I could say that bullying enjoys a very long history. In fact, I could say that from the founding of this country, there has been racial and ethnic bullying. I grew up in the shadow of the Lower East Side where kids of Irish, Italian or Jewish descent were constantly hurling racial and ethnic expletives at each other. I can still remember the girl who made my middle school life miserable and that was ions ago. I could say that my husband swears nothing has changed. He was always going to some weaker boy’s defense on his lower school playground. I could say that bullying is no greater now. Just our focus on it.
But, for the sake of argument, let’s say that we are concerned enough to want to do something more about bullying in our schools. Here is my big problem with those who want to pass an Anti-Bullying Law.
A law is a serious application of the rules of society. A law presumes that for the greater good, safety and order of a community-at-large, it must exist. For example, it is against the law to physically threaten another person. It is against the law to physically attack another person unless in self-defense and self-defense must be proved.
But, if my neighbor were to call me a racially charged name, or shout expletives at me from inside her yard, has she broken a law? I would have to prove some sort of harassment, or that somehow her swearing put me in fear for my life. A stretch. Could I call her behavior bullying, and if there were a law against such bullying, could I have her arrested?
So, we come to the school community and bullying and what could, would and will be defined as bullying if an anti-bullying law is passed in schools.
A direct physical threat by one student towards another is concrete and can be track able. If you go after my boyfriend I will kill you. We don’t want homos around here. Get out or we’ll make sure you’ll never walk again.
But taunts need not be overt or documentable. They are also innuendo, and insinuation. They can be a constant, unrelenting, and cruel shadow following a young person everywhere he or she goes. Or, they might be a clap of thunder exploding in the heat of the moment in extreme anger or jealousy. How would we begin to control or regulate such communication? And do we want to? Who is going to decide how far a tease or a taunt can go? When does a verbal attack constitute bullying, if at all? Are we ready for some outside arbitrator to determine proper language for our six year old, teenager, or college student? You’re fat and ugly! Would that be hate speech akin to bullying! You are a whore! Everybody knows you ------with everyone!! Could this slander warrant legal repercussion? Just saw your private pix on the net! Is this an invasion of privacy punishable by fine and/or arrest?
So this inquiring mind wants to know where an anti-bullying law would draw the line and leave space for the normal unfairness—yes the unfairness of growing up and having to deal with just plain mean-ness.
And let’s speak frankly, for a moment, about the ultimate consequence of mean-ness. A life lost. A young person cannot take the pain, fear or embarrassment any longer and rather than suffer the torment one more day, decides to take his or her own life. There is nothing more tragic than a young person who sees no other way out of a situation than to commit suicide.
As I have said until I am blue in the face,
BAD THINGS HAPPEN WHEN A YOUNG PERSON GETS STUCK IN A MOMENT IN TIME. AND SEES NO WAY OUT. It does not matter what the ‘stuck’ is all about. It could be depression, abuse, trauma, bullying, all the above. Whatever the stuck is, if a young person cannot see a window or find a door, he/she will do whatever is needed NOT to feel the panic and pain of being trapped and alone Kids will drink, do drugs, take negative risks, lash out (hence become a bully) retreat to disorders, or in desperation go for the final solution--giving up completely and ending it all--just to gain some control over their immediate situation or environment.
It is not the bullying per say that causes a young person to kill him or herself. It is seeing no escape from the bullying. Kids and young people at risk do not have sufficient emotional tools or outside support with which to undo the lock. Creating a law is not the key. How will it protect a child from being shunned or laughed at? It won’t. What’s more I am absolutely convinced that such a bill would be overly interpreted to cover any misspeak whatsoever (I can see it all now. Mommy, Sam called me a dweeb twice! He broke the law!!!!.) I have no faith that common sense would prevail.
Young people need support, not a law. They need the power of community spirit, not regulation. We cannot regulate bullying outside of school unless as I said, there is physical threat. But, we can change the dynamics in a school by tapping into its strongest resource. Its student body. The majority of students are not bullies. The majority of students are not victims of bullies. So how do we gather the majority and use them more effectively? There are now programs promoting the use of majority support.
This is what I would propose.
College:
In my opinion, all college student behavior should fall under the jurisdiction of the Student Conduct Review Board and the student community-at-large. The Review Board would hear a claim, discuss its merits and decide the consequence. The student body can decide what constitutes a right to privacy on a college campus? Does a student have a right to privacy in his dorm room? If she shares a room, has a partner staying with her for the night, and another roommate walks in and wants to go to sleep and not have to find another room, does that roommate have any rights? Is the posting of pix without a student’s permission a violation of the code of right to privacy? Should there be a code of privacy? And if so, what would be the consequences for violating it? These are all issues students can discuss, vote on, and honor. College students absolutely must be given the opportunity to form a community of rules and oversee their own community behavior. College administration should get involved only when some serious offense has or may occur (rape, physical attack, or physical threat). There is no need for an outside law unless an existing law has been or is about to be broken.
High School:
Here again, the larger student body can be very involved and pro-active.
1) 1) A high school principal sets the conduct bar. He/she should share his mission statement at a school wide assembly at the beginning of the year.
2) The next step is to set up a system whereby the majority of students can adopt a peer at risk. If we can adopt a road, we can adopt a peer. The wider student body can pledge to rally around any victim of bullying-be near them, write supportive emails to them and let the bully/bullies know that the victim is not standing alone. Ostracizing bullies and making them have to face a larger student community can be very powerful.
3) If every high school class had a class president, that class president could be responsible for building a support system of the majority around any student being bullied in his/her class.
Middle School:
Middle school is just plain awful on the best day. We all know that. No one survived middle school unscathed and if you did, then you are in the 1percentile.
High school students can do some very valuable volunteer work as mentors to middle school kids. This can be in lieu of working in a soup kitchen, or raising money for causes.
1) There might be a sign up sheet in the high school counselor’s office. If a student puts down his/her name on this sheet, he/she might be called upon to write an email in support of someone who is being taunted, teased or shunned in middle school.
2) The person being teased or bullied creates a made up name They can put their note into a box that is also in the counselor’s office
3) Once a week the counselor opens that box. He/she can determine the level of risk and then choose a high school volunteer student who has signed up, to write to the younger student and offer some encouragement and/or support.
This addresses what I feel is so vital to all kids-Perspective-and what I spend a lot of time writing about in my book-H20 to Go! There is nothing more positive than talking to an older student who has gone through the same bends, survived and is one the way to a much brighter future.
Lower School.
In lower school it is up to teachers and principals to keep a very careful and constant eye out. It is hard for lower school children to compartmentalize their behavior. In other words, if they are budding bullies outside of school, their behavior will spill over somewhere at school--between classes, on the playground, at lunch. A lot of eyes should be watching,
But in lower school, it can also be a fourth grader befriending a second grader and a fifth grader offering academic support to a third grader. Kids will behave a certain way around their own age group. Group mentality becomes all too easy to adopt. But, put kids with younger peers and their better selves come out. They feel protective. They feel good being a leader, helping, making a difference and they will take to it like water. Any time we can give children a chance to see their better selves, it is worth its weight in gold! We have helped a younger child cope, and we have given an older child a tremendous sense of self worth and positive confidence.
Children, teens and college students need to know that they are not alone, that there is somewhere to go to share, and that their larger school community will support them. The student body of any school system has the power to make an enormous difference. And using the student majority is a win-win for everyone.
We do not need a bureaucratic law to impose limits. We need a student force to impose change.
Most students want to be a positive part of the solution.
Let’s start focusing more on the student majority. And who knows? Some of the few who are the problem might end up joining ranks with the majority and end up leaders instead of bullies, and mentors to their younger counterparts.
Margo@MomOpinionMatters.Com
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