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Writing task 1

Now and then, newspapers in Japan are flooded with news about bullying
once they occurred. During that period, it is not rare to have a lot of
discussions about this severe issue. Take an event in Japan for example; at
Aomori in August 2016, a 13-year-aged junior high school student committed
suicide leaving a suicide note in her cellphone, which mentioned that she was
bullied by classmates severely. Another example is Princess Aiko, the
granddaughter of the Emperor of Japan. She was reported to be afraid of
going to school, and the media guessed that she might have been bullied by
classmates. Therefore, it is not strange that the public pays much attention to
bullying, and many experts try to come up with many ways to solve it. Among
these means, it seems the best ways to reduce bullying are training teachers
about bullying and raising students awareness.

First, an effective method to decrease bullying in Japan should be

educating teachers how to deal with it. As the closest people to students in
school, teachers should be responsible for coping with bullying. However, they
seem to be incapable of doing it. Research among 4 countries and 16,000
students in total says that though a large quantity of children are suffered
from bullying, their teachers and parents did not notice the situation as much
as their peers in school. (Bully) If teachers are not able to detect the sign of
bullying, they definitely cannot try to prevent it. Moreover, some teachers who
are aware of bullying do not deal with it actively. According to a study of 959
students, 58 percent teachers do nothing to deal with students bullying
problem and one sixth of them are in the know. (Moving) Teachers are trained
to teach students knowledge but they may not be taught how to handle
problem of bullying. Some of them are as inexperienced as students when
faced with bullying, hence it is essential for teachers to learn about bullying.

Another counter-measure which may help effectively prevent bullying in

Japan is raising students awareness. Public often pays attention to a lot of
cases of bullying, some leading to suicide, occur in junior or senior high
school. Nevertheless, counter measures should be taken in elementary school
or earlier. As the proverb says: prevention is better than cure. Therefore,
raising students awareness should be done before it happens. Furthermore,
awareness not only means identifying bullying but also that braveness to
unmask it. Frank Schultz, the reporter of the Janesville Gazette, gives an
example at Adams Elementary, an elementary school in Janesville. The
teachers teach students not to be passive, and it is not dishonorable to tell
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Writing task 1

teachers about what they think might be bullying among the class. One
crucial factor which makes bullying serious should be others passive.
Reviewing the incidents out and discussing with them in class could help
students learn about right concept of dealing with bullying.

Some believes that other methods would be more effective in countering

bullying. One of them is zero tolerance. It is thought that zero tolerance will
help because it sounds resolute, and harsh punishment such as expelling
bullies could frighten them into not bullying others. However, zero tolerance
has a serious disadvantage: it may impact on bullies badly. Zero tolerance
usually uses expulsion to punish bullies, but the America Academy of
Pediatrics indicates that not only their mental health is hurt critically, but they
have a high possibility to go to prison in the teen years. Carolyn Laub, the
founder and Executive Director of Gay-Straight Alliance Network, said,
Studies show that zero-tolerance policies and punitive discipline have failed
to improve school climate. Instead, they allow a schools culture of
intimidation and violence to go unaddressed while individual students are
pushed out without learning from their behavior. (Laub) In other words, zero
tolerance policies not only have high cost, but they are unable to prevent
bullying. Though expressing bullies out seems to be an easy solution, the
society has to spend more cost in the end. Another way is cooperating with
students parents to deal with bullying. It may not an effectively direct way to
cope with bullying. Ryan Stengl, a student services specialist, mentioned
that students parents are likely unfamiliar with the new type of bullying:
cyberbullying since it did not exist when they were young. (Schultz)
Therefore, they might have no idea how to deal with it. Furthermore,
parents are usually not at the school, the scene where bullying happens.
Parents should be crucial roles to help victims to recover from the trauma ,
but they cannot be solvers of bullying.

In summary, bullying could be decreased and prevented by teaching

teachers about bullying and helping students to build correct concept. On the
other hand, zero tolerance is ineffective. Teachers ought to help students to
cope with bullying but studies show that nearly half of them are incapable of
doing it, so it is essential to ensure teachers have ability to deal with bullying.
Also, students should have correct understanding of bullying or they cannot
response while bullying occurs. Finally, zero tolerance sounds simpler to
resolve problem but it is harmful to both bully and society. Recently, many
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Writing task 1

young students are reported to be suffering from bullying, and some of them
even lost their lives. Once effective counter-measures can be carried out, lots
of victims can receive more assistance. It is difficult to totally stamp out
bullying, but taking the measures would be an important first step.
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Writing task 1

Work Cited
"Bully news: Panel on bullying issues survey results, manual." EDUCATION IN
JAPAN COMMUNITY Blog. Yomiuri Shimbun, 19 July 2009. Web. 04 June 2017.

Laub, Carolyn. "Why Zero Tolerance Is Not the Solution to School Bullying." The
Huffington Post. TheHuffingtonPost.com, 16 May 2012. Web. 04 June 2017.

"Moving Teachers from Complicity in Bullying to Change." Tesol international

association. N.p., n.d. Web. 17 June 2017.

Schultz, Frank. "How to end bullying? Talk about it. A lot." The Christian Science
Monitor. The Christian Science Monitor, 04 Apr. 2013. Web. 04 June 2017.