1. Have you ever seen a lot of kids being bullied in a school enviroment? How?
I have seen a lot of verbal and cyber abuse. Rarely do I see physical abuse now because of the internet these days.
2. What do school officials/staff members usually do when a situation like that occurs?
We need the victim of the abuse to report it and name the bully and the witnesses. Then we start to gather the statements from all the witnesses to get a sense of the situation. Next, we have a meeting with the person who is doing the bullying and explain our harassment policy to them and their parents. Depending on the situation, suspension or expulsion can occur from this.
3. As a school staff member, do you feel that the children that are being bullied have a right to defend themselves in a physical manner?
Every person has a choice to make. Do I report it and talk to an adult about what is happening or do i protect myself? It all depends if the bully is attacking the victim because then of course I can understand why the victim may need to protect themselves.
4. Since my topic is the link between bullying and school shootings, do you think they are related based on how most teenagers react in a "revengeful" manner?
Well, there is probably a link between them. But it also depends on the emotional state of each individual and how long the abuse has been going on. If it has been going on for quite some time, then you always have to factor that into the equation.
5. During the course of when you have worked at a school, have children ever reacted in a violent manner towards the person who bullied them?
I have been a dean here for 8 years and I have not seen that.
6. In your opinion, have you seen children stick up for the victims of bullies or just stand back and watch it?
In most cases, children just stand back and watch it. I think it's because they do want to involve themselves and get picked on by that bully too. Very few times have I seen that children stick up for the victims.
7. Going back on my subject of school shootings, I found that most shooters have been bullied, so do you think that schools should have a harsher rule on trying to prevent bullying?
It all depends on the situation. You can't just kick a child out of school if we have a record of him bullying once or twice. We have to show that we tried to improve the situation and that we have documents of meeting with that student. Now, if that student violates the rules after we had a meeting with him/her, that is when we start to progress in our punishment.
8. Do you think that if students find out that school shootings can be prevented by not being a bully, bullying can decrease? Or is bullying always going to be around?
There is always going to be bullying because now that we have the internet it can be widespread and there is absolutely no way that we can stop cyber bullying. In my opinion, that is worse.
9. Do you find this sopic to be somewhat important or just something that can be brushed aside?
Whether it's little or a big incident, it needs to be dealt with before it gets bigger and bigger.
10. Since you graduated high school, how has bullying changed?
We always had altercations face to face. We never had this cyber bullying. If we needed to say something to someone, we would say it or get in a fight and that would be the end of it. But now that we have internet and youtube, we can post things up that can be harmful to a child and it will be up for everyone to see. Bullying has gotten worse over the years.
