Bully Stuff

I prefer a give and take style of speaking. One has to be very very good to stand and give a talk for an extended period of time. I may get there sometime but feel I have a ways yet to go. To keep people in it so to speak, I like them to participate. So I'll ask questions and have others speak as well. I think this is something we are missing. How often are we asked to be herd in an open and free way? All too often, we are isolated in our own bubble suffering silently. Yes, I like to blog and post stuff on Face Book but that is no substitute for meeting with people and sharing together. So what did I get out of sharing dialogue last Tuesday? The topic of bullying came up and it is too important to ignore. It got me to thinking and I decided to look a little closer at the issue.

Like far too many, I too experienced being bullied. Thank goodness it was not for too long, just one semester around 5th grade. I went to a new school and did not fit in. I quickly found myself friendless, alone and in day to day misery. I'm not sure what it was. Before this time I never had any real problems in school. In the new school I was met with a mixture of cold indifference and utter contempt. I never suffered direct violence but felt the threat of it was always looming. This may be worse.  Each day was a struggle to get through but sad to say I never shared these troubles with anyone. Why? At the time, we had just bought a new house and my Grandmother had moved in with us. She had been my best friend and perhaps my biggest advocate my whole life. We learned she had cancer which proved to be fatal.  I did not want to ad my problems on top of what we were going through so I just muddled through each day as best I could. My parents were no fans of the public schools and at the end of the semester decided I'd be going to a private school. Thank god the nightmare was over. Looking back I did not handle it well at all. What could I have done different? 

In hindsight look back from decades later with the advantages of a lot of experience and much education, I'd say I need to let someone know what was going on. I never had a problem with communicating with Mom and Dad. I could have let them know. I could have asked to meet with a school counselor or even the principal. Perhaps I could have done a better job of befriending a few fellow students. Now I'd say the most important thing is not going it alone. If I had to deal with that crap for several years, my life could have turned out very differently in a negative way. I'm not trying to blame myself, just thinking of better options than the "keep it to myself" one I chose. Why do students feel the need to put down and hurt others? As we all know this had lead to suicides. So why do kids bully and what does it do to them? 

Kids bully for a number of complex reasons. I think the most basic reason is they gain a sense of power. Schools tend to be more about disempowerment than learning. The students have no say in what they study for the most part and coercive controls are employed to manage behavior. Cliques form and those who are not in are "out" and as a result subject to dehumanization. When a person is reduced to an object, anything can be done to them. Peer pressure can exacerbate the problem. The bully is egged on by his peers. If a kid comes from an abusive home where he or she lives in fear, bullying may be an outlet by providing a sense of power. If this twisted "need" to be seen as powerful goes on, it can lead to unhealthy relationships, continuing a cycle of abuse and time in a state correctional facility, you know prison.                

I think much of bullying come from how schools are run and structured. There are far too many similarities between a prison and a typical public school. Kids, the same as inmates, have very little control over their own lives. They are told where and when to be somewhere. Told what to do and sadly subject to unreasonable searches. This is a whole other subject all to it self. If you want to explore it more, check out the movie / documentary The War on Kids. It is disturbing viewing and obvious we need real education reform that gets away from our long outdated education model from the 1800's. This cannot be fixed over night. What can we do in the mean time? 

Just punishing the "bully" may make us feel better but does little toward resolving the issue for the long term. People are complex and thus there are no easy one size fits all answers. Cases need to be looked at on an individual level and examined holistically. We need to be asking what in Johnny and Jenny bully's environment is creating the perverted need to put down, pick on and hurt their fellow students?  Are there unaddressed issues at home such abuse (physical, verbal and emotional)? Could it be peer pressure driving and egging on the behavior? The cycle of pick on someone and be rewarded for it has to be broken. Anyone who has gone through the ordeal of American public schools has seen this. Students who reward the bully (saying your cool, I think you are funny or joining in) need to be called on to individually explain their actions to their classmates as well as their parents. In other words, the must be given an opportunity to reflect on and explain their actions. There appears to be plenty if information on how not to become a victim of bullying. Lookhere, here and here. There are tons more. All this is well and good but has anyone asked why are are there bullies in the first place? We need to hold up a mirror to our communities.

I come from an alternative dispute resolution background and I feel our current "punishment only" does little to solve problems such as bullying. As I mentioned in the previous post the future for a non-stop bully is not all that good; bad relationships, less education and into the abyss of state corrections come to mind. The bully is also a child let's not forget. Many so called indigenous groups deal with actions that hurt the community differently than a focus on punishment. Rather, the community of the offender, in this case the bully, is called together to discuss the harm done, what caused it and how it will be repaired. We have to do more than say bullies are bad because if we are not careful this may lead to their dehumanization and the very cycle we are trying to prevent just acquires a new target. We need to take a holistic approach that examines a community capable of producing children who delight in the suffering of others.

This may be getting away from the overall topic of this blog but as someone who has been both a perpetrator and a victim of bullying I feel compelled to address the topic further. Plus, I got a really good response to the last post on this topic. Let's keep the conversation going. Please comment.