Page 21 - Kelas Kreatif

Raising Awareness of Bullying Through Game “Crumpling Ijah”
Anis Widjiyanti
SMK Negeri 1 Kota Sukabumi
Introduction
One day when I entered a class, I found a student sit under a table rocking back and forth. His face was all but cheerful. When I asked what had happened, he said that he did not want to sit on table because his classmates would call him names and bully him. The reality hit me. Bullying was real and troubling my students.
In SMK, where most students come from underprivileged families, long hour learning and repeated practices, resembling working situation in factories and production houses, bear stress to the students. Therefore, according to some students, teasing their friends is an easy way to release stress. But, what the students are not aware of is the impact of the teasing to their friend’s feeling and emotion. Many people believe that teasing, calling names, putdowns and cruel criticisms are parts of growing up. Those verbal humiliation, as well as physical assault, are allegedly said to build strong personal quality. Nevertheless, researches steadily reports that negative impact of bullying last longer than school time. The hatred, anger and desperation are hidden by the victims only to be exploded on another day.
According to Cambridge Online Dictionary, bullying is an act
“to hurt or frighten someone who is smaller or less powerful than you, often forcing that person to do something they do not want to do”. The person who conduct bullying is called “a bully”.
US Departement of Health and Human Services defines bullying as an aggressive behavior implying imbalance of power of a perpetrator to a victim or victims. The behavior is repeated or potentially repeated. Bullying is not just another agressive behavior. Besides being agressive, bullying is charaterized by the use of power, be it physical, information or popularity power, in an effort to control or harm others. To be called a bullying, an action must be repeated or having potential to repeat. Bullying takes form in several types, physical, verbal and social.
Bullying takes place in many places. However, schools have been the breeding ground of bullying for long time. It is understandable because most students spend significant amount of their time at schools. It is at schools that most teenagers sosialize with their peers. Some students direct their frutrasion of their life at home or class by bullying other weaker students at school. The lack of attention from school, teachers and parents let some agressive students behave badly in order to gain power and popularity.
SMK students in particular are more prone to bullying caused by life adversity they experience. Astiyanti (2016) on her research shows that many students enroling to SMK came from underprivileged families. They face some adversity such as poverty, abuse, child working, disfunctional family
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