Alpha School students signed a commitment to prevent school bullying.
On the evening of November 3, I read news about a 9th-grade male student who jumped from the 3rd floor after being subjected to continuous offensive behaviors by a group of friends during a class session.
Fortunately, he survived, though he suffered severe injuries after this action. But for those working in education like us, the sorrow over the problem of school violence grew deeper once more, as it has been an obsession for generations of students, with myself being no exception.
The opening day of the new 2022–2023 school year was a memorable day for me. Alpha School (a school in the educational system of EQuest Group) chose to start the new school year with a pledge to prevent school bullying from all students and teachers in the school, under the slogan “Be a Buddy, not a Bully.”
No fluff, no empty promises, no superficiality—Alpha students, the school, and parents together signed a commitment to do very specific things such as: Not calling friends by hurtful nicknames; not spreading rumors; not touching friends without their consent. This commitment received 100% consensus from teachers, students, and all parents in the school.
To me, this event was memorable because it was my dream throughout my school years.
I was born a weak and small child, so being bullied was my biggest fear and obsession during my school days. I could not always tell my parents either, because the more I told, the easier it was to get beaten up in retaliation.
Recalling the past when I passed the entrance exam to Hanoi – Amsterdam High School for the Gifted (“Ams School”), the greatest happiness for me was not the prestige of the school or the pride of my parents, but actually just that I would no longer be bullied: no more having to go to school extremely early or return extremely late to avoid a few bully classmates; no more being called by body-shaming nicknames all day long, etc.
Before that, I had to learn many ways to “survive” and “avoid being bullied” under such living conditions, but no matter how much I avoided, on several occasions I still had to fight against peers much bigger than me, bearing all kinds of injuries when I was bullied beyond what I could endure. That obsession only ended when I began studying at Ams School. Only then was I at peace and happy every day going to school.
In reality, school violence is a problem in every education system. According to a 2018 UNICEF statistic, 1 out of every 3 students aged 13–15 has experienced being bullied. 3 out of every 10 students in 39 industrialized countries admit to having bullied a friend. In 2017, nearly 720 million school-aged children lived in countries where corporal punishment in schools was not prohibited.
Later, when co-founding an organization dedicated to investing in education, I envisioned the schools we would have: In terms of quality, they must be places providing educational products that meet international standards at affordable prices. In terms of environment, they must be places where children feel physically and emotionally safe, as well as confident and happy when going to school. The school that a child should attend must be a school that makes them feel “going to school is happiness, eagerly awaiting each day as a joyful day” – as in Professor Ho Ngoc Dai’s philosophy when building the Experimental School.
Building a school free of school violence is by no means an easy task, even for the most advanced education systems in the most developed countries in the world.
However, I still believe that when teachers, students, and parents are all equally aware and cooperative, the obsession with school violence will be greatly reduced.
If not thoroughly explained and taught, many students, and even teachers and parents, do not truly and fully understand what school violence is: When a student is criticized by peers regarding appearance or given disliked nicknames, that is school violence; when a teacher punishes a student lazy with homework by forcing that student to repeatedly copy the line “I am a lazy person,” that is also school violence. Emotionally manipulating students and teachers for easy management is also an invisible form of “violence” (our Group once parted ways with associates who used emotional manipulation tactics to lead in such a manner).
Therefore, school violence may be actions causing physical injury, but sometimes it also includes actions causing emotional trauma. Many times, the very people causing that harm are not even conscious of the damaging effects of their actions.
To be able to sign the pledge to say no to violence together, the School Psychology Department had to prepare for many months to open training classes for teachers, students, and parents alike, equipping them with knowledge regarding: (1) What behaviors constitute school violence, (2) Recognizing signs that you are a victim or a perpetrator of school violence, (3) Necessary response measures to protect oneself when becoming a victim of school bullying… etc.
Teachers, students, and parents of the school were all equipped with knowledge about school violence to properly identify bullying behaviors, know how to protect bullied students, help bullying students, and refrain from causing violent or near-violent actions, even if unintentionally.
However, the most important thing regarding the campaign to prevent school violence is that we do not regard students displaying violent behavior as exceptional students needing punishment through harsh penalties. We help both the bullied students and the students displaying bullying behavior.
The solution we offer is that when a student exhibits bullying behavior toward a peer, we first find the cause of the incident, guide the student to perceive and adjust toward correct behavior, and then conduct mediation between the bully and the bullied to protect friendship in school.
Instead of punishment, the School Psychology Department spends considerable time with students who frequently bully peers to find out whether that student faces any difficulties in life (whether at home or in the learning environment), or needs any psychological support, leading to the habit of bullying friends as a way of blowing off steam.
The heaviest “punishments” we give to students who bully peers are also educational “punishments”: For example, actively rebuilding good friendships with peers, spending late afternoons continuously for a few weeks reorganizing bookshelves in the library, serving as teacher assistants, or redecorating an old, dirty wall…
Inside every classroom hangs a commitment to prevent school bullying complete with signatures from the teacher and the students of that class, reminding each member that they are always an ambassador for school bullying prevention. During flag-raising ceremonies, the school recognizes student ambassadors who have made positive contributions, helping build a safe and happy school.
Our efforts in particular, or all of our efforts in general, will not cause the problem of school violence to be eradicated absolutely, but I believe it will decrease. And most importantly, when equipped with knowledge about school violence, no one will “unconsciously” become a bully, or a victim of bullying, without knowing it.
