What bullying teaches—and what it never should

We do not always talk about bullying honestly. We tell children, correctly, that bullying is wrong. Then, sometimes in the same conversation, an adult says, “Hayaan mo na. It will make you stronger.” Or, “Ganyan talaga ang buhay.” The intention may be to comfort, but think about what the child hears: endure it. Toughen up. Do not make too much of it. There is a dangerous idea hiding there—that cruelty is somehow useful because suffering builds character. I cannot give bullying credit for the person someone becomes after surviving it. That credit belongs elsewhere.

Jimmy Carr has joked about how readily we romanticize suffering. Yet pain carries no automatic lesson. Being mocked in class or humiliated in a group chat does not somehow produce wisdom. Whatever strength follows is usually built later—with time, reflection, faith, guidance, and people who refuse to leave us alone in the hurt.

Without those, bullying may teach a child only how to disappear: Keep quiet. Do not stand out. Do not volunteer. Laugh along. Above all, do not let them see that it hurts. In my generation, at least home offered some distance from the schoolyard. Today, the schoolyard fits inside a phone. A humiliating photo can reach fifty classmates before dinner. A cruel joke can sit in a Messenger thread all weekend. The bell rings at five, but the bullying does not necessarily go home.

The numbers make that reality difficult to shrug off. EDCOM 2 has called the incidence of bullying in Philippine schools alarming. Drawing from PISA data and related research, it reported that roughly one in three Filipino students experiences regular bullying. In PISA 2022, about 43 percent of girls and 53 percent of boys reported being bullied several times a month. The rates were especially troubling in public schools with large classes.

But “one in three” is easy to read and forget. Picture a class of 45. It means the problem is unlikely to be some distant issue happening in another school. Somewhere among those rows may be the boy who deliberately comes late because recess is worse than the lesson. The girl who stopped raising her hand after classmates began imitating the way she speaks. The student who suddenly wants to transfer but keeps saying there is “no particular reason.” Children are remarkably good at carrying pain quietly when they think telling an adult might make things worse.

Bullying also follows them into their schoolwork. EDCOM 2 has pointed to substantial differences in mathematics performance between bullied and non-bullied students. Depending on the frequency and data examined, bullied learners have registered noticeably lower scores. That should not surprise any teacher who has watched an anxious child attempt an exam. Imagine solving fractions while wondering who will corner you at recess. Imagine listening to a Science discussion while waiting for somebody behind you to whisper your nickname again. The brain has only so much attention. When part of it is busy feeling unsafe, there is less left for learning.

And speaking up does not always bring quick relief. EDCOM 2 reported that only about 11 percent of formally recorded bullying cases from November 2022 to July 2024 had been resolved. More than 10,000 public schools also lacked localized anti-bullying policies. There are real reasons schools struggle—large classes, stretched personnel, and too few guidance counselors. But those explanations feel different when you are fourteen, frightened, and waiting for someone to act. For that child, an unresolved case is not paperwork. It is another Monday morning. EDCOM 2 report on schools without anti-bullying policies

There has been progress. EDCOM 2 pushed for updating the old implementing rules of the Anti-Bullying Act, and DepEd subsequently revised them. Better rules matter. Clear reporting procedures matter. So do guidance counselors and trained guidance designates who can listen, document, intervene, refer, and follow through. Yet anybody who has spent enough years inside schools knows that a beautifully written policy can remain beautifully written while a child suffers three classrooms away. The real test comes when someone appears at the faculty room door and quietly says, “Ma’am, may sasabihin po sana ako.” What happens in the next ten minutes may matter more than the poster on the wall.

I know a little about that from the receiving end. I entered high school two years younger than most of my classmates. I was shorter, thinner, and quieter. You can imagine how conveniently that combination worked on a schoolyard. What happened was not the sort of bullying television likes to portray. Nobody shoved me into a locker. There was no dramatic confrontation under pouring rain. It was more ordinary: jokes that kept coming after they had stopped being funny, shoves, smart shaming, little humiliations, and those seemingly harmless remarks and microaggressions that slowly make a young person wonder whether disappearing into the background might be easier.

At one point, fear became anger, and I reacted badly. I do not remember that episode as some heroic moment when I finally “stood up for myself.” Life is rarely that neat. It solved very little. What I remember more clearly is beginning to understand, long before I had the vocabulary for it, how power works. Someone discovers that another person can be embarrassed without consequence. Others laugh. A few know it has gone too far but remain quiet. Soon, something that should never have been normal starts feeling ordinary.

What helped me was not the bullying. What helped me was what came after it. A counselor listened. Adults acted. Friends stayed. My parents did not need dramatic speeches to remind me that somebody else’s cruelty was not a verdict on my worth. I also had to learn something harder: standing up for yourself does not require becoming cruel yourself. Looking back, those things built something in me. The bullying deserves no medal for that.

That is why “the world is tough, so children must be tougher” has never sat well with me. Life will provide enough failure, rejection, unfairness, and loss on its own. Children do not need cruelty as practice. They need the skills, values, and people that help them face hardship without losing themselves.

But we also owe everyone fairness. Not every quarrel or hurtful joke is bullying. We need to look at repetition, power, context, and actual harm, listen to both sides, and investigate properly. The faculty group chat should never become judge and jury.

The child who bullied also remains a child. Accountability is necessary, but humiliation is not rehabilitation. There may be consequences, and there should be when warranted. Yet somebody must eventually ask why the behavior happened. Is the child copying what happens at home? Trying to impress friends? Acting out anger? Struggling with something nobody has noticed? Understanding the reason does not excuse the act. It simply gives adults a better chance of stopping it from happening again. A good school protects the wounded child without casually throwing away the child who caused the wound.

Parents have their part too. Sometimes the first clue is a Sunday-night stomachache or a once-talkative child suddenly answering everything with “okay lang.” The important thing may simply be staying close enough for the child to feel safe enough to talk.

Bullying itself teaches nothing worth preserving. Our response does.

If adults laugh bullying off, blame the victim, or simply wait, children notice. They learn that the stronger person gets the last word. But when adults listen, check what happened, act early, and stay involved, children learn that dignity matters and help is worth asking for.

That is the toughness worth teaching—not how much cruelty you can take, but whether you can face it, stop it, and refuse to become cruel yourself.

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Doc H fondly describes himself as a “student of and for life” who, like many others, aspires to a life-giving and why-driven world grounded in social justice and the pursuit of happiness. His views do not necessarily reflect those of the institutions he is employed or connected with.