Bullying in Schools: An Argument for Zero Tolerance Policy

In this era of globalization, 'Bullying' is a common problem and a hot issue to debate from people from all walks of life. Bullying is a basic thing that students are facing in school and it is difficult to escape. This is because based on the Brunswick News, bullying can come in diversified forms such as verbal and physical abuse. Verbal bullying is the act of saying some hurtful things to someone such as teasing and name-calling. However, physical abuse is defined as a non-accidental physical injury that includes kicking, hitting, and shoving. Not only that, according to the National Bullying Prevention Center, “those students who reported being bullied, 13 % were verbal bullying such as made fun of, called names, or insulted; 13% were the subject of rumors; 5% were physical abuse like pushed, shoved, tripped, or spit on; and 5% were excluded from activities on purpose”. Therefore, in this bullying argumentative essay we agree that bullying in schools should be stopped because it will affect the student's mental health. It is needed to provide a better environment for students to study and avoid adolescent problems.

Firstly, bullying in school should be stopped because it will affect the mental health of the students. For instance, the most common mental health problem that might be found in the student is depression and anxiety. This is due to while students are in an environment where they are being abused or beaten for a long time, they will become timid even afraid to make friends with others. When students have no friends to act as their listeners or help them escape from being bullied, it will cause the students to accumulate bad emotions in daily life. As we know, anxiety can cause a person to become petulant. However, a petulant person will not easily make contact with other people. Students will experience problems of depression and anxiety, advance feelings of sadness and loneliness, and affect the quality of sleeping because of being bullied. However, these issues may persist for a person into adulthood. Other than that, bullying also can cause the students to become reluctant to interact with other people even afraid to go to school. For example, for those students who are being bullied, most of the time they deliberately avoid interacting with outsiders because they funk off offending people then being bullied again. In addition, students know that if they report their bullying case to school, they will face more cruel treatment from bullies. Based on helplessness, the students will choose to skip school. Victims of bullying may exhibit behavioral symptoms as well, like not being active in social situations, getting to school or work late, asking leave for more days, skipping school without telling parents. They will try to retaliate against their tormentors because of being bullied. Furthermore, students are unable to handle their interpersonal relationships well in the future. The reason is students find it hard to believe someone else because they have an experience of being bullied. For instance, they protect themselves by avoiding communicating with other people. Therefore, the social cycle of the students will be getting smaller. In this case, students will easily have misunderstandings with each other in daily communication. Thus, bullying seriously impacts the mental health of students.

Secondly, bullying in school should be stopped to provide a better environment for students to study. A better environment makes the students more willing to go to school. If bullying happens in school frequently, the school's environment will make students feel dangerous and insecure. The consequence of this situation is students have to go to school with fear every day because they are afraid that they will be the next victim of bullying. Therefore, this kind of invisible pressure and fear will cause them unwilling to go to school. In this case, students are unable to concentrate on their studies and classwork and even regress in their academic performance. However, if bullying is stopped, the environment of the school will become safe and peaceful. This will help the students be more willing to go to school because they do not need to worry about their safety being threatened anytime and anywhere. Due to the school's environment becoming better, students can also pay full attention to their studies. Besides, parents can focus on their jobs if their children are willing to go to school. On the contrary, if the children are unwilling to go to school because they are being bullied at school, this will cause parents to worry. “56% of parents say they are most worried about bullying at school, more than issues like internet safety and gaming addiction”. If the children are bullied at school, parents will be anxious because they are worried about their children’s safety and lead them unable to do their job well. To allow parents can send their children to school without worrying, bullying in school should be stopped. This will also allow parents to focus on their jobs at the same time they do not need to worry about their children’s safety. As we know, a school environment without bullying can train disciplined students. However, the occurrence of bullying in school affects the discipline of the students and will affect the reputation of the school. The school that always happens bullying will have a worse environment because the students have lost their discipline. This will cause the outsiders to have a bad impression of the school and leave a negative reputation on the school. In order to improve the reputation of the school, bullying in school should be stopped. 

Third, bullying in school should be stopped because it can avoid adolescent problems among students. Nowadays, most of the bullies are students and the majority of the bullying cases come from school. The reason students become bullies is that they have experience being bullied in school. For example, through bullying, the bullies will feel comfort and relief. Under such circumstances, adolescent problems will become serious among students. Therefore, bullying in school should be stopped to avoid the adolescent problem. '92% of youth join gangs for protection for the simple reason of their involvement in anti-social activities. It could also find that 90% out of 92% of youth kept utmost credibility on gang's protection than other types of safety measures'. From the statistic above, we know that students nowadays are more willing to get protection from the gang. For instance, students join a gang to get protection from illegal people because they feel that getting protection from a gang is the most effective way and avoid them by being the bully. So, it proves that bullying is one of the reasons that cause an increase in the adolescent problem. Besides, stopping bullying in school can decrease the student's dropout rate. 

In conclusion, we have mentioned only three main reasons why bullying should be stopped in schools, but it isn't the whole list of problems. A school without bullying will provide a better environment for students, which can help schools train disciplined students. As a result of this situation, the school will maintain a positive reputation. Thus, bullying in school should be stopped to provide a better environment for students to study.