How to stop bullying in schools a dutch way
| Author | Charissa Bakema |
| Position | Academy for social studies, Christian University Ede, Holland. |
| Pages | 77-82 |
Page 77
I was about 10 years old when I first encountered violence in school, commonly known as bullying. One of the girls was not accepted or merely tolerated by the rest of the class. Her parents voted for the wrong political party, she already had breasts and her mother was "a prostitute‟, according to my classmates...
Several forms of violence were recurrent as far as she was concerned. A lot of times during recess, the whole class would yell at her. She tried to defend herself but eventually she lost. There were about 15 people against her!
I felt sorry for her, but was very shy and afraid to say anything. I tried once, but at the same moment everybody turned to me and started yelling at me. I stopped helping her.
The teachers at my school saw what happened but didn‟t know how to counter or prevent the situation. There were no interventions except a friendly "don‟t fight with each other‟.
I still feel sad when I think about this girl. I have no record of her current status, but I am sure she had a horrible time that influenced her life in a negative way that year.
When I finished my study "Social Work and Drama‟ I decided to dedicate myself to preventing violence in schools. I went to primary schools and secondary schools with forum theatre, I had many discussions with numerous teenagers and children about the differences between teasing and bullying and I‟ve organized a lot of parent & teacher events. In this article I am to describe the method we use in the Netherlands to prevent violence in local schools. Considering the fact that school violence can severely affect the laterPage 78development of the victim‟s personality and social skills it is advisable that all those involved in the educational process should cooperate in order to prevent violent manifestations among children and teenagers alike.
The year 1998 marks the debut of school violence research in the Netherlands. It was then that a first book to deal with such a topic appeared. "The black sheep in the classroom!‟ immediately arouse interest for the subject. Parents, teachers, youth workers, psychologists and students read the book. After that first book a lot of different materials were published and developed, but there was a need for common thinking and for a more systematic way of working.
If we want to stop violence, it‟s very important to do that in a professional way. Not only does the victim need help, but those around the victim also need to understand the implications of what is happening and learn to control the situation. The Dutch pedagogue, Bob van der Meer [3], wrote a method consisting of 5 pillars.
His method contains the following aspects:
Most often, violence in schools and the subsequent types of aggression are commonly being referred to as "bullying‟. Consequently, according to van der Meer, everybody involved needs to know the definition of bullying, the difference between bullying and teasing, the different parties who are involved and the psychological mechanisms that take place. Children, parents, teachers and school board all need to change their attitudes towards the way in which bullying is perceived. And finally it‟s important to know the reasons why the bullying happens.
The latest research has been published in Holland in June 2009 by the Dutch Youth Institute [5], [8].
Since 2001 Holland has been part of the international research program: Health Behaviour in School-aged Children (HBSC). Every four years research will be done under Dutch children at primary schools, aged 10 to 12 and at secondary schools under children aged 11 to 16 year.
About 11 % of the children in primary schools are being bullied weekly; about 25% of the children say it happens occasionally (a few times in a period of a few months).
About 5 % of the teenagers of secondary schools are being bullied more than once a week.
When referring to cyber-bullying 17-23% of the children and teenagers claim to being bullied regularly, whereas 30 to 35% have the experience of being bullied on the internet, about once a month.
At European level Dutch children are being bullied less than in Turkey, Greece and Romania. And Dutch Children are bullied more than the children in...
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