Dear all,
During the month of October, Year 8 students discussed the topic of bullying. They talked about different types of bullying, about the victims, and different ways how to help them. They also shared their opinions on bullies and passive bystanders.
In order to be able to talk about their experiences anonymously, students created a set of questions that were all put together in a poll. Almost all of the Year 8 students (60 out of total of 62 students) took the poll. Afterwards, they discussed the results.
You can see the poll and its results by following this link .
Here is how some of the students comment on the poll results.
Katarina Blažević, 8.a:
I think that many students in our school get bullied and the first question in the poll is accurate. I think that more than 68% of students have been passive bystanders. I think that every student in this school has experienced other pupils calling them names, at least once or twice. It is something that you hear every day.
I believe that many students have seen bullying and that they did nothing, a bit more than 40%, as they answered in the poll. But also, a lot of students would stand up for the victim.
I think pupils answered the question “How much do you agree with people being passive bystanders?” very honestly. People in general, not just at our school, are passive bystanders.
It shocked me how many students haven’t spread rumours about someone, because, in my opinion, that happens a lot more.
In my opinion, some pupils answered the poll honestly, and some of them didn’t.
Antea Dobrović, 8.b:
I am shocked by the fact how many pupils said that they didn’t care when they saw someone getting bullied. I think that pupils were not that honest in some questions, like number 3 and number 5, for example.
The best way to see how often bullying happens at our school is by taking polls like this one, and I think we should take them more often. The teachers should also be more active and interested in this topic, and put effort in creating polls or something similar to that.
Ana Antunović, 8.c:
The poll results were as I expected they would be, but what shocked me was that a lot of students felt proud when they bullied someone, and that they wouldn’t do anything if they saw someone bullying someone else.
I think that a lot of students didn’t take the poll seriously. I also think that the next step should be putting up posters about the problem of bullying. Maybe we could even have some lessons in different subjects that could explain the problems and consequences of being a bully and being bullied.
I think that school is the place where most of the bullying happens, which is why we need to educate pupils about bullying and the awful consequences that come with being bullied. I think that, by doing this, bullying would be reduced.
Marija Buljubašić, 8.a:
Some answers in the poll have surprised me, and some of them were as I expected them to be. I think pupils mostly answered honestly, but in some questions, they were too scared to give a true answer. Most of the bullying happens at school and that is a big problem because most of pupils are passive bystanders and they are scared to tell anyone, including me. Most of the time I am a passive bystander because I don’t know what to do, but I don’t like that position. More than a half of pupils in the poll said that they had already been passive bystanders, but I think all of them were, but maybe they just didn’t notice that it was bullying, not just a joke.
I think there is a lot of gossiping and everyone does it even if they don’t want to. If their friends do it, they do it, too. There is always some sort of rumour going around about somebody. So, I don’t think that they answered that question honestly. Also, there is a lot of bullying happening online.
I feel bad for the students that get bullied, and I think they should stand up for themselves, but I know it is hard and not an easy step to take. When somebody does something to you every day, it is hard to ignore it, but when the victim ignores the bully, he will stop, because they do it to get attention.
I think the poll was a good idea, so the teachers can see how much of bullying happens that they don’t see.
Petra Jurčević, 8.b:
There are a lot of passive bystanders, and I think that’s very bad. I think that students didn’t answer honestly. I think some pupils joked with the poll, but some didn’t. And a lot of students said that they didn’t care about bullying, and I think that’s bad because if they ever got bullied they would care a lot, and they would be sad. I think that by doing these polls you can find out a lot more about students and their lives.
Petra Puharić, 8.b:
A lot of things from the poll were expected, but some of them weren’t. I think a lot of pupils posted insulting photos of others, so they didn’t answer truly. I didn’t expect that many people were bullied in the moment of doing the poll.
I think students didn’t answer truly most of the questions, like “What would you do if you saw somebody hitting your friend?”. A lot of them answered that they would stand up for their friends, but in the other question we saw that not so many pupils had stood up for their friends.
I think most of them saw this poll as a joke, and didn’t answer honestly just because they didn’t really care.
But some of the answers in the poll were expected, like “How much do you agree with people being passive bystanders?”. We are all sometimes passive bystanders and we don’t like it so the answers to that question were as I expected it would be.
Antea Kapetanović, 8.b:
I think that pupils didn’t answer honestly. I believe that most of them get bullied but they don’t say anything. Most of the bullying happens at school, and my question is “Why?”. At school there are a lot of passive bystanders because they don’t know what to do.
I think that many pupils post or send insulting photos, but they don’t want to admit it. There are also rumours that I think work the same as insulting photos. I believe that everyone got at least one insulting message. A lot of pupils have been left out at least once, and made fun of at the same time.
To sum up, I believe pupils didn’t answer honestly.
AUTOR: Ana Polombito Karamatić
