Bullying has an impact which lasts years. I know – I’ve been a victim

Anita Sethi

Depression, anxiety, panic attacks – it’s a major risk factor for mental health in adulthood. This Anti-Bullying Week, let’s encourage empathy and kindness

A scene that often replays in my mind is being 13 years old, curled up in the foetal position on the floor and being kicked in the ribs. I’m screaming but then my voice catches and becomes a silence that sticks as a lump in the throat that stays there for years.

Bullying – which can be physical, mental, emotional, verbal – can steal a lot, including our confidence and self-esteem. It can also steal language, the ability to express what we have experienced.

This week is Anti-Bullying Week, and it is important to understand that, if not addressed, bullying can have deep and damaging consequences – echoing far into the future and affecting our relationships and behaviour.

I have experienced physical bullying: the sudden sharp pain of being pinched in the playground, the searing sting of a slap, the foot stamping on me, hands shoving me into the blaring traffic of a busy road. I have experienced verbal bullying too. “Sticks and stones can break your bones but words will never harm you,” went the childhood chant – which I found confusing because words can harm and hurt most, can break your heart and spirit.

Bullies love to chip away at an identity – and the use of language can be their most belittling tactic. Often the first thing they take is a person’s name: I was “Freak” for much of my younger life. I was dehumanised – I had “lips like a slug”, “hair like a horse”, and was “a stupid Indian cow” (considering that a cow is actually deemed a holy animal in India, I’m now taking this as a compliment).

Studies reveal that childhood bullying can be a major risk factor for poor mental health in adulthood, raising the risk of depression, anxiety, panic attacks, post-traumatic stress disorder, and suicidal thoughts – all of which I have had. Research by the University of Montreal also suggests that bullying can change the structure surrounding a gene involved in regulating mood – making victims more vulnerable to mental health problems as they age. Another study into the long-term ramifications revealed that bullying could lead to “reduced adaptation to adult roles, including forming lasting relationships, integrating into work and being economically independent”.

The theme of this year’s Anti-Bullying Week is “choose respect”, and it is important that we explore and put into practice the ways we can respect others and ourselves more, to both help those who still grapple with the effects of bullying, and to stop others from having to suffer. Empathy – a crucial understanding of the minds and hearts of others – can stop us from wilfully hurting others. One report has revealed that reading can help to teach empathy: I believe books should be prescribed for both bullies and those who’ve been bullied.

This year I was asked to write for Three Things I’d Tell My Younger Self, a new book aimed at helping young people cope with life. What would I say, if I could journey back through time? Words can harm but can also heal. I would tell my younger self not to internalise the voices telling me I was worthless, useless, a loser, stupid, ugly. I now recognise that by speaking out, writing back, by finding and using our true voice, we can break the poisonous grip of the past.

Bullying is a repeated pattern of abuse of power designed to dominate those perceived as inferior, as weaker. Bullying is an endemic, systemic attempt to degrade, and we need to recognise the signs and empower ourselves to deal with it, and prevent it. Bullying can happen in childhood and in adulthood too. Indeed, the leader of the most powerful country on Earth uses bullying to dominate and degrade his opponents. In this world of so-called strong men, let’s remember that strength can actually be found in vulnerability – in showing the ways in which we have been hurt, how that hurt has shaped our lives, and how we can begin to heal it through empathy, kindness, and respect.

• Anita Sethi is a writer and journalist, and a contributor to Three Things I’d Tell My Younger Self

 

• Fines mean less to wealthy students so we’ve opted for community service, says St John’s college 

Community service tasks such as cleaning toilets and digging trenches are the fairest way to punish misbehaving students, says a Cambridge University college.

St John’s college Cambridge has defended its decision to make students carry out manual labour for bad behaviour – as reported by the Cambridge Student– saying such tasks are more evenhanded than the financial penalties imposed by other Cambridge colleges and UK universities.

“The dean’s policy is to make such an order in preference to imposing a fine. The college recognises that the effect of a fine varies according to students’ ability to pay it,” St John’s says.

Other colleges at Cambridge University have collected a total of £38,209 in student fines since October 2011 for offences ranging from missed tutorials (a £15 offence at Girton cllege) to “noise violation” (£180 at Pembroke college).

It is common practice for universities to fine students for wrongdoing – students at Leeds University can be charged up to £100 for littering in student halls, while Keele warns students they could be fined £125-£500 for offences such as smoking cigarettes indoors and making vexatious complaints.

There are no national statistics to indicate how much students are fined in disciplinary charges each year, but freedom of information requests show university libraries accrued around £50m from students with overdue books for the six academic years from 2004-05.

Jamie Stern-Weiner, who graduated from Cambridge University this summer and was often hit with library fines, admits that there is sometimes a need to punish students. “Libraries need to have books returned so others can borrow them, and you need some incentive to get them returned. While I don’t love paying fines, I hate not being able to find a book in the library that should be there.”

But Pete Mercer, NUS vice-president, warns that university punishments should come only after adequate warnings.

“That institutions are racking up such huge sums in fines suggests that they are gratuitous, and are treating students as cash cows. It’s vital that universities considering levying fines take student hardship into account.”

“If money is collected through fines, it must be put back into helping students through things like hardship funds and library resources.”

Rosalyn Old, president of Cambridge University’s student union, says community service punishments must be also be proportionate: “We support efforts to ensure that the effect of punishments doesn’t depend on students’ different financial backgrounds. But university staff should respect the fact that students are adults and should be treated as such.”

• Culled from The Guardian

 

Academic Union shuts down varsity, accuses Govt of neglect

via Academic Union shuts down varsity, accuses Govt of neglect

Academic Union shuts down varsity, accuses Govt of neglect

By Chidiebube Okeoma, Owerri

The Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) on Tuesday shut down all academic and non academic activities at the Federal University of Technology, Owerri, otherwise known as FUTO in South-East Nigeria, in solidarity with the nationwide industrial action embarked upon by the academic body.

The Union also declared a “no teaching, no examination, no attendance to statutory meetings” until its demands are met by the Federal Government.

At a press conference, the ASUU chairman in FUTO, Christopher Echereobia, accused the Federal Government of “deliberate action to kill public education in Nigeria.”

Echereobia, who spoke alongside the union’s Secretary, Chinedu Ihejirika and members, said that it was unfortunate that the government was sabotaging the country’s education sector.

The ASUU chief informed that the goal of the indefinite strike was to compel the government to address various issues affecting ASUU.

He listed some of the issues to include “funding for the revitalisation of public universities based on the Federal Government-ASUU Memorandum of Understanding of 2012, 2013 and 2017.

“Reconstitution of the current government team to allow for a leader and chairman of the Federal Government-ASUU renegotiation team who has the interest of the nation and its people at heart.

“Release of the forensic audit report on Earned Academic Allowances payments, settlement of all outstanding Earned Academic Allowances and mainstreaming of same into salaries, beginning with the 2018 budget.”

He also listed payment of Earned Academic Allowances to ASUU members at the University of Ilorin, Kwara State, without further delay as one of the demands.

Echereobia said that the FG must pay all arrears of shortfall in salaries to al universities that have met the verification requirements of the presidential initiative on continuous Audit.

He said, “We demand the provision of a platform by the federal government for ASUU to engage governors on the proliferation of universities, underfunding of university education and undue interference in the affairs of state universities.”`