School violence: are counseling and school voluntary work enough to fight it off?

Translated by SOORIN KIM(voluntarily activist)

Violence in school has been around for some time, but it is only worsening. In fact, it has become so widespread that it has its own slang, such as “wangdda” (outcast) and “iljin” (bully). But students – not just the bullies but also their victims – have become numb to the problem.

 

School bullying has become prevalent to the extent that students consider it a natural part of their school life. The society has grown used to the occasional news about victims committing suicide.

 

People were appalled recently when a boy in Daegu who had been suffering school violence ended his own life by jumping off from his 16-floor apartment. They were stunned again when it was reported that some of the bullies went so far as to rob the store run by the victim’s parents. The shock however, did not last.

 

President Lee Myng-bak and Education Minister Lee Ju-ho met with parents, students and school authorities to discuss eradicating school violence. Were such a meeting enough to stop school violence, the tragedy would not have happened in the first place. So we ask, how has the government been dealing with this aggravating problem of bullying?

We requested the Education ministry’s accounts of the current situation concerning school 

violence and handling of it.

1. Actions by the Autonomous School Committee Against Bullying.

		cases of review	number of assailant	number of victim
2009	elementary school	151	325	273
	middle school	3846	10627	9030
	high school	2608	3653	2405
2010	elementary school	231	657	294
	middle school	5376	14179	10363
	high school	2216	5113	3091

The number of cases of bullying in primary, middle and high schools increased by about 18 percent from 6,605 in 2009 to 7,823 in 2010.  The committee punished the assailants mostly with penalties, such as cleaning the school restrooms. It also required them to go through a special educational program designed to prevent school violence. The victims were provided with counseling.

2.  Types of violence reported by the committee

<year 2009>

Category	Review cases	Number of incidents	Number of assailants imposed penalty by the committee
injury	240	366	339
physical violence	3,509	9,240	8523
illegal confinement	2	16	14
blackmail	125	274	260
extortion	20	41	38
slander/libel	52	116	113
fraud	10	13	13
sexual assault	110	190	180
bullying	149	689	663
internet obscenity	26	57	56
mugging	1,157	3,044	2981
others	205	559	538
total	5,605	14,605	14276

The most common type of school bullying handled by the committee was physical assault, followed by mugging. According to the reports on school violence by the committee, of the 5,605 incidents in 2009, physical assault took the first place, followed by mugging. The committee said that there were almost twice as many incidents by boys than by girls. The committee said there were 4,683 more male bullies, compared with girls. They were mostly dealt with class changes, special educations, suspensions, and etc.

Category	Review cases	Number of incidents	Number of assailants imposed penalty by the committee
injury	305	536	515
physical violence	5,119	12,650	12395
illegal confinement	7	15	14
blackmail	177	467	445
extortion	21	40	40
slander/libel	104	274	270
fraud	15	19	19
sexual assault	148	322	319
bullying	206	1001	984
internet obscenity	39	102	101
mugging	1,367	3,404	3365
others	315	1,119	1086
total	7,823	19,949	19,553

In 2010, of the total reported incidents of 7,823, physical assault again took the first place by 5,119 incidents, with mugging on the second place by 1,367. Again, assaults by boys (14,740) outnumbered those by girls (6,209) by about 7,000 incidents. The total reported bullies rose by about 5,000 compared to last year’s number.

 

Many cases of school bullying go unreported. Although everybody is shouting for eradication of bullying and school violence, nobody seems to have found solutions. Are counseling and changing classes or schools for the bullies enough for protecting the students? Will disciplinary measures, such as community work, lead the assailant students onto a right path?

 

The assaulted students choose death because they think they have no other way to end the violence, and the assaulters continue their violence because they are numb to it. Punishing the assailants and protecting the victims are only measures after the violence already have taken place. We have to pay attention to the students’ states of mind and relationships, talk with them and take actions before someone actually gets hurt.

 

The ministry of education says that it will record the school violence in school life reports. This however, is controversial, as there are concerns that this measure might lead to individual students’ bruise merging once again with college entrance competition or the issue being attributed solely to the students. We have to think once again, whether this measure would help us focus on students’ relationships and communications or rather trigger more segmentations and conflicts.