Your School Recognized as more than just a problem between kids, schools are called upon to put forth a team effort to end bullies' longtime reign of terror. In Arthur's April Fool , Marc Brown's lovable aardvark gets the best of a school bully by playing a joke on him. Lucky for Arthur, the book ends there. As most children know, and many adults remember, struggles with real-life bullies rarely are resolved so easily. The facts about bullying show that 10 to 15 percent of children are bullied regularly, and bullying most often takes place in school, frequently right in the classroom.
Bullying takes a heavy toll on the victims.
As many as 7 percent of eighth grade students in the United States stay home at least once a month because of bullies. According to Norway's Dan Olweus, a leading authority on the subject, being bullied also leads to depression and low self-esteem, problems that can carry into adulthood. The effects of such behavior are grim for the offender, too. One study by Olweus shows that 60 percent of kids characterized as bullies in sixth through ninth grades had at least one criminal conviction by age 24. Rather than help resolve the issue, schools have contributed to the problem.