A reflection on a current educational issue in Sydney relating to culture and identity

An ongoing issue that affects education in Sydney is bullying. There are various repercussions of bullying on the victim even though it may have happened in school, the comments, taunts or even injuries may stay with them their entire lives (Ansbach 2012, p.88).

This article from Sydney Morning Herald (2013) depicts how bullying can affect an individual until their adulthood and also that bullying is not limited to a school’s reputation. Bullying occurs in every school environment and is unhealthy towards any student’s educational or even working goals as it can lower their self-esteem and Ansbach (2012) suggests that this can handicap them for their job seeking, or leadership skills. The article discusses how the catholic school student has been bullied by the “popular group” in school and how they physically and verbally abused her, and lead to her mental health problems in her adulthood after years of bullying.

Bullying can occur due to a variety of reasons, but the most common issue would be a difference in views, religion, race, culture or interests. There are various cases of bullying of ethnic groups, and also cases where students of certain religion experience abuse at school. This brings us back to the fundamentals of human psychology; we all want to feel like we are empowered or “better” than others and sometimes this can be reflected on our external behaviours through belittling others and making them feel inadequate.

Bullying is an important yet difficult issue to address within education because of the grey area and also, victims of bullying tend to stay quiet or not voice out enough (Greg 2011, p.99), and some may see bullying as a harmless form of teasing between several students. Therefore, most cases of bullying go unnoticed within the school. Like we know, bullying can cause a variety of identity issues within the victim and lead to poor educational outcomes and therefore impacting on their future due to not meeting their full potential. A child may be bullied in a class and not want to attend the class, they will be less interested, and therefore impact their learning or even seriously, students may dread going to school and find excuses to take days off school, therefore leading to a poor attendance and missing out on important information.

What teachers can do is provide support and also stamp out any form of bullying in the classroom and not endorse any physical bullying or any verbal bullying. There should be more widespread anti-bullying campaigns and also students should be introduced and taught about other cultures and also educated on bullying and the effects from a young age and also learning the importance of reporting any form of bullying. It is vital to recognise everyone has a different sense of identity and perceives their surroundings differently and also how to identify bullying (Greg 2011, p.100), what may seem as a harmless joke to one may have a permanent impact on another’s life.

Therefore, a productive classroom does not only mean to be able to teach the content and syllabus efficiently, it is also being able to communicate with your students, creating an environment that your students will enjoy going to and feel safe in. We see everywhere the effects of bullying on people and this has to stop!

Reference

1.      Ansbach, J 2012, 'Long-term effects of bullying: Promoting empathy with nonfiction', English Journal, vol 101, no. 6, pp. 87-92.

2.      Gregg, M.C 2011, 'Bullying effects, prevalence and strategies for detection', Australian Family Physician, vol. 40, no. 3, pp. 98-102.

3.      Sydney Morning Herald 2013, Bullied school student Jazmine Oyston has damages payout increased, 23 September 2013, Sydney Morning Herald, vied 23 October 2013, <http://www.smh.com.au/national/education/bullied-school-student-jazmine-oyston-has-damages-payout-increased-20130923-2u9r1.html>.