KARACHI: It was a relief to see that someone has brought forward the issue of the recent rise in school bullying. Although the writer spoke about Facebook bullying, which is a new form of torture for parents and children alike, I would like to contradict the statement that “playground bullying is a thing of the past”. Bullying within the school premises is still very much alive and has reached frightening heights. Even with younger children, bullying and teasing has taken on a viciousness and ugliness never seen before. The situation is exacerbated by being taken beyond school via e-mails and Facebook (unfortunately, even very young children have access to the internet these days).
This form of bullying is all very apparent in the elite schools of Karachi. The schools themselves need to take serious action as the situation indicates it will go out of control soon. In such cases, one misses the good old discipline practised by schools in earlier times. If they penalise those who bully, it will serve as a lesson to others.
The question that arises here is: what are we teaching our children? I believe that parents plays too much stress on academic and sporting excellence and somewhere in this competitive race, they forget to teach their children about the real values of life. In reality, who cares how capable a student your child is if he or she isn’t a good human being?
Mehreen Ahmed
Published in The Express Tribune, April 18th, 2013.
