The role of a school counsellor in tackling the challenges faced by students, and how bullying is affecting at school (Part 1.13):
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There are multiple roles a counsellor does for student development at school- academic performance counselling, family related counselling, career counselling, school adjustment related aspects and so on.
One of the major tasks for a school counsellor is also to help a child plan for his future, whether that means continuing on to higher education, doing entrepreneurship, entering the workforce and so on. Ideally, a school counsellor should be involved with this process since a student entered school, providing guidance and study skills and intervening during times of poor or declining school performance. As we discussed in our previous articles, there are myriad challenges which counsellors face to discharge their duties.
As reported in an article from UWA online of USA,
there are some school counsellors who go an extra mile, even accompany students
on college visits and walk them through the application process
There are many student challenges school counsellors
tackle, in this article we have done a focussed study on school bullying.
School bullying is a major challenge at school:
School bullying is also a major challenge in schools,
which affects the child’s performance at school and life altogether. What do we
mean by bullying? This means one who is
habitually cruel, insulting, or threatening to others who are weaker, smaller,
or in some way vulnerable
School bullying may occur either in schools, on
campus, or outside of school, but it is due to relationships created in school
settings. There are many types of bullying, such as direct bullying or
indirect bullying, verbal bullying, physical bullying, emotional bullying, sexual
bullying, cyberbullying to name the major ones. In order to tackle cyberbullying, some school counsellors monitor social media to varying degrees. As a
preventative measure, counsellors are also involved with media education and
lessons about how to use social media responsibly
Reasons based on
which bullying might happen:
The reasons for being bullied reported most often by students include physical
appearance, race/ethnicity, Gender, Disability, Religion, Sexual orientation. The
reasons are not the same for all the schools and regions, the reasons will vary
based on economic, sociological and cultural factors of the school/region /country
Few statistical data on occurrences of bullying:
As per statistics in the USA with National
Center for Education Statistics, more than one out of five students report being bullied in
their life. As per this statistics in below table 1.1, we have presented a report
based on percentage where the children have been bullied
Below is the report where bullied
students reported that bullying occurred in the following
places:
Table 1.1
|
Percentage of occurrences of bullying |
Where did it occur |
|
42% |
in the hallway (corridor) or stairwell at school |
|
34% |
inside the classroom |
|
22% |
in the cafeteria |
|
19% |
outside on school grounds |
|
10% |
on the school bus |
|
9% |
in the bathroom or locker room |
There are a few astonishing
aspects from the above statistics. The major number of bullying occurrences
area i.e. 42% happen in a school area (corridor) where nobody is there to
monitor children on regular basis. And 9% occurrences are also reported in the bathroom and locker room usually where children spend very less time in school.
All the above details and statistics show that counsellors have a major role to play in school. And only a counsellor alone cannot run the show, all the school stakeholders should collaborate and work together.
Schools
need to have policies in place and procedures that are enforced. Bringing
anti-bullying into every part of the curriculum can also go a long way. For
example, language arts teachers can find required novels/stories that give
students empathy for others
Additionally schools should design a holistic wellbeing program. And also make sure that the legal compliances related to bullying framed by the concerned school boards, education departments should be followed.
Further
reading:
https://www.uopeople.edu/blog/definition-of-bullying/
https://online.uwa.edu/news/challenges-for-school-counselors/
This is part of Children's mental health and wellbeing series brought to you by Credence Learning Foundation. This article is taken from a study submitted as course work at Azim Premji University. The part covered in this series 1.13 is an additional research review work done by CLF on 15th Nov 2020.
