I am not a bullying expert, but I have taught teenagers for thirty-five years, so I've had the opportunity to observe it in the field. And much of what we try to do with the goal of stopping it seems counterproductive, even as we engage in behavior that actually re-enforces bullying as an okay Thing.
Bullying is frequently not what it says it's about. Even though we associate bullying with things like "picking on a kid because he has blue hair," I've never seen a "blamed" trait like that present in only bullied kids. Attempting to address bullying by traits rarely works; I'm thinking here of all the schools that post-Columbine watched out for their own school's version of the trenchcoat mafia and tried to deal with the potential bullying problems by making those kids stop acting different.
What seems more common, at least in my part of the universe, is a person is targeted, and then some feature of the individual is used as a hook to hang the bullying on. In other words, first comes "we'll bully that guy" and second comes "we'll pick on him about his hair color."
This is a tricky dynamic because weirdness or oddness can signal weakness or a lack of confidence, and those traits do make a student a potential bullying target. (This is particularly true if the blue hair etc is an affectation, and of course how many teens adopt one affectation or another in their search for their own special voice.)
The critical question for me is this: what makes bullying okay to the bully? I believe most people work things out in their heads so that they feel they are doing the right thing. So what does a bully tell him- or her-self that makes bullying okay.
The answer, I believe, is "He deserves it."
A bully never says he's bullying somebody. He's straightening him out. He's teaching him a lesson. He needs to be taken down a peg. The target deserves it. Bad things should happen to that person; I am just being an instrument of divine and universal judgment.
The reason the target supposedly deserves to be straightened out is also a pointless distraction. Getting in a big argument about whether Chris or Pat deserves to be pushed, punched, humiliated, or frozen out-- this is a huge side discussion that actually makes things worse. Because when we get in an argument whether or not Pat and Chris deserve to be abused, we are accepting the premise that some people do. Any time you tell students, "Chris does not deserve to be bullied," you are also sending the message "But some people DO deserve to be bullied."
And as long as you accept that in this world there are people who deserve to be treated as less-than-human, as others, as whipping posts, then there will always be bullying. You cannot stamp out bullying by trying to make the argument that bullying is only bad when you bully the wrong people.
If you want to stamp out bullying in your classroom, the policy is simple. It is not okay to treat people poorly, to treat them as less-than-human, to try to hurt them in any way on purpose, ever. Ever.
This doesn't mean everyone must hold hands and hug. There are lots of contexts in which people can disagree with each other, dislike each other, and recognize that they have no desire to spend a second more around each other than is absolutely necessary. But all of that can be done in a context that recognizes that everyone in the game is a real, live human being, and it is not okay to treat them like anything less.
It's not always an easy rule to live with; heaven knows I find it a challenge at times. But it is absolutely the best bullying antidote I know. Or as Kurt Vonnegut put it,
Hello babies. Welcome to Earth. It's hot in the summer and cold
in the winter. It's round and wet and crowded. On the outside, babies,
you've got a hundred years here. There's only one rule that I know of,
babies-God damn it, you've got to be kind.
Speaking as a former target of bullies, I have only one question: Where were you in 1978? :) Excellent, excellent post. Your response/answer/solution (and Vonnegut's) is spot on and exactly what is needed in this wildly misunderstood topic (and I say having taught high school for over twenty years).
ReplyDeleteDealing with bullying is not just about setting the proper expectations, it's a matter of recognizing who is a bully and I think that's the biggest problem. When we think of bullies, we think of the big, angry bruiser guy who's obvious to everyone. Sometimes that's the case. But a lot of the time, the bullies are the popular, charming, rich kids that are the teacher's best friends.
ReplyDeleteThere's a scene in the movie The Bully Project where the principal calls in two kids who were "fighting" during recess. She gives them both a pep talk about respect and playing nice and whatnot and then she orders them to apologize to each other and shake hands. The nice, clean-cut, charming kid immediately says sorry and sticks his hand out. The more shabby, surly kid refuses to take it or apologize. At that moment it seems we know who the "good" kid is and who is the "bad" kid. But as the scene goes on, the surly kid explains why he won't shake hands - because this kind of stuff happens every single day and no one in charge sees what's happening or does anything to stop it. At most, they're caught "fighting" and it's assumed to be a mutual problem, but more often the target is the one who's blamed.
I was bullied for two and a half years of junior high and had the same experience. To the extent it was recognized at all, I was the one who was blamed - I was put i classes to learn to be more "assertive" or, worse, more "social". The art teacher actually sat me at a table with three of the bullies because she assumed the problem was we just didn't have a chance to get to know each other well enough.
Dealing with bullying must start and end with the bully. Otherwise, it's like offering services to help a rape victim learn to stand up to (or, worse, get along with) her rapist. Bullying, like rape, is about power and control. Only those who have the power can stop it.
Dealing with bullying is not just about setting the proper expectations, it's a matter of recognizing who is a bully and I think that's the biggest problem. When we think of bullies, we think of the big, angry bruiser guy who's obvious to everyone. Sometimes that's the case. But a lot of the time, the bullies are the popular, charming, rich kids that are the teacher's best friends.
ReplyDeleteThere's a scene in the movie The Bully Project where the principal calls in two kids who were "fighting" during recess. She gives them both a pep talk about respect and playing nice and whatnot and then she orders them to apologize to each other and shake hands. The nice, clean-cut, charming kid immediately says sorry and sticks his hand out. The more shabby, surly kid refuses to take it or apologize. At that moment it seems we know who the "good" kid is and who is the "bad" kid. But as the scene goes on, the surly kid explains why he won't shake hands - because this kind of stuff happens every single day and no one in charge sees what's happening or does anything to stop it. At most, they're caught "fighting" and it's assumed to be a mutual problem, but more often the target is the one who's blamed.
I was bullied for two and a half years of junior high and had the same experience. To the extent it was recognized at all, I was the one who was blamed - I was put i classes to learn to be more "assertive" or, worse, more "social". The art teacher actually sat me at a table with three of the bullies because she assumed the problem was we just didn't have a chance to get to know each other well enough.
Dealing with bullying must start and end with the bully. Otherwise, it's like offering services to help a rape victim learn to stand up to (or, worse, get along with) her rapist. Bullying, like rape, is about power and control. Only those who have the power can stop it.
I'm so sorry, I have no idea why so many of my comments get posted twice.
ReplyDeleteI like the idea of stopping the bullying before it starts, of addressing the root cause, which is so often a feeling of disconnection. I really love this video that addresses this (and there is a series of them now): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tzftHNh7xP8
ReplyDeleteIt's interesting - and terrible - that Dienne's experience was, like Peter says, trying to make the "different" kid change the way they act. (Of course it was not "interesting" at all to Dienne at the time.) What makes a bully think it's okay to be a bully? I don't think they particularly justify it in their minds; I don't think they're thinking at all. (You would think psychologists would have figured out by now why this happens.) I think Dienne's rape analogy is spot on - it's about power and control. It seems to me - absent a psychologist - that maybe there are two types of bullies: one is the kind who feels "entitled", like the popular, charming one in the movie Dienne cites. They do it because they can. It's fun to them and makes them feel powerful. I would say this is the kind like Mitt Romney and Jeb Bush, who were both bullies in high school. Obviously this type of person is bereft of empathy. The other kind would be the opposite, the kid who's bullied at home and that's what they're modeling, to try to feel powerful instead of powerless. That kid can't be empathetic because their trauma keeps them from being able to think beyond themselves. In either case, I don't believe there's any thinking involved, the result is the same, and the remedy has to be zero tolerance, to not let them get away with it, and to let them know it's totally unacceptable. I also find that if the teacher makes it clear they respect every individual in the class, that helps the students respect each other, and can build a community where all the members respect each other, even if they don't agree with or like everyone else.
ReplyDeleteYou totally rock, Peter Greene. I read your posts every day! Never a disappointment.
ReplyDeleteWow, great post! That is pretty much the same conclusion we came up with in our book, "The Bullying Antidote." Treating everyone with respect is harder than it seems, since bullying dynamics are so much a part of "normal." The book is written for parents—how to raise kids to be respectful (and FEEL respected, which is really the secret)—so if teachers ever need to recommend something here you go! www.zorgos.wordpress.com is the book blog.
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