Bullying: The Right of Passage?

Blog Assignment Question: Is bullying a rite of passage of childhood and adolescence? Is it apart of the maturation process one needs to go through to reach adulthood? Explain. Mrs. Hogeboom brings up this topic on page 108.

Bullying should not be a right of passage from childhood to adolescence, and it should not be part of the maturation process one needs to go through to reach adulthood, because it itself is not mature.

Bullies most probably become bullies because they feel they didn't have enough power or control over people, and after beating other people up, either physically or mentally, they finally feel like they have gained the power and respect that they "deserve". That is why Russell (from the Revealers) named them predators, because after some time, they basically live off of the "prey's" suffering.

Victims of the bullies, or the prey of the predator, mostly have done nothing to affect the bullies. Most of the time the ones that are attacked are the quietest ones, without any friends to stand up for them, or the ones that are just a little different from the ones they are bullied by, they're the ones that stand out just a little bit in the hazy, busy crowd of school life.

Bullying has nothing to do with maturation. It's just another way of passing time when you're busy with your school life, and that gets boring after some time. I can honestly say, every single person has been either a bystander, victim or bully, but that hasn't made them mature or feel like they know any more than they did before the incident. Maybe after reflecting over the matter, we could think about how such a petty incident made us be so cruel, but that's the only maturing bit in the whole process. But to make the person mature, they must understand and learn that bullying is not right, but it's not fully avoidable either.