or a victim of bullying in school? Wow, that's a lot. According to an Oregon Resiliency Project that was conducted in 2003, it stated that over five million elementary and junior high students in the U.S. are affected by bullying. And that is why today I'm going to talk to you about providing an awareness program in elementary schools. As a result of working with children for the past two years at the YMCA and doing additional research for the past two weeks, I feel qualified to speak to you on this topic. Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. My name is Jessica Gonzales. At the end of this speech, you will know the statistic of elementary students being bullied and a brief description of what bullying consists of. Lastly, I'm going to talk to you about some ways in which schools can help prevent bullying and some programs that have worked. Now, according to the National Education Association, the NEA's article, National Bullying Awareness Campaign, it states that bullying is systematically and chronically inflicting physical hurt and/or psychological distress on one or more students. Now, there are two ways in which this can be done: a direct form and an indirect form. A direct form is going to be what the boys normally do: fighting, hitting, threatening, name-calling, and insults. Indirect forms are more of the girls' way: manipulation, rumors, gossiping, excluding, and rejection. Now, in a 2008 spring survey that was conducted by the University of Virginia, by the Department of Education, 2,416 students in grades 3 and 4 and 5 in 16 suburban elementary schools, less than two percent of them said, they actually admitted to bullying in the past month; 11 to 15 percent of them said they were the victim in the past month; six to seven percent of them said, “I bullied someone because it was fun to do;” nine to eleven percent of them said, “If I didn't fight back, then I wouldn't have any friends at all;” five percent of them said—five—that it was fun to hit another kid. Now 48 percent of them said, “I was teased in school because of what I looked like or how I dressed.” Now, another survey was conducted that was the Oklahoma Anti-Bullying Survey, in 2005, where 7,848 students were conducted in grades 3, 5, and 7 in 85 different school districts, and it stated that 14 percent of them said they were the victim; 12 percent said that they were the bully; seven percent said that they were both the bully and the victim that year. One child wrote, “It happens a lot more than adults think. They better get it under control, because people are beginning to take their own actions, especially me.” Another student wrote, “They are mean to us. They make me want to kill them.” By a show of hands, how many of you are shocked by what this child just said? Sam,why are you shocked? What makes it shocking?

Sam: It's a child. They shouldn't really want to kill anybody. Childhood should be nothing but posies and daisies and lots of fun and candy, and apparently not.

Jessica Gonzales: I have to agree with you, I was shocked by what they said. These are kids in elementary school. I never thought that they would want to inflict that kind of pain on another student. And this scares me. So now that I have given you some information about the effects of bulling in schools and what bullying actually consists of, I'm now going to talk to you about some ways in which we can prevent – ways in which schools can help prevent bullying from occurring and some programs that have worked. Now according to the Oregon Resiliency Project, the NEA, and the bullying in schools, Fighting the Bully Battle, it states, there are several different ways in which schools can help prevent bullying, and one of them is education. Educating the teachers, the school – the children, and even the parents; making sure that things are okay; telling them what bullying is, what it consists of, what it looks like, and the consequences, so when it does happen, they know what to do. Also, activities and interactions: have the kids interact with the children within the classroom, making them see that they are – that they can be friends and they don't need to inflict pain or hurting on them. Also, supervision: having more supervision in the areas that bullying is more frequent, like playgrounds and the bathroom; places besides a classroom. Those are the areas that need to be looked at. Some programs that have worked are the S.T.A.M.P. Out Bullying, which was done by Dr. Jay Banks, and he is a doctor in education. And S.T.A.M.P. Out Bullying stands for: stay away from bullies, tell someone, avoid bad situations, make friends, and project confidence. Lastly, the anti-bullying and elementary school bullying both consist of assemblies and active words of teachers and the students get together and talk about ways in which they can help reduce bullying. And these programs have worked not because – it's because of the involvement and the commitment of not just the school, but the entire community. And they work together to try to prevent this from happening. And now that I'm near the end of my speech and I have given you information on the description of bullying and the effects that it has on our elementary schools and I have lastly given you information in ways in which schools can help prevent bullying and some programs that have worked. And this is a time when children are beginning to go to school, when they should be safe and ready to go to school, not scared and threatened, and that is why we need to protect the children, protect the children, and protect the children once again. And as Gandhi once stated, “If we want to have peace in the world, we need – it starts with our children.” Thank you.