School bullying is a problem that we cannot no longer ignore and keep under the surface. Every year, various human rights organizations, the Education of Ministry, and high, renowned officials from the government vows to stop school bullying. Interestingly, however, it seems that the number of school bullying cases reported either stays the same or increases despite the flowery, promising speeches by officials every year. In other words, almost nothing is done than said, making no progress. Even though they are making speeches about how to make schools into places where students spontaneously want to go, schools are slowly being transformed into places that give them despair and want to hide from. Why does it seem so?
To begin with, our laws are too weak and ineffectual to actually punish the bullies. A law (청소년인권조례법) protects teenagers binds the police and the judges. By this law, teachers and adults cannot physically punish students under any circumstances. Also, students would get curbed punishments for their crimes. Even at first, the law was met with skepticism. This confirmed people’s predictions when students started to abuse the law and break the law. Since teachers could not punish students for their mishaps and follies, students started to regard teachers as mere, powerless figureheads who just stand in the classroom. Some students started to hit and physically abuse teachers, and teachers could not do anything except to punish them. Surprisingly, instead of accepting the punishment given by teachers, some parents started to argue against the punishment, claiming it is unfair to their children. Then, since many students just walked out of their situations without getting fair punishments, students realized that even if they bullied other people, they would be able to walk out of it.
Nowadays, bullying is an increasingly common aspect of our society that people could see in schools. When one surfs the web and clicks on the news section, one can see news articles related to school bullying once per week. While everyone acknowledges the problem, no one is audacious to do anything about it but courageous enough to give speeches about it. While parents know that letting their children go scot-free is wrong, they are too selfish enough to let their children go free. While judges and lawyers know that it is a serious problem that pervades schools, most of them give curbed punishments to juvenile delinquents, and sometimes even let them go free. Is this the right thing to do? Is this how we want to bring up the future generation of Korea? Is it time that many of the geniuses living in this country emigrate to other countries, berating the powerless stances of the weak and poor? I still believe that we have a chance.
One can find simple solutions when one look at how other countries treat and view teenagers. Many western countries consider juvenile crimes equivalent to adult crimes. Thus, it is not surprising to see eleven-year olds and fifteen-year-olds being sentenced to fifteen years in prison, or even to death. As a result of the strong laws, the juvenile delinquent rate is much lower than that of Korea’s. Also, when schools find out cases of school bullying, they are not afraid to punish the bullies. Unlike Korea, where nothing is done even when bullying is reported, western countries actually punish and expel the bullies, regardless of their family backgrounds and grades. Schools also ensure the victim’s safety by adopting many measures. This way, less and less cases of school bullying are reported in western countries. Teenagers will actually be responsible for their actions and will not bully other students anymore.
It is not too late to change. We can eradicate this problem out of this country and make schools to places where students spontaneously want to go, not to places where students hate and want to hide from. To change, we need to intensify our laws and treat teenage crimes equally as adult crimes. We also need to change schools; schools need to be courageous enough to acknowledge that bullying is happening in their school, not hide it. Finally, an environment that punishes the bullies and ensures that the victims get protected needs to be created. With the three premises above, school bullying will gradually decrease, and hopefully, disappear.