Bullying prevention misdirected

“Go home freshmen!” is a tradition many upperclassmen students look forward to take part in. This chant was labeled as a form of bullying this year, but, however, several of the student’s intentions show that bullying is not the purpose of the jeer.

“I thought [the chant] was pretty fun when I was a freshman. I mean I wasn’t quite sure what to expect when I went to high school and I felt like the chant was this kind of a communal welcome and it helped to break the ice,” Tess Melvin, senior, said. “High school didn’t seem as intimidating when everyone just acknowledged us, which kind of sounds counter-intuitive because everyone was calling us out at the assembly, but I knew it was all in good fun. Quite honestly, I was a freshman and I wanted to go home. I would have been glad to take them up on that offer. It honestly never occurred to me as something with malicious intent.”

According to stopbullying.gov, the definition of bullying includes “unwanted aggressive behavior; observed or perceived power imbalance; and repetition of behaviors or high likelihood of repetition.”

It could be argued that being yelled at can be unwanted aggressive behavior, but less than a minute later the loud students usually turn to face the opposite upperclassman side and begin to yell at each other. Not only do the words they are saying to each other and the freshmen have harmless intentions, the class rivalries are for fun and are not known to regress into violence since it is just for fun.

“The very nature of high school is that it is divided up by grade, so taking something as good humored as ‘go home freshmen’ and isolating that as a cause of division at our school shows the administration might be misdirected,” Melvin said. “I understand that administration is taking steps to integrate the school, but I don’t think they need to take these kinds of measures. I mean, it never even occurred to me as a form of bullying or a form of division throughout my entire high school career.”

Even though this specific situation does not display the signs of bullying, that does not mean that bullying is not a serious issue that needs attention in every school. According to bullystatistics.org, 21 percent of students ages 12-18 have experienced bullying. Any percentage at all is too high so it is understandable that the administration would be attempting to terminate anything that could be seen as bullying.

A possible solution to resolve any confusion about the intentions of this chant could be a conversation between the freshmen who feel threatened or insulted, if there are any, and a handful of randomly selected seniors. This method may help clear up any questions of intentions and help ease the administrations minds into understanding the purpose and innocent tradition behind the chant.

“We’re not bullying others, we’re not trying to overpower others, and we don’t hate the people were yelling at. We have a healthy competition between the juniors and seniors because that is the nature of the school system, that is the nature of high school class division,” Melvin said. “I believe there are better ways to address class divisions within the school if the administration really wants to crack down on that, and I really don’t believe that the ‘go home freshmen’ chant is malicious in anyway.”