Richard William Hales, 21, was convicted of assault and probation order violations following a trial Monday and was sentenced Tuesday in Sarnia court.

The 19-year-old victim testified he’d asked for a cigarette from two people he knew last Nov. 25. He was invited to walk with them to get a cigarette from someone else.

One of the men asked to see the victim’s cell phone, which he was using to play music through a set of headphones.

After repeated requests, the victim handed over the phone and was told he wasn’t getting it back because he’d been “flushed,” meaning robbed.

The man who took the phone grabbed the victim’s headphones which broke in the process. At that point, Hales punched the victim in the face.

Hales was drunk and the punch had little impact, the victim testified.

“That didn’t bother me as much as getting my stuff taken,” the victim said.

Hales was arrested later that day, and a warrant remains outstanding for the phone thief.

The phone was returned undamaged to the victim weeks later through a third party.

Hales had been charged with robbery, but there was no evidence Hales’ punch was part of the theft because it happened after the other man took possession of the phone, said defence lawyer Ed Gresham.

The facts are not in dispute, but the issue is whether the punch aided the theft, making it robbery, said Justice Deborah Austin.

The phone was taken through the other man’s trickery, and not the punch by the drunken Hales, who was bullying the victim, said Austin.

The victim said he remains bothered by the incident and doesn’t feel safe.

Jail was needed to deter Hales, who had three prior convictions for assaultive behaviour and four convictions for violating court orders, said assistant Crown attorney Aniko Coughlan.

The sentenced included 67 days of pre-sentence custody and will be followed by eight months probation when Hales must stay away from the victim and take substance-abuse counselling.

“It isn’t worth it to behave in this way,” said Austin.

The Observer – Bullying assailant returned to jail

So says Sue Lipkins, a New York psychologist, hazing expert and author of the book, “Preventing Hazing: How Parents, Teachers and Coaches Can Stop the Violence, Harassment and Humiliation.”

Hazing has been around forever, Lipkins says, but it has become more violent and sexualized in the past 10 to 15 years because of what she calls the “vulture culture.”

“We have reality shows, a lot of competition, and a winner/loser mentality,” she says. “There’s shrinking resources for jobs, college, spots on teams, and the aggression has risen. That can come out in all ways – one is hazing.”

YouTube and other resources on the Internet also make it easy for minors to see images that sexualize and objectify people, she says.

Lipkins has been busy lately giving her insight into the recent hazing scandals across the country, including the Florida A&M University drum major killed in a hazing incident during a band trip, and the Utah high school senior who killed himself after allegedly enduring hazing for several years; his family is suing the school district.

Lipkins was not surprised to hear that a hazing case cropped up at an upper-middle class high school in Portland, since the behavior cuts across all color and socioeconomic lines.

“I guarantee this is not the first (local) hazing,” she says. “They’re not isolated incidents. They’re traditions; people plan them; the kids have a purpose.”

The Portland Police Bureau’s Sex Crimes Division is investigating the Jan. 17 incident at Grant High School, police reported Tuesday morning. According to detectives, the belief is that “the incidents alleged go beyond simple hazing.”

Rumors about the incident abound, but no details have been released because the students are minors and the investigation – which could take some time – is ongoing.

The “assault,” as Grant Principal Vivien Orlen has described it, happened in the boys’ locker room after a junior varsity basketball game, among male athletes. Four students associated with the hazing have been suspended; all but one returned to school this week.

According to police, “There is no reason to believe any children are at risk or are any staff/coaches the subject of the investigation. Grant High School staff is cooperating with investigators.”

(Police urge anyone with information about the incident to write to CrimeTips@PortlandOregon.gov.)

In a case involving juveniles in Oregon, the decision to press criminal charges is up to the Multnomah County district attorney, says Julie H. McFarlane, supervising attorney for Youth Rights and Justice Attorneys at Law.

If the victim doesn’t want to go forward with the case, the district attorney will look at those reasons, she says. The DA will also look at the evidence, and whether parents are acting in the child’s best interest.

“It’s a really interesting situation the DA is in, because there have been the passage of constitutional amendments about victims’ rights and lots of legislation over the last 10 years,” McFarlane says. “Those laws put the DA in a position of protecting victims’ interests in the case. They kind of have this conflict going on.”

In the end, McFarlane says, “it’s quite common that (the DA) will make a decision to charge even though the victim doesn’t want to do that.”

The typical sentence for a juvenile in a sex crime case, according to McFarlane, is three years of probation including treatment, and lifetime registration as a sex offender.

‘Hazing blueprint’

There’s no way to tell how frequently hazing occurs at local schools.

Portland Public Schools does not track discipline data related explicitly to hazing, as it does for bullying and harassment.

The district has an administrative directive (official policy) on student clubs: “No installation ceremonies may be conducted that are not approved by the school, and no installation ceremonies may be conducted unless they are open to the school staff and the parents of electees. There can be no screening or trials of prospective members. There shall be no so-called ‘hell night’ or ‘hell week’ or ‘hazing’ initiation activities or activities that are humiliating, demeaning or unlawful.”

Portland Tribune – Hazing tradition continues in silence

These are the same shirts we sell online but you can save the shipping / postage fees so you can proudly wear on Pink Shirt Day – Wednesday, February 29th.

London Drugs has been a great partner over the years and they continue to support Pink Shirt Day…and we cannot be happier to have them aboard!

The shirts come in a variety of children and adult sizes, sell for $9.80 and all proceeds go to support anti-bullying programmes through the CKNW Orphans’ Fund and Boys & Girls Clubs.

For a complete list of London Drugs locations CLICK HERE.

Simi Sara, popular radio host on CKNW AM 980 will champion this year’s campaign and will be joined by an all-star cast from the community including E-Talk Canada’s Elaine Lui “Lainey”, City of Surrey Mayor Dianne Watts, Vancouver Giants Captain Brendan Gallagher, Chris Gailus (Global TV), Fiona Forbes (Shaw TV), Gary Mason (Globe & Mail), Jody Vance (City TV), City of Vancouver Mayor Gregor Robertson and Norma Reid (CTV) to help spread awareness and education to ensure that bullying stops here.

Official Pink Shirt Day T-Shirts, buttons, teaching resources, and posters are available at www.pinkshirtday.ca with T-Shirts also being sold at London Drugs locations beginning February 1st.

Over the month of February, Simi Sara and CKNW AM 980 will be dedicating extensive coverage to the anti-bullying campaign. On air guests will discuss the multiple forms bullying can take including in schools, workplaces and cyber-bulling. “There is not more of a critical time than now to educate and arm children and adults with tools they need to stop bullying”, stated Sara who referenced the increased cases of bullying we are seeing across the news, in particular in the gay and lesbian communities.

The goal for this years’ campaign is to sell 60,000 Pink Shirt Day T-Shirts, which net proceeds will benefit the CKNW Orphans’ Fund in support of Boys & Girls Clubs of BC Anti-Bullying programs. For updates on CKNW’s Pink Shirt Day please visit www.pinkshirtday.ca, on Twitter @pinkshirtday, and on Facebook.

The public service announcement for Pink Shirt Day 2012 can be viewed here.

Then, the music started blasting – hard, driving beats, the kind that push everyone in the club onto the dance floor. Ronnell “Bigg Ron” Jones, an aptly named wall of a man, barked instructions over the music.

“Jab, right-handed! Jab, right-handed! Jab, right-handed! Who’s the champ?”

“I’m the champ,” a couple of kids called out meekly.

“I don’t believe you. I don’t believe you,” Bigg Ron goaded. “WHO’S THE CHAMP?”

“I’M THE CHAMP!” 14 teenagers cried out in one voice.

As Annie Beurman punched at the bag in front of her, she couldn’t help but think: “Nobody better mess with me.”

The new Fight Club classes at Title Boxing Club in Prairie Village, Kan., are free to teens who are being bullied, teens wanting to stand up for friends being bullied and any teen needing to let off a little steam.

It’s not a self-defense class. Holly Reynolds, the woman who started the program, can’t call it that for legal reasons. It’s not about fighting, either, though Reynolds gave it the same name as the 1999 Brad Pitt movie about underground fight clubs.

This Fight Club is about getting fit, feeling strong and fighting the good fight, she said.

These teens don’t spar with each other. They spar with their feelings.

And a lot of anger gets left in those sweaty boxing gloves.

“People tried to get me to change the name to make it more accessible, but I was very determined,” Reynolds said. “That was the name that came to my head, because growing up is a fight. You’ve got to fight to be heard, you’ve got to fight to be understood. Some of these kids have to fight to get themselves out of bed in the morning and drag themselves to school. It’s a constant struggle.

“The metaphor went well with what’re doing. We’re not necessarily telling these kids go out and fight. We’re giving them the mind-body connection that comes from boxing and kickboxing.”

A boost of confidence is what Kelli Beurman, a grade school teacher from Olathe, Kan., wants for her daughter, Annie, who last week signed up for Fight Club. Fourteen-year-old Annie, now a freshman, has been bullied since fourth grade.

“I thought it would give her a sense of empowerment in case she would ever need to defend herself,” Beurman said. “Because part of dealing with someone who is bothering you is just knowing that you can.”

Reynolds knows the pain of being bullied. Growing up in Kansas City she was a target in high school, as was a friend who was harassed about his sexual orientation.

“I was a little chunky in high school, and I walked home every day through a neighborhood … this car full of kids would call me Jenny Craig drop-out. They’d honk their horn and yell out the window. I just got thick-skinned and let it harden me. That’s how I dealt with it,” said Reynolds, an aesthetician who runs a studio on State Line Road.

“So I know from experience that … there’s a better way to go rather than internalizing those emotions. It makes you mad at the world, really. And it doesn’t have to be that way. There are people who care.”

Those experiences kept her interested in bullying issues as an adult. She followed national cases and was especially moved by what happened to Jamey Rodemeyer, a 14-year-old in Buffalo, N.Y.

Jamey, who struggled with his sexuality, was bullied online for months. Last May he posted an anti-bullying message on YouTube. Then in September he posted final messages on his blog before killing himself.

About the same time, a friend of Reynolds’ told her of a girl she knew in town who also was being bullied in school. Wouldn’t that girl love to box to let out some of her emotions?

The thought wasn’t random. Two years ago Reynolds signed up for boxing classes at Title Boxing at a friend’s suggestion. “I’m an I-only-run-when-chased girl,” she said. “But I was having some postpartum depression, and it was the best thing I ever did for my confidence, for my power.”

So she asked Bigg Ron, her instructor and trainer at Title Boxing, to help her organize a program for teens with an anti-bullying message.

The owner of the Prairie Village location donated the space, while other members there volunteered to help. At the end of last year they handed out fliers at libraries, malls, coffee houses, places around town where kids hang out. Reynolds lined up speakers to offer encouraging words – the CEO of the YMCA of Greater Kansas City and women from the Kansas City Roller Warriors are coming.

Reaching for higher-power help, she also contacted famous anti-bullying crusader Lady Gaga; she hasn’t heard back yet.

Bullying is such a huge problem that “we’re not hoping to change the world,” Reynolds said. “Just at least create that spark.”

Bigg Ron pulls no punches. The workouts he leads are heart-pounding. One girl got sick during last week’s class.

DaRon Lash, a 15-year-old freshman at Shawnee Mission West, started out slowly, kicking at the punching bag as though he were kicking dirt in its face. Then a volunteer showed him how to power his kicks from the hip, and suddenly DaRon’s kicks started landing square and solid.

DaRon stuck it out through the sit-ups, the push-ups, the laps, the punching, kicking, punching, more laps. How he hated those laps.

He has had run-ins with school bullies – “I didn’t know what to do. I just stood there and took it. I was afraid I was going to get my face punched in” – so he’s determined to help other kids being targeted.

“He said, ‘Grandpa, I really don’t put up with that,’?” said his grandfather, Dan Lash of Overland Park. “That’s the reason he wanted to join.”

Fight Club wasn’t a hard sell for Grandpa, who competed in Golden Gloves when he was a teenager. “It got me into really good physical condition as well as taught me how to take care of myself,” Lash said. “They told us when we trained that our fists were considered weapons. We were told not to use them unless we were in the ring.”

He has counseled his grandson to do the same: When confronted by a bully, try to talk things out first. But if you must, protect yourself.

At the first class, Reynolds taped messages to the bags to give the teens something to aim at.

I struggle every day to fit in.

I worry each night before I go to sleep about what’s going to happen at school tomorrow.

I feel like I have no real friends.

One boy asked if he could bring a photo of a kid who was tormenting him and tape it to the bag.

“I said, ‘Man, I see where you’re coming from, I do. I totally understand that,’” Reynolds said. “‘But in a few weeks you’re going to see that it’s not him you want to hit. It’s those emotions that you want to hit.’”

Bellingham Herald – Boxing classes help bullied teens build self-esteem

Starting soon and continuing until Pink Shirt Day on February 29th, this 30 second television spot will run on Global TV and Shaw Television in Canada for FREE.

If you are a broadcaster and would like a high resolution broadcast quality version of the video for your station please write to info@pinkshirtday.ca.

Lady Gaga’s going to Harvard … for a collaboration on her new Born This Way Foundation.

On Feb. 29, Lady Gaga and her mother, Cynthia Germanotta, will launch the anti-bullying advocacy group in partnership with the Harvard Graduate School of Education, Harvard’s Berkman Center for Internet & Society, the California Endowment, and the John D. & Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. The MacArthur Foundation has offered generous funding to online nonprofit digital media efforts in the past.

According to press materials, the Born This Way Foundation will be dedicated to “digital mobilization to create positive change.” The Born This Way Foundation will mainly center on web anti-bullying campaigns; as the MacArthur Foundation’s Connie Yowell puts it, “This is a time of potential transformation in how young people learn, socialize, and engage in civic life because of digital media […] with new tools come new responsibility and sometimes painful unintended consequences such as bullying and challenges to safety. Lady Gaga is at the forefront of harnessing the power of digital media for her fans and encouraging them to be healthy and safe and to make meaningful change in this world.”

In reality, the Born This Way Foundation will likely launch web efforts similar to Dan Savage’s famous It Gets Better project. Details on the charitable foundation’s initial campaigns are still unknown (although sample pages are easily accessible via Facebook and Google); Gaga will be holding a press conference on Feb. 29 at Harvard University’s Sanders Theatre. Since the campaign’s soft launch in November, the Born This Way Foundation has accumulated an impressive 38,000 Facebook fans.

Fast Company – Lady Gaga And Harvard Launch Anti-Bullying Born This Way Foundation

Hang it up in your classroom, workplace, in the window of your business or wherever you think people will see the sign and know that on February 29th to wear pink.

Click HERE to download the letter size (8.5″ x 11″) poster and click HERE to download the ledger size (11″ x 17″) poster.

A new study from Queen’s University has found obese teenage girls are three times more likely to be bullies than the slimmer girls in their class — a finding that highlights the very cyclical nature of bullying.

The study asked 1,738 students in 16 Ontario schools to share their height and weight information and answer questions about their experiences with bullying.

The researchers found that boys were twice as likely to be victims of physical bullying than their slimmer peers — a surprise to study co-author Atif Kukaswadia because they had hypothesized that physical size could help boys defend themselves.

“Boys [tend to] have physical dominance over each other – being bigger or stronger than the other person is a good trait,” said the doctoral student. “And so we figured that for obese kids, their size isn’t necessarily a negative thing.”

Obese girls were 1.32 times more likely to be physically victimized than normal weight females and 1.52 times more likely to be the physical bully. Boys were 1.71 times more likely to be the physical perpetrators.

When it came to “relational bullying,” — things like teasing, taunting, spreading rumours and shunning — obese boys were 2.11 times more likely to be on the receiving end of that behaviour than their slimmer peers, though they were not more likely to partake in it.

Obese girls, on the other hand, were 1.76 times more likely to be relationally bullied and three times more likely to be that kind of bully — the most significant of the findings, Mr. Kukaswadia said.

“We suspect that it might have something to do with them being treated that way by other people,” he said. “They internalize that and project it back outwards. But we don’t really know, we would have to do a lot more research to figure out what exactly is going on.”

Co-author Wendy Craig, a professor of psychology at Queen’s University who specializes in bullying, said the study shows that becoming a bully is often a reaction to being bullied and there can be consequences if the cycle continues.

“The involvement in both the perpetration and the victimization of it suggests that they are at risk for the most negative outcomes because those who are involved in both perpetrating and are victimized by it tend to have the most negative outcomes [in the long run],” Dr. Craig said in an email. “Likely it is a cycle where they take out on others their anger and hostility at being victimized themselves.”

The study was published in the December issue of Obesity Facts, a publication of The European Journal of Obesity.

National Post – Obese teen girls three times more likely to be bullies than their slimmer peers

Recently, she has begun to get a reputation around school for giving attitude to teachers and her peers. Some have suggested that she seems a little bit arrogant, and acts superior to those around her. What I have noticed is that she has begun to respond defensively, with anger, to any comment that she could possibly perceive as a slight.

“How long did it take to have your hair braided?” I ask her one day when she appears with a new hairdo.

“Oh!” squeals another student nearby, overhearing my question, “It takes five hours for me!”

“That’s not how long it took,” snarls Rocky, as though deeply offended by her classmates’ contribution. (Her name has been changed, to protect her privacy.)

The scenario repeats itself over the next two weeks. Time and again she responds with anger and defensiveness to seemingly innocuous comments from her classmates.

I teach her English, math and social studies, and it’s easy to see patterns forming. One day other kids in the class reported with excitement that this straight-A student had punched a boy during science class when he tried to take candy from her.

After school, I asked her if she had noticed any changes in her behavior. I told her that we had seen and heard about some changes that were not positive, and I wondered if she was feeling differently, or if anything had recently happened that was making her feel so angry.

Her eyes filled with tears, which spilled down her cheeks. Her glasses magnified the sadness in her eyes, even as she blinked furiously to erase it.

“They’re always calling me African. No matter what I do, everyone always is calling me African, telling me to go back to Africa. I feel like I am being harassed every day.”

Her voice doesn’t shake — she’s a strong little girl — but it’s obvious that this has been building for some time.

The middle school in the Bronx where I teach is diverse, but the majority of students are African-American or Hispanic. Racial jokes are common, but when you are one of a hundred Mexican or Dominican kids, it doesn’t feel so personal.

Rocky is a minority, from a country that is not well understood. She is the only student from Africa in my class. The stereotypes that kids jump to when they talk about Africa tend to involve hunting lions and tigers, wearing leaves for clothes, and riding around on elephants.

Some kids are equipped to take these jokes, laughing them off, or quickly deflecting them. Some can respond back quickly with a witty comeback. But some kids can’t.

How we as adults, and they as kids, should respond is always difficult. The bullying that you can give a name to, or can describe in words that are easy to understand, is the bullying that can be addressed. Loud comments or notes calling classmates names — those can be addressed. A lot of it cannot.

Often it is a mean look, an obnoxious sigh, an eye-roll that only the victim could see. Sometimes it is a quiet exclusion from a group, or a secret not shared.

Nowadays it is common for a child to come to class and put his or her head on the desk, apparently upset over a slight that took place online the night before.

Sometimes it takes the form of blatant cruelty and name calling. Often it’s something like un-friending someone on Facebook, or showing allegiance to one of your enemies by writing on that student’s wall.

There is often a feeling of shame associated with being hurt. Boys don’t talk about being bullied, for fear of looking “soft.” Girls know that the most popular, most successful peers are the ones who can confidently deflect any slights aimed at them.

I spoke at length with Rocky, and we created a plan of how to address the people who had been harassing her. We strategized ways that she could respond to them that could make it less painful for her in the moment. Most of all, we talked about making sure that she didn’t allow their cruelty to change her into someone who acted cruelly.

Bullying is a problem in all schools. Our school is no different. Boys and girls alike are both the perpetrators and the victims. Those who are accused of bullying aren’t necessarily bad kids, or even truly mean a lot of the time. But an environment where bullying or harassment is happening is an environment that can transform anyone into a bully.

The true danger of bullying is the way that it changes kids. After weeks of feeling defensive and guarded, Rocky began to hide her sweet softness. Enough of this transformation in children, and the environment of a school is changed.

My conversation with Rocky was about the aggression that I had seen from her. I hadn’t witnessed the harassment, but I did see that it made her something she is not.

Laura Klein teaches 8th grade at I.S. 217, Rafael Hernandez School of Performing Arts in the Bronx. More of her writing can be found on her blog, www.prelifenyc.blogspot.com.

New York Times – Bullying Changes a School, One Child at a Time

Bullied students are made to sign up for subscriptions that cost around $40 a month, then to turn on the WiFi hot spot function on their smartphones.

This allows the bullies to essentially take over the phone’s wireless connection, permitting them to surf the web for free – and also drawing down the phone’s battery because there are multiple users at one time.

“I am very worried my beloved smartphone may be worn out,” one 16-year-old boy old wrote anonymously in a web bulletin in January.

“I really want to cry. I am posting this because seriously, I don’t know what I am supposed to do after the semester starts.”

Around 20 million South Koreans, 40 per cent of the entire population, own smartphones.

While new technology has expanded the range of rewards for bullies, the act itself is an old problem in South Korea’s rigid school system, previously showing up in forms common around the world such as physical violence or taunting.

A survey by the Korean Federation of Teachers’ Association and the Chosun Ilbo newspaper said that 4.1 per cent of schoolchildren said they had been bullied, with some desperate students even taking their own lives.

About half a dozen suicides among middle and high school students linked to bullying since late last year has forced the government to start prosecution of teenage bullying suspects and introduce plainclothes police patrols in some schools.

But the changes in bullying may take some tackling, with traditional responses lacking teeth, education experts said.

“New schemes such as WiFi stealing are blurring the boundaries of school violence,” said Park Jong-chul, a high school teacher who is part of a teachers’ group that researches bullying.

“Some people say this is not a threat nor violence. (But) we need a new definition for school violence in terms of laws and norms.”

Globe & Mail – ‘Gimme your WiFi’: New bullies emerge in smartphone-crazy Korea

Employees with abusive bosses often deal with the situation in ways that inadvertently make them feel worse.

In at least one extreme case, workplace bullying has even been linked to suicide.

Gary Namie, a social psychologist who directs the Workplace Bullying Institute said that bullying is “a form of abuse which carries tremendous health harm.”

A new study surveyed nearly 500 employees about how they dealt with abusive supervision.

According to study author Dana Yagil of the University of Haifa in Israel, abusive supervisors are bosses who humiliate and insult their employees, never let them forget their mistakes, break promises and isolate employees from other co-workers,

About 13 to 14 per cent of Americans work under an abusive supervisor, Yagil said.

Her study on Israeli workers found that abused employees tend to cope by avoiding their bosses, seeking support from co-workers and trying to reassure themselves.

As useful as those strategies might sound, however, they actually made employees feel worse.

“It is understandable that employees wish to reduce the amount of their contact with an abusive boss to the minimum, but the strategies they use actually further increase their stress instead of reducing it,” Yagil said.

“This may happen because these strategies are associated with a sense of weakness and perpetuate the employee”s fear of the supervisor.”

Avoiding a workplace bully might seem easier than avoiding a school bully, given that employees can quit their jobs. But workers get caught in a cycle of stress, Namie said. An online survey of targeted workers by the WBI found that they put up with the abuse for an average of 22 months.

The stress of the bullying may itself lead to bad decision-making, Namie said and sometimes this cycle ends with tragedy.

Namie works as an expert legal witness on bullying. In one upcoming case, he said, a woman put up with daily barrages of screaming abuse from her boss for a year.

By the end, she was working 18-hour days, trying to shield the employees under her from her boss’ tyranny, Namie asserted.

Finally, she and several of her co-workers put together a 25-page complaint to human resources. Nothing happened, until she was called in for a meeting with senior management. Namie said that the woman knew she would be fired for making the complaint.

“Rather than allowing herself to be terminated, she bought a pistol, went to work, left three suicide notes, and she took her own life at work,” he said.

Indian Express – Workplace bully victims struggling to cope with ‘fatal’ stress

Over the last few weeks, the country’s media has been filled with reports about tragic cases of school bullying. This week, two more students from the same class reportedly took their own lives — one was the victim of bullying, the other a powerless friend who had stood by and watched the abuse.

Experts say the cases highlight how desperately many South Korean teenagers need a means to escape the bullying as well as a way to cope.

Park Han-wool, a 17-year-old high-school student, said he has been bullied for the past six years. He has been isolated from other classmates, beaten during school trips and locked up in the classroom.

“I wanted to tell people about it. I did tell my parents, but they didn’t take it seriously thinking it was an issue between friends,” he said.

The bullying became so bad that Park tried to jump from his school building in front of his teachers, but he was stopped by the police.

He is now involved in creating a music video with other teenagers to raise awareness of school bullying, an issue he says that was not taken seriously until recently.

The tools of bullying vary from forcing victims to run errands and steal, to sexual assault, confinement and gang beatings. With reports of other incidents of teenage violence n schools, including the assault of teachers and rape of younger students, many South Koreans are asking, “what is wrong with our kids?”

The answer, according to some analysts, lies within the hyper-competitive nature of South Korean society. As the country continues to enjoy success economically, Korean students are being pushed into an environment of competition to succeed.

“At school, students don’t see their peers as friends but as competition and believe that they need to beat others,” said Dr. Bae Joo-mi, a specialist at the Korea Youth Counseling Institute.

In a classroom environment in which students are forced to prove themselves, those who fall behind in grades turn to other means to show they are more powerful, taking on the role of the aggressor, Bae explained.

The family support system also fails many adolescents.

“The parents heavily invest in raising their children to be successful and skillful in various fields, but when it comes to raising them to be moral and have healthy personalities I think there has been a lack of interest,” Bae said.

Schools and teachers have been criticized for turning the other way in bullying cases and trying to cover it up. Local governments have gone into a frenzy of drafting up new measures to hold bullies accountable and prevent school violence.

Experts such as Bae believe it may take more than simply increasing monitoring of school violence. What students need is a healthier environment to learn more social skills and know how to deal with their problems, they say.

A survey conducted in 2010 by the Foundation for Preventing Youth Violence, a counseling center established more than 15 years ago, indicated that more than 20% of those surveyed said they had been bullied. Of those victims, more than 30% said they felt suicidal due to bullying.

The same group said last year that the number of counseling cases of students seeking help from suicidal feelings doubled from the previous year.

The concern is that students have not been able to learn how to find solutions to their problems in a rigid educational environment and are now turning to suicide as their last resort.

Counseling groups urge the government and schools to step up and punish those accountable, while keeping the victims safe from harm.

CNN International – South Korea’s school bullying has deadly consequences

She doesn’t really want to know what you think. The New Girl star, who turns 32 today, protects herself from online gossip and mean comments. “I can’t go on Gawker,” she tells Allure. “I actually think the writing is really funny, but there is a chance that somebody is undercutting me,” she says.

Her fear of bullies goes back to her early school days. “Girls spit in my face, people were so mean to me, I’d cry every day.”

Deschanel is aware of how closely she’s associated with her hairstyle. “I’m bangs and eyes,” she says. “It’s who I am. There have been periods when I’ve grown my bangs out, but I always cut them back, so it’s like, why go through the trouble?”

The interview was done before Deschanel and her husband, Ben Gibbard, separated, but she says during times of heartache, “If I’m sad, I listen to happy music.”

USA Today – Zooey Deschanel bullied in school: ‘Girls spit in my face’

Like most teens, Penn High School student Keri Richmond spends a lot of time on social media websites like Facebook and Twitter. Unfortunately, not every one of the people she encounters is a “friend.”

“Somebody made a Facebook group that you could like and it said, ‘Keri Richmond is a beep,’” says Richmond.

While the confident teenager tried to laugh it off, Richmond says it still stung. And this isn’t the only example of bullying Richmond has seen online. Mean Twitter accounts targeting her friends and classmates have been popping up all year.

“I think it is a huge problem,” says Richmond. “Now, everybody has an iPhone. Everybody is always on Facebook. Always on Twitter. technology is our generation and that is how people can front things. They get on and they type something mean about something and they don’t realize the harmful effects it has on people.”

Recently, someone started an anonymous Twitter account called “Penn Love” to combat the online bullying – the user has been tweeting uplifting messages.

“And that person wants to stay anonymous,” says Richmond. “People have tried to contact them and tried to figure out who it is. But they are not doing this for publicity. They are doing this strictly because they want to make a change and they want to see something positive instead of negativity.”

At Oregon Davis High School in Hamlet, a group of students is making their anti-bullying message loud and clear. Chante Pittman came up with the idea for the Bobcat Voice. Pittman and her friend Danielle Holmquest decided to start the group after they had been the targets of bullies. The idea is to discourage bullying and provide an outlet to teens who find themselves a target.

“I just want to be there to help them. Because I was to the point where I was suicidal,” says Pittman.

There are only about 300 kids in the school but as soon as they started advertising the anti-bullying group, 24 upperclassmen had joined the ranks.

“I know what to look for and I know how these students feel and I can relate to them and try and make a difference in their lives,” says Pittman.

The kids hope to not only make a difference in their school, but they also hope other schools will follow their lead.

WSBT.com – Teens stand up to bullies

And a boy, 15, who asserts fellow students at two Mornington Peninsula schools bullied, assaulted and threatened him, also has begun Supreme Court action.

Also, in court documents filed this week, a young woman claims school bullies threatened to stab her, and posted abusive messages on Facebook.

The lawyer for the two boys, Kim Bainbridge, of Garden and Green Lawyers, said he was handling a dozen writs related to schoolyard bullying in the state.

In one, it was alleged a child had been admitted for psychiatric care.

“The parents that come to us . . . do so after they have absolutely exhausted all the other avenues with the school,” Mr Bainbridge said.

The 15-year-old, who is suing through his mother, says he endured six years of bullying at St Brendan’s Primary at Somerville and Padua College in Mornington.

He claims the schools failed to heed complaints, protect him, or discipline the bullies.

The teen, who has Asperger’s syndrome, says that as a result he suffered chronic anxiety, panic attacks, depression and developed an eating disorder.

The writ names the local parish priests at the time as defendants. But Mr Bainbridge said this was a legal requirement, and the schools would be pursued.

According to court documents, the 10-year-old boy claims he has suffered nightmares, insomnia and a severe psychological disturbance.

The young woman is seeking damages from Braemar College, an independent school at Woodend, claiming she was assaulted, threatened, intimidated, harassed and slandered by students between 2005 and 2009.

In a statement of claim lodged in the County Court this week, the woman, now 19, says she was excluded from class activities, called names, made fun of, and that rude and abusive text message were sent and demeaning messages posted on Facebook about her.

As a result, she suffered depression, a social anxiety disorder, post-traumatic stress, and agoraphobia.

Braemar College principal Russell Deer said the case predated his tenure and he would investigate, but bullying was not condoned.

An Education Department spokesman said bullying was not tolerated at schools.

Herald Sun – Schoolchildren from across the state to launch lawsuits

Melbourne girl Sheniz Erkan reportedly took her own life on Monday after allegedly being bullied online.

Cases such as hers have prompted the Government to create the new website on how to handle internet bullying and how to block bullies from sites.

Minister for School Education Peter Garrett says the Easy Guide to Socialising Online provides information about different social media sites.

“You can get access to cyber safety tips and fact sheets and there’s also information about an Easy Guide to Socialising Online,” he said.

“I guess the key thing here is that we’re very aware that we need to provide information for those young people who are using the internet so that they can protect themselves,” he said.

In some cases bullies write offensive remarks on personal sites or they hack into someone’s account to send messages.

NSW Anti-Discrimination Board president Stepan Kerkyasharian says the Government’s website is overdue.

“There is of course an increased usage of social media and therefore commensurate with that there is also an increase in bullying,” he said.

“Unfortunately many people think that by posting something in Facebook or in one of the social mediums they are simply talking to their own friends.

“The reality is that they are not talking to their own friends; they’re not talking to their own social circle. The message they’re posting denigrating someone is there for the whole world to see.”

Mr Kerkyasharian says his organisation has received many complaints about internet bullying.

NSW Commissioner for Children and Young People, Megan Mitchell, says bullying must be stopped by any means and parents have a role to play.

“The advent of new technologies opens up more opportunities in the social media context,” she said.

“I think the key thing is that parents need to communicate with their kids about all aspects of their lives and children need to feel confident they can talk to their parents and be listened to.

“And so just like we ask about their days at school, we really also need to be asking about their day online.”

774 ABC Melbourne – New website helps young people block bullies

And more than three-quarters of people questioned in the global survey thought cyberbullying differed from other types of harassment and warranted special attention and efforts from parents and schools.

“The data clearly shows an appetite among global citizens for a targeted response to cyberbullying,” said Keren Gottfried, of the global research firm Ipsos, which conducted the poll.

But, she added, whether or not schools live up to this mandate is in the hands of educators.

The online poll of more than 18,000 adults in 24 countries, 6,500 of whom were parents, showed the most widely reported vehicle for cyberbullying was social networking sites likes Facebook, which were cited by 60 per cent.

Mobile devices and online chat rooms were a distant second and third, each around 40 per cent.

While the report showed that awareness of cyberbullying was relatively high, with two-thirds saying they heard, read or had seen information on the phenomenon, cultural and geographic differences abounded.

In Indonesia, 91 per cent said they knew about cyberbullying, in which a child, group of children or younger teen intentionally intimidates, threatens or embarrasses another child or group through the use of information technology such as social media or mobile devices.

Australia followed at 87 per cent, while Poland and Sweden trailed slightly behind. But only 29 per cent in Saudi Arabia, and 35 per cent in Russia, had heard of cyberbullying.

In the United States, where cases of cyberbullying have been widely reported to have been linked to teen-age suicides, the figure was 82 per cent.

Gottfried described the survey as the first global study of its kind and a benchmark to where assessments of cyberbullying vary.

“The key to this study is that it measures parental awareness of cyberbullying, not actual rates of the behaviour,” she said. “While we can’t speculate on what actually happens, it is quite possible that the proportion of children actually being cyberbullied is in fact understated, since we are speaking with the parents, not the kids.”

In India 32 per cent of parents said their child had experienced cyberbullying, followed by 20 per cent in Brazil and 18 per cent in Canada and Saudi Arabia and 15 per cent in the United States.

The highest incidence of people knowing of a child in the community being targeted was in Indonesia, with 53 per cent. But only 14 per cent there said their child had been cyberbullied — less than in Canada, Brazil, Saudi Arabia and the United States.

Overall, parents in France and Spain reported some of the lowest incidence of cyberbullying either of their own child or one in their community.

Gottfried said that future studies could show whether there was a trend toward greater awareness of cyberbullying, and shed some light on what affects parental awareness.

The complete list of results and countries can be found at ipsosglobaladvisor.com.

Vancouver Sun – Cyberbullying a problem around the globe: Poll

The city of Surrey, Surrey RCMP and CUPE launched a new film competition this week to encourage local youth to make movies with an anti-bullying message to help make Surrey a safer community.

“We need to draw attention to the effects of bullying and send a strong message to both students and adults that this kind of behavior will not be tolerated in our schools, our workplaces, online, or anywhere in our communities,” said Mayor Dianne Watts, upon announcement of the initiative, which forms part of the city’s crime reduction strategy.

The contest is calling for all budding activists and young filmmakers to submit short films from 30 seconds to a minute long. The clips will be judged in two categories: “junior” for students aged 14-15 and “senior” for students aged 16-18. The deadline for submissions is February 6. Winners will be announced on anti-bullying day, Febrauary  29. The top films will be broadcast on Shaw TV and later screened at a film festival.

“This initiative will hopefully not only shine a light on the issue of bullying but also engage the youth of this community,” said Surrey RCMP Asst. Commissioner Fraser MacRae. ”Dialogue on this issue is key to moving forward and changing individual and collective attitudes on bullying.”

Learn more at www.surrey.ca/stopbullying.

Vancouver Sun – Surrey anti-bullying contest turns student filmmakers into activists

The next year we moved to another city and I attended a different school. What did I do differently? I don’t remember, but I got through the rest of my schooling without being seriously victimized again, even though there were bullies around. I learned to be careful about people and places; I didn’t dare go into the boys’ washroom in my high school until I was in Grade 11, by which time the 20-year-old toughs in Tech Voc were a little less intimidating and I felt it was almost safe to stand for a minute at the urinal with my back turned. Bullying wasn’t newsworthy in those days, but it was very much a fact of life just the same.

I became a teacher and remained one for a long time. I had occasion to break up the occasional fight, and I know that at least a few times I was being used as a human shield by some students for whom getting from one classroom to another was a perilous journey. I have no doubt that I witnessed only a fraction of what was going on.

Only in the latter stages of my unexpectedly long career did I have parents approaching me with requests to intervene on behalf of a child who was being bullied, or to protect a child from the physical or psychological attacks of aggressive classmates. Sometimes I was able to help a little, but there were also times when I was of very little help, and on at least one occasion I probably made the situation worse.

As a child and an adolescent, I often wished for magic powers that might allow me to deal with injustices and inequalities. Superman comic books offered thrilling narratives but not a shred of practical information. But just as I long ago stopped dreaming of becoming a superhero, I no longer hold on to the hope that there is any real solution to the problem of bullying.

There is something in Nature that pushes all forms of life to exploit the individual who is smaller or weaker or in some way different.

My father was a hobby farmer. One spring, in addition to ordering 100 newborn chicks, he also ordered 10 newly hatched turkeys. One of these turned out to be a runt. When we noticed that the other birds were pecking at the runt’s head, we removed him and put him in his own small enclosure.

He showed no signs of being happy on his own, ignoring his food to search for a break in the netting to rejoin the others. Eventually, we put him back, only to see the others almost immediately commence pecking at his head again.

With each blow, he would dip his head, but never would he try to flee or fight back.

We removed him several times, but in the end left him with the others. One morning we found him dead in the sawdust, his cranium cracked open.

In the course of writing about bullying, I found that I was no more successful than the creators of Superman in coming up with a blueprint for dealing with bullies.

There is no simple, universal solution. Fighting back can be as dangerous as running away.

The majority of the stories I have heard about bullying have led me to believe that, with luck, most of us will outgrow our bullies. If the stories have a moral, it might be: survive today to thrive tomorrow.

Nick Fonda of Richmond taught high school and elementary school in the Eastern Townships for more than a quarter of a century. He is also a journalist and author, most recently of Principals and Other Schoolyard Bullies, a book of short stories published by Baraka Books.

Montreal Gazette – Sadly, bullying is a fact of life – but most of us will survive and thrive