Becoming a Compassionate Educator in the Face of Aggressive Behavior

          Approximately one in five students report being bullied and 41% of students believe that bullying would happen again to them ( National Bullying Prevention Center, 2019 ). When individuals think about bullying they often think about the victim and seeking justice for them. Very seldom does someone think about how they can help the bully eliminate this behavior in order to ensure no child ever gets bullied again.           As a child, we have been told to tell a bully that their words don’t affect us or to ignore them, but in actuality, this type of response has been reviewed by students as making the situation worse ( 2019 ). With that in mind, we must find ways to neutralize the aggressive behaviors exhibited by bullies by understanding them. As it is, research on bullying only commenced in The United States in 2005 ( 2019 ) and while this research provides insight into the bullying problems, it does not aid us in creating effective policies or programs to combat it ( Nanse

One out of every five students reports being bullied ( National Center for Educational Statistics , 2019) and, as such, it's imperative that this problem be labeled as what it truly is, an epidemic. Every day, students in overwhelming numbers experience increased anxiety, depression, self-harm, eating disorders, and other destructive behaviors while the child who is acting as the bully is dealing with their own internal emotional turmoil. As such, the educational system is plagued with a never-ending cycle of bullies continuing to bully and being deemed "bad" people, thus not receiving the attention they need in response to the behaviors they exhibit. This blog is committed to helping educators and other worried individuals solve the bullying epidemic through compassion and research-based methods.                                                                                                 References National Center for Educational Statistics. (2019).  Bullying Statisti