In what has become an all too familiar story these days, another teenagerPhoebe Prince, has committed suicide after being bullied unmercifully for months. And this time, the perpetrators are facing criminal charges for the continuing harassment. Those over 17 will be tried as adults while those under 17 will be tried as juveniles. The charges are serious and include statutory rape which has a penalty of up to life in prison. The violation of civil rights charge could bring a sentence of 10 years.
The prosecutor summed it up for us:
The harassment that day, by one male and two females, "appears to have been motivated by the group's displeasure with Phoebe's brief dating relationship with a male student that had ended six weeks earlier," she said.
But that day's events were not isolated; they "were the culmination of a nearly three-month campaign of verbally abusive, assaultive behavior and threats of physical harm toward Phoebe on school grounds by several South Hadley students," Scheibel added.
"Their conduct far exceeded the limits of normal teenage relationship-related quarrels. The investigation revealed relentless activity directed toward Phoebe designed to humiliate her and to make it impossible for her to remain at school."
Clearly something has to be done about bullying. In the last year, I can think of two high-profile stories about young boys who killed themselves because classmates harassed them for being gay. Parents had gone to school authorities but weren’t taken seriously. In one case a coach told the boy, who had gone to him for help, to "man up." The suicide rate for gay teens is much higher than for straight teens.
And while gay kids are often the targets, it can happen to anyone who is the least bit different. It happened to me in 7th and 8th grade. My "crime" was being the new kid and being smarter than the lead Mean Girl. I also had a slight Southern accent because we’d lived in Miami.
For months, they made my life miserable. It wasn't physical harassment but mental, always done in such a way that teachers couldn't see it or overhear. I didn’t tell my parents what was going on. Looking back I was probably clinically depressed. I’d get so nervous as the city bus approached my school that I would end up making myself sick and taking the bus back home My mother thought I had the flu because I never told her what was happening; I didn’t want to disappoint her because she had always been so popular in school. An incredibly kind stranger, an African American woman who rode that bus, noticed the pattern, and walked me by the hand to my Catholic girls’ school, prying the story out of me as we walked. She sat down with the principal and told her what was going on. Mother St. Anne talked to me, made me a cup of tea and figured out a solution. There were phone calls made to the parents of the ringleaders. I suspect they were told that such behavior was not going to be tolerated, and expulsion was likely mentioned as a possible consequence. The bullying stopped. I suspect it would have gone on if someone hadn’t put a stop to it.
I consider that woman a saint, one of the 36 Righteous People that Judaism teaches keep God from destroying the world. She didn't have to get involved. She didn't know me. She took time out of her day and likely was late for work. And she made an enormous difference in the quality of my life. I never knew her name, but she was my savior that day.
So what, exactly, is bullying?
A broad definition of bullying is when a student is repeatedly exposed to negative actions on the part of one or more other students. These negative actions can take the form of physical contact, verbal abuse, or making faces and rude gestures. Spreading rumors and excluding the victim from a group are also common forms. Bullying also entails an imbalance in strength between the bullies and the victim, what experts call an asymmetric power relationship.
What it isn’t, is the standard schoolyard scuffle or exchange of insults. Those happen to every child while growing up. It is on-going and persistent.
How widespread is the[http://www.ojjdp.ncjrs.gov/jjbulletin/9804/bullying2.html
phenomenon?]
available data suggest that bullying is quite common in U.S. schools. In a study of 207 junior high and high school students from small midwestern towns, 88 percent reported having observed bullying, and 77 percent indicated that they had been victims of bullying during their school careers.1 A study of 6,500 students in fourth to sixth grades in the rural South indicated that 1 in 4 students had been bullied with some regularity within the past 3 months and that 1 in 10 had been bullied at least once a week. Approximately one in five children admitted that they had bullied another child with some regularity in the previous 3 months.2 These figures are consistent with estimates of several other researchers. Furthermore, contrary to popular belief, bullying occurs more frequently on school grounds than on the way to and from school.3
In other words, it is far too common.
But what causes it? IS it the victims’ fault because people don’t like them? DO they bring it on themselves somehow?
The answer is complicated.
The best-documented individual child factor in bullying is temperament. Temperament refers to basic tendencies by children to develop certain personality styles and interpersonal behaviours. Children who are active and impulsive in temperament may be more inclined to develop into bullies. With boys, physical strength compared to age peers also seems to be a characteristic which is associated with bullying, although of course there are many strong, physically adept boys who never bully.
Children who become repeated victims of aggression, and bullying, tend to be quiet and shy in temperament. They tend not to retaliate or make any assertive responses to the initial aggression, which is then repeated by the bully. Children who become victims typically lack friends and social support at school, and they are often not confident in their physical abilities and strength.
While most victims do not do anything to provoke the victimization, there is a subgroup of victims who tend to show irritating and inappropriate social behaviour. These children tend to be impulsive and have poor social skills. These "provocative victims" may also try to bully other children, so they are both bully and victim (Olweus, 1993).
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I would add another factor that I didn’t find in the literature: being different. That was my problem: I was new and I had a funny accent. Kids who are gay or who stick out for some reason are often victims. A different race. A different religion. A different appearance. That was the case forTempest Smith who was bullied unmercifully for being a Goth and being interested in Wicca. Her fellow students used Christian hymn to torment her—and supposedly teachers never noticed groups of kids singing hymns while surrounding her.
Denessa Smith isn’t sure if school staff knew about the teasing her daughter received.
"Tempest said she told her teachers about it all the time," Smith said. "I have to wonder if someone in the school couldn’t have stopped it."
School administrators weren’t aware of the problem, said Principal Redden. "If the teachers don’t actually see the teasing, there’s not much they can do," he said.
As a former teacher who did duty in the schoolyard at recess, I have to wonder how they missed it, myself, but they convinced the court. Tempest’s mother’s lawsuit failed. Depressing as that is, what is more depressing was the hate mail received by Wren Walker, who wrote about this on Witches’ Voice received.
There are too many Tempests, too many Phoebe Princes, too many victims. It has to stop, and we have to stop it. And schools are trying; most have anti-bullying programs and anti-bullying policies in place. The problem seems to be that many of those programs are ineffective, and simply don’t help. Teachers and administrators don’t always know how to handle the situation effectively. The person who has done in-depth work on the subject has some recommendations.
Schools can intervene effectively to reduce bullying by developing a safe and supportive school climate. A well-implemented program with parent, teacher, and community support can reduce bullying markedly. Olweus, in his very comprehensive and large-scale school-based program evaluation in Norway, found a reduction of 50 per cent in direct bullying two years after the start of implementation. In addition, both teachers and students reported very positive changes in school climate: improved order and discipline, more positive social relationships, greater satisfaction on the part of students, and reduced vandalism (Olweus, 1991, 1992).
The measures which Olweus (1993) considers to be crucial in the effectiveness of an anti-bullying program are as follows:
• Awareness and involvement on the part of adults, with regard to bully-victim problems.
• A survey of bully/victim problems at the start of the implementation.
• A school conference day devoted to bully/victim problems.
• Better supervision during recess and lunch hour by adults.
• Consistent and immediate consequences for aggressive behaviour.
• Generous praise for pro-social and helpful behaviour by students.
• Specific class rules against bullying.
• Class meetings about bullying.
• Serious individual talks with bullies and with victims.
• Serious talks with parents of bullies and victims.
• A meeting of the school parent-teacher (home and school) organization on the topic of bullying.
Olweus also recommends implementation of some co-operative learning activities in the school, teaching of social skills; and formation of a council of teachers and administrators to take the lead in implementation.
Suggested Steps for Intervening in Bullying Situations
• Intervene immediately: stop the bullying behaviour as soon as you see it or become aware of it.
• Talk to the bully, and talk to the victim, separately. If more than one child is involved in perpetrating the bullying, talk to each of the perpetrators separately, in quick succession.
• If a peer mediation program is in place, be very careful in referring cases where there is bullying, as the power imbalance will likely make this a very intimidating situation for the victim. The victim's communication and assertiveness skills may be very low, and will be further eroded by the fear resulting from past intimidation and fear of future retaliation. Your may wish to exclude such cases from peer mediation.
• Consult with administrator and other teachers, as well as staff, to get a wider reading on the problem, and to alert them to the problem. Get advice as to how this situation fits with school and board policies, and/or refer to written guidelines.
• Expect that the perpetrator(s) will minimize and deny his/her/their actions and responsibility. Refer to school and class codes of conduct in telling the bully why their behaviour was unacceptable. Tell them what behaviour you do expect of them. Inform the bully(ies) of the sanctions which will be imposed and that their parents will be involved.
• Reassure the victim that all possible steps will be taken to
prevent a recurrence.
• Inform the parents of the bully and of the victim as soon as possible. A quick call to the home the same day is preferable, followed by an appointment at school for the parents, if it is deemed necessary. Better results are obtained when parents are involved early in a bullying situation, before behaviour patterns are entrenched and extremely serious.
• Involve parents in designing a creative plan of action, whenever possible.
• For victims, involving them in groups and situations where they can make appropriate friends and develop their social skills and confidence is important. An example of this is a peer support group, new student orientation group, a co-operative learning group in class, or a special activity group or club. Parents can also arrange for these kinds of opportunities outside of school. The goals should be to develop the child's peer support network, social and other skills and confidence.
Specific instruction in assertiveness skills may also be helpful.
• For the bully(ies), specific re-education, as to his/her/their behaviour, is important, in addition to sanctions such as removal of privileges, detention, etc. Some schools have had good success with in-school detention situations where aggressive students must complete social skill modules designed to reduce aggressive behaviour and develop empathy for others.
• Follow up in communicating with parents and with other teachers and administrators about the situation, until it is clearly resolved.
• Monitor the behaviour of the bully and the safety of the victim on a school-wide basis.
• If the bully(ies) will not change their behaviour, despite concerted efforts by school personnel, they, and not the victim, should be the ones who are removed from the class or school, or transferred to another program. Consequences for the perpetrators will be of considerable interest to all students, and will set the tone for future situations.
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I recently had an exchange with a fellow Kossack on bullying. He felt that ,to some extent, victims bring it on themselves to some extent , perhaps by behaving ways that make them disliked, and that, unless the bullying is extremely severe, adults should stay out. S/he had been a victim himself. I disagreed. And, apparently, so do the experts, because they recommend immediate intervention and involving administrators and parents.. They also state that there must be negative consequences for the bullies, and a monitoring of their behavior. This is what happened in my case, and it worked.
Why is intervention so important? Other than the obvious reason that kids shouldn’t have to endure physical and mental abuse at school, bullying has negative effects on the victim that can last a life time—and it causes problems for the bully down the road. I’ll be writing about the aftereffects of bullying in another installment, and also on why people become bullies—the answers may surprise you.