CHAPTER 7 LEARNER- ON- LEARNER VIOLENCE
7.3 Bullying 173
7.3.2 Possible consequences of bullying 177
It seemed that cell phones provided a vehicle which could be used by some MHS learners to circulate messages intended to humiliate and harm others. However, this form of bullying appeared to be complex since cell phones were small devices which learners carried to school even though they were prohibited to do so. Cell phones also could be used without the supervision of any adult, either the teachers or parents and as such learners could easily misuse them.
A few years ago we had a case of this type of bullying and eventually when the child who was being bullied got tired, he murdered the bully. This was about three years ago. I was a grade head at the time. The bullying started at the school and it was reported to the office. But the boy who was being bullied ran away from the school. In the morning of the following day he waited on the road carrying a knife and when the bully arrived, this boy stabbed him. The stabbed learner died in my arms. To me that was not a nice experience. This is why I deal with learner-on- learner violence very seriously. The boy who was the bully had been bullying this young man and I believe that the last straw was when the bully took this boy and put him up at the balcony. He made fun of the victim in front of other learners. I think that was the final straw for the boy who was being bullied. He had had enough. I think the case has not yet been resolved to date. Both the boys were Africans. He was suspended from the school. We advised him that it was not safe for him to come to the school because we could only protect him while he was in the school. However, there was no way in which we could protect him on the route to and from the school. So I think his family realised that it was too dangerous for him to come to the school (HMiller 3).
Cyber bullying evoked emotional feelings such as anger among some victims and they wanted to take revenge. As one participant from a girls’ focus group at MHS reported:
If your name is written on the list, sometimes you feel angry and you want to fight, but you will not know who wrote you on the list. Some learners report to the principal, but it doesn’t help because he will also not know the first person to write on the list. Few learners report cases to the principal because he is a bit slow in taking actions (Girls focus group MHS).
The repercussions of bullying could sometimes lead the victims to think of resorting to self-destruction measures as it was reported by one of the learners from a focus group discussion: “You know! One learner even wanted to commit suicide because of rumours circulated in the list” (Girls focus group MHS).
The effects of bullying on the victims varied ranging from feeling angry, feeling powerless, wanting to commit suicide and bunking school. At THS the effects of
bullying on the perpetrators included punitive measures taken by teachers and suspension instituted against the perpetrators by the disciplinary committee. However, It seemed that the punitive measures were not effective since the bullies continued victimising some learners. On the contrary, some victims at MHS appeared to have lost confidence in the ability of school managers to address bullying since some of them considered the principal to be too slow in taking action. Such mistrust of school managers might have led to one of the victims trying to rescue himself from the bully, but ended up killing the said bully.
The findings in this study regarding the prevalence of bullying in the two schools are consistent with the findings of previous studies (De Wet, 2010; Geffner et al., 2001;
Harber, 2004; Liang et al., 2007; Olweus, 1999) which indicate that bullying in schools is common among boys and girls. The findings revealed that bullying sometimes had serious repercussions. The killing of one learner who retaliated against a bully at MHS was a case in point though this was an isolated issue. The findings also suggest that bullying was a stumbling block pertaining to access to education for some learners who had to stay at home because they feared bullying at THS. While the Constitution of South Africa declares education as a right (Republic of South Africa, 1996a), this right could not easily be enjoyed by some learners if bullying is not effectively addressed.
The findings in this study further revealed that there is a link between drugs and bullying .At THS, for example, it was found that some learners bullied others after they smoked dagga. In schools which are located within communities where drugs are freely available such drugs can easily be imported into the schools (South African Council of Educators, 2011). It also appeared that new technologies such as cell phones were misused by some learners at MHS to perpetrate bullying against other learners. This form of bullying seemed to be a complicated phenomenon to the school managers and learners. The learners who were victims of cyber bullying felt angry and frustrated because the origin of cyber bullying could not be traced. The school mangers could not do anything other than banning the use of cell phones on the school compound. This strategy of banning cell phones hardly worked because some learners continued to carry and used cell phones while they were on school compound. While there was an attempt to manage bullying in the two schools, there appeared to be weak leadership from teachers and learners in terms of persuading and inspiring the bullies to refrain from
bullying other learners. Leadership as a process of influence is characterized, inter alia, by inspirational and rational persuasion (Kreitner & Kinicki, 2008).