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In physical bullying I will say there's a time and place where a good punch in the face can save you from more trouble. (true story) Example: I was sitting at the lunch table and one the kids, whom i'll bill for now, thought he was a master at karate (he did this to me a couple times) . So to demonstrate he used his hand to grab the back of my neck and pinch on the sensitive pressure points. At this point I'm calm but pissed off and grab the back of his hood and bang his head into my seat. Point is he never did it to me again. So I'll just say that sometimes to escape more trouble you have to give some violence back.
We need to start anti-bullying curriculum at an early age in kindergarten and continue it all the way up through elementary school. There are many programs that foster cooperation and tolerance: social emotional learning; Kagan; Kelso; love & logic; etc.
Perhaps then when middle schoolers are standing around watching bullying, some students will band together to step up to do the right thing.
Many of our students are modeled bullying in their homes. Tolerance cannot be assumed; it must be taught.
There are many pieces of children's literature that have themes of making good choices, tolerance, fairness, etc.
Cooperative structures in the classroom lend themselves to better communication and understanding of others' differences.
I teach in all-school Kagan Cooperative, SEL, Kelso's Choices school. What a difference that makes! We are all on the same page, teaching the same problem-solving language.
We teachers often get what we model. If we want kindness, we need to model kindness. If we want good listening skills we need to model reflective listening. If we want cooperation, we need to model cooperation.
In physical bullying I will say there's a time and place where a good punch in the face can save you from more trouble. (true story) Example: I was sitting at the lunch table and one the kids, whom i'll bill for now, thought he was a master at karate (he did this to me a couple times) . So to demonstrate he used his hand to grab the back of my neck and pinch on the sensitive pressure points. At this point I'm calm but pissed off and grab the back of his hood and bang his head into my seat. Point is he never did it to me again. So I'll just say that sometimes to escape more trouble you have to give some violence back.
This advice conflicted with what I was taught to believe at church: Jesus said to turn the other cheek.
From a more practical point of view, by the time I was in junior high, I was 11 years old and weighed about 70 pounds dripping wet. Our school did not do social promotion, so some of the eighth grade bullies were 15-16 years old and weighed nearly 100 pounds more than me. We had a faceoff before it was all over in which it became clear that I would not fight to defend myself. At that point they must have thought that I was too weird and unsatisfying to harass, because I don't remember much after that. Although my junior high years were traumatic on a number of fronts, so I have blocked out much of that experience.
Now I am having problems with bullies at school. There are two boys in particular--one bullies only girls, and the other bullies girls and the weaker boys. I have one student with a severe anxiety problem. He shelters himself under his jacket most of the time, often peering out from under the collar. Apparently he has made great strides since last year, when he ate lunch alone in the auditorium. Now he stays in the lunchroom, although he usually eats at a different table from the rest of the class. He is frequently targeted by bullies, and I personally witnessed an incident in which one of the boys I mentioned came up from another table and rubbed him on the head while he was eating before I could stop him.
Because of our school climate, teachers eat with their class at assigned tables (no unions here) to monitor the students lunchroom conduct. Even with a high degree of supervision, the students are still unruly and sometimes out of hand with a marked sense of impunity. It's not that they don't expect to get punished, it's that they do and they don't care. None of consequences for the instances of bullying that I have reported have resulted in any change of behavior on the part of the bullies. Fortunately our new administration at least understands that bullying is a bad thing. Our former principal was a bully himself, usually picking on the people he perceived as easy victims. My coping strategy was what I learned in elementary school--try to fly under the radar.
The principal whom I respected the most understood the need for direct instruction of social skills, particularly among our students, who live in a milieu where domestic violence is the rule. The girls grow up seeing women kept in line by violent men who maintain a circle of women who will fight each other over rights to the man. This is what starts a lot of the fights among the girls at our school. That principal's response was to hold a week-long conflict resolution workshop at the school every year.
Of course, that was before NCLB. Now we no longer focus on the whole child. Instead we have an arrow-like aim on our test scores. We're finally getting our students to pass the tests, but we're not encouraged to just talk to our students about life in general. Keep in mind, our students mostly have absent parents, and their custodial grandparents are often not much better, due to work, age, or health issues, not to mention the fact that they are the ones who reared children who ultimately abandoned their own offspring.
When bullying occurs in more comfortable economic settings, it is often based upon differences in the families' means. When parents can't afford to live in expensive neighborhoods with flashy cars and give their children fancy birthday parties and flashy cars of their own, their children are often mocked and isolated or marginalized into groups of other misfit students. Amazingly, this even happens at church.
Personally, I still have trouble understanding the motivation for the bullies, especially the ones who claim to follow Christ who said to love your neighbor as yourself.
But that makes me sanctimonious and therefore a target for bullying.
Last edited by lhpartridge; 12-26-2009 at 12:30 PM..
Reason: Add a clarifying statement
Another thread has wandered into this turf, but it is really a broader issue than that thread covers.
So... How do you help a kid who is being bullied? How do your strategies vary, based on age of victim, age of bully, types of bullying, etc.?
How do you address a bully when he is your student, your child, your friend, or a stranger?
What is your personal response when you see others being bullied in your workplace or social circles?
To help someone who is being bullied at school I would say go to administrators, teachers, and counselors. Do it over and over till they have the situation in control. I believe it is the schools responsibility to provide a safe learning environment for each student. Until they meet that criteria I would continue to be at their office till the situation is in control. If they can not do it I would go to the superintendent and board of trustees.
Personal response is that bullying is not acceptable. I have not seen it at work or in my social circle but I believe and hope that if I did I would have the wits about myself to intervene.
"Personally, I still have trouble understanding the motivation for the bullies, especially the ones who claim to follow Christ who said to love your neighbor as yourself."
Serious mental health issues aside, many bullies are motivated by fear. I'm sure that you have read this, heard this, and in my experience, have found this to be true. They have experienced a physical, verbal, emotional trauma so profound that they can not, will not allow themselves to be vulnerable. Bullying and intimidation are quite effective deterrents.
Turning the other cheek would end if another were trying to rearrange my face.
I disagree about fighting back, at least physically.
The best response to a bully is to document and report their behavior to an authority figure, whether it be a school principal, boss or the police.
As a teacher, the best strategy is to have a no-bullying policy in the classroom and to make sure that it is always [emphatically] followed through.
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