Is this bullying?

Have you ever given nicknames to anyone? Is this bullying?

Have you ever commented on others’ appearance? Is this bullying?

Have you ever isolated someone in your peer group? Is this bullying?

I think that it is difficult to decide whether the above behaviours can be classified as bullying or not because it depends on the situation.

A Behavioural Therapist and Educational Psychometrician, Rachel Chan, generalized the definition of bullying with three main characteristics: intent, aggression and repetition.

Intentional: the behaviour intends to cause harm to a specific individual
Aggressive: any form of actions that causes damage in a verbal, mental or emotional manner

Repeated: occurring more than one time

That means, if you intended to and really hurt someone not only once, you did bully that person through the above behaviours.

Nowadays, massive bullying has occurred in social media. The degree of harmfulness to the victim could be fatal.

Have you ever copied any photo of any people, made fun of it and share it with the others on the Internet? Is this bullying?

Have you ever given any comments that hurt other people’s feelings? Is this bullying?

I hope you can understand more about bullying now and will not do anything anymore to hurt the others.

Some of you may have to face the temptation today. The Singing Contest will be held this afternoon.

I understand that all the junior form classes are focusing on the results of the competition. I notice that there are some arguments or undesirable things happened already among students in the same class or in between classes. But, as mentioned by the 1J students yesterday, ‘the most important thing is not to win the competitions, but to work together as a class.’ However, if unfortunately, you find any suspected bullying incident including cyberbullying, please take action and report to any teacher.

Ms Leung WP
12 May 2023