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■■■ NY Timesの記事 ■■■
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題名: 18 and Under At Last, Facing Down Bullies (and Their Enablers)
記者: By PERRI KLASS, M.D.
発行日: June 9, 2009
URL: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/09/health/09klas.html
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【Passage/本文】
As a doctor in Boston back in the 1990s, I did a physical on a boy
in fifth or sixth grade at a public school.
I asked him his favorite subject: definitely science; he had won a
prize in a science fair, and was to go on to compete in a multischool
fair.
The problem was, there were some kids at school who were picking on
him every day about winning the science fair; he was getting teased
and jostled and even, occasionally, beaten up.
His mother shook her head and wondered aloud whether life would be
easier if he just let the science fair thing drop.
Bullying elicits strong and highly personal reactions; I remember
my own sense of outrage and identification.
Here was a highly intelligent child, a lover of science, possibly
a future Einstein, tormented by brutes.
By definition, bullying involves repetition; a child is repeatedly
the target of taunts or physical attacks -- or, in the case of girls,
rumors and social exclusion.
It is reported that a quarter of all children have been involved in
bullying, either as bullies or as victims.
In recent years, pediatricians and researchers in this country have
been giving bullies and their victims the attention they have long
deserved -- and have long received in Europe.
We've gotten past the "kids will be kids" notion that bullying is a
normal part of childhood or the prelude to a successful life
strategy.
Research has described long-term risks -- not just to victims, who
may be more likely than their peers to experience depression and
suicidal thoughts, but to the bullies themselves, who are less
likely to finish school or hold down a job.
For a successful anti-bullying program, the school needs to survey
the children and find out the details -- where it happens, when it
happens.
There must be a change in the culture of the school; through class
discussions, parent meetings and consistent responses to every
incident, the school must put out the message that bullying will
not be tolerated.
