The alternative to “do nothing” is not “kick his ass.”
I think that part of the problem with bullying is that any student who reports being bullied risks the “adults” telling him a) that he’s provoking it with something he’s doing/saying/whatever, and he needs to stop being a patsy, and/or b) that he’s a tattletale and he needs to figure out how to solve his own problems, but that any sort of violence will get him in trouble. Neither is particularly helpful advice.
Perhaps a workable solution would be to develop a formal or informal mediation process for credible reports of bullying. This way, the school is kept abreast of what is going on with students who identify as being bullied or bullies. It’s also good because it teaches students to work through their differences verbally, and there is also some due process and transparency. But I guess it’s easier to pay lip service to bullying and include the victim in the blame.
I know teachers are in a lousy position. It’s not ethical for the teacher to tell a bullied kid that it’s OK to fight back, but by the same token, I don’t think ZT policies are necessarily OK, either, because they put the victim in a lousy position, as well. ZT policies teach that fighting back to defend yourself is never acceptable, and unless “adults” mete out some sort of justice, which they often won’t, nothing will change. It also teaches the bullies to use loopholes to their advantage; that as long as they keep their behavior under the radar, there is nothing anyone can or will do.
This is really difficult to comment on. I don’t really know what to say. I think the comparisons with a guy beating you on the street are not really accurate. We’re not talking about the wild of the streets, here…we’re talking about a school…which should be a safe place of instruction and education. It’s also a place where people are basically locked in for 8 hours a day that has clearly defined rules, different from the street where pretty much anything goes within reason. Man, this is tough. I don’t want kids to be bullied, but I don’t want violence of any kind in my school, either!
I think MsRobyn’s suggestion is probably pretty good:
Perhaps a workable solution would be to develop a formal or informal mediation process for credible reports of bullying. This way, the school is kept abreast of what is going on with students who identify as being bullied or bullies. It’s also good because it teaches students to work through their differences verbally, and there is also some due process and transparency
Actually, this whole issue is something I think about quite a bit. I wish I had a solution, but I don’t. The best I can do at this point is just go along with policy and try to stop any violence that I see or hear about.
Either way, even though zero tolerance policies might seem stupid or ridiculous, at the heart they have your kid’s best interest in mind (I really do think so).
'Kay. Google “evidence based approach school bullying”. Hereis a good example. Here’s another.
Seriously, there is no need to make this stuff up whole cloth. There is actual research and so on, about what does and does not work; there exists everything from outlines of how an approach might look to off-the-shelf programs to be purchased.
The successful programs, whatever else they might have, also tend to have these features:
An approach which begins with the principle that bullying is not a necessary part of life;
A commitment to the notion of social justice, including a strong code of conduct;
A concerted effort to get the bystanders involved;
An effort to identify where the bullying is taking place and structural solutions in those locations;
Peer mediation programs;
-An emphasis on restorative rather than punitive response to incidents of bullying.
Part of the problem is that, no matter what you, your principal, or your district do, someone is going to get pissed. The bully’s parents get pissed because you’re singling out their kid, who is a good kid who doesn’t deserve the punishment you’re so unjustly handing out. The victim’s parents get pissed because you’re not doing enough to protect their kid. If the press gets involved, someone’s getting fired. The principal wants to stay principal, so he doesn’t want the school board involved. It’s a mess if it gets out of hand, and you only need to follow Fark’s main page for a few days before you see how that goes.
So the safest route is the one straight down the middle. It’s not the fairest by any means, at least not in the sense that everyone involved gets the appropriate treatment. But it’s the one that lets the school’s collective head stay down.
My kids attend a charter school whose mission includes a strong commitment to social equity and compassion. There is absolutely zero tolerance for bullying. None.
The interesting thing is, it’s not just about the kids.
The teachers don’t bully, either. That’s a BIG difference between this school and others. The teachers don’t shame, pressure, force, or otherwise disrespect the children.
The discipline routine for the kindergartners (my twins’ grade) consists entirely of natural consequences, starting with brief time-out and escalating to sitting in the Principal’s office. But it’s all low-key. The consequence is related to the act, not to fear of an authority figure.
And it DOES work, in a lot of ways. I’ve been teaching an art enrichment class to the 7th & 8th graders, and these kids are vastly different from the 7th and 8th graders I taught at the other local school a few years ago. The charter school kids are genuinely nice to each other. I introduce the drawing technique and discuss it, and the ones who “get it” tutor the others, spontaneously. The kids at the other local school didn’t behave that way, they were much more competitive and judgmental towards one another.
Now - the downside is, the charter school kids never shut up. Not the kindergartners nor the 8th graders. I don’t know how anyone manages to seriously concentrate on their work. I’m not convinced we’ll stay with this school for the next 8 years, either, it depends on how my kids do.
That still didn’t answer my question, though. What happens when my daughter is on the ground getting pummeled? What should her response be?
I would disagree with you about the school. School is a far more dangerous place than the streets. I was in more fights in school that I have the rest of my adult life. In my adult life I have never been in a fist fight, but at school it was a common occurrence.
Telling the teacher did nothing, telling his parents did nothing, punishing him did nothing. Kids are bullies because they are insecure little punks that will be adult asshole punks when they grow up.
Advice to kids who are being bullied: The #1 thing that worked for me with a bigger kid was the “twisting the ear” trick. Grab that ear and try to twist it off. Don’t let go until 3 teachers are trying to pry you off of him. That kid will find someone else to pick on next time, guaranteed.
You might say that is violent and shouldn’t be done, but I have yet to see a solution presented.
You and kidneyfailure are in agreement on this last point: you both believe there is no real solution to bullying. You just have a different approach to dealing with what you understand to be the inevitable – you are fight and kidneyfailure is flight. You are however both wrong in your basic assumptions.
Bullies only sometimes act out of insecurity – those who do act out of insecurity were usually first bullied themselves, didn’t like it, and decided to switch sides as it were. Most bullies as it turns out have quite healthy self esteem and are quite secure in their conviction that they have the perfect right to do as they are doing.
Both bullies and children who are victims of frequent bullying are at higher risk of needing psychiatric care in adult life – though for different disorers – and those at greatest risk are boys who “cross over” – who are both bullied and who bully.
You are correct that frequent bullying behavior is associated with later antisocial behavior in boys; however, the absolute number of boys who frequently bully is not large. For most it is at most a transient flirtation with antisocial behavior and a learning process in how to deal with power. But in order for it to be a learnign process they have to actually learn something, which is why there is so much harping on social justice issues in places which have successfully dealt with teh problem.
My kids each attend a school where the former is true; Dutch institutions do not in general talk in terms like “zero tolerance” so I am not sure that part is true for them. What is true in both cases is that the appraoch is based on the notion that the bully is harmed by his conviction that he can do as he likes with power, and that the victim is harmed by being dominated.
In truth I suspect that part of the reason some of my sons’ friends do not bully is that they know if they do they will be required to talk in public (in class) about their feelings which is evidently A Fate Worse Than Death if you are 8 to 10 years old and a boy. Sort of aversion therapy I suppose – I suspect a couple would rather have a caning, which is at least less embarassing.
At my elder child’s school the approach is different than at Youngest’s, because Eldest attends a school for kids with language and communication disorders and this class of children is at some risk of being seriously injured or killed by other children – they do not behave as they “should” and this can enrage a certain kind of bully. So for them the issue has a high level of importance.
Still, at both the key factor seems to be enlisting the other kids at different levels to act rather than form the audience which does away with quite a lot of bullying.
I think it is important that teachers and administration model good behavior for children. I think it is important that adults demoinstrate that this kind of behavior is serious business. But I don’t think it is fair to say that teachers set the tone necessarily, unless you are talking about very young children. With very young children a dynamic can be set up where a child is – usually unconsciously – set up to be the butt of the class by a teacher or other adult who does not know what to do with that child or how to approach him/her.
Outside of that, it seems to me that kids see a lot more than what they see from adults at school, and the whole bullying cycle – at least, as it is being discussed in this thread – really starts at about the age that children are beginning to look to each other rather than to adults for behavior cues.
I think adults bully children without realizing it, because it’s just part of the culture. We clamp down on them and treat them without respect. Small things, like the teacher who yanks a kid back into class by her backpack, or the teacher who chides a crying boy for “acting like a baby”. Throwing away artwork because it has scribbles. Posting bad behavior tallies on the chalkboard. Shaming them.
And I can kind of understand it, too - the alternative, “Gentle Discipline”, only brings kids about 75% under control. At least in my experience. I can get my kids to do about 75% of what I want without being harsh, just through modeling good behavior and providing natural consequences that are in scale with the misdeed.
I have to work around them, though; I have to take their needs into account. I have to be aware of what they can give me (at particular times, on particular days) and not ask for more.
But if I want/need them to buckle down for a minute and give me total compliance, I have to over-rule their needs and assert my own. “Shut up - NOW” is not polite nor gentle, but I’ve had to say it.
It’s been fascinating watching my and my peers’ kids enter the school system - most of the other schools demanded compliance from day one. And they got it. Those students learned to sit down, quietly, right away.
My kids’ school expected a little less but is more invested in working WITH the kids, not in overpowering them.
The streets do have clearly defined rules on when violence might be employed by an individual. Those rules are typically set forth in the state penal laws. While those laws vary from state to state most of them recognize the right of someone to use force in defense of themselves or even a third party. Generally speaking, you’re not going to get into trouble with the authorities for punching someone who was trying to mug you.
While I do have a problem with the “clearly defined rules” making it punishable to defend yourself I sympathize with the position of teachers and administrators. School’s aren’t set up to discipline students in a manner in accordance with our criminal courts. While a teacher might know that one student has a reputation for bullying based on past behavior there’s often little or no way to prove what happened in this particular case where the bully got punched.
Another problem teachers face is the schoolyard omertá. There was a lot of pressure not to inform teachers of bullying and doing so would consequently brand the individual as the administration’s lickspittle or a cry baby. In other words, there’s a perception that going to the authorities will make things worse by alienating other students and making the bullying worse.
I can understand why a school employee would be hesitant about telling a child it’s ok to use violence to defend themselves. After all, they don’t want to encourage violence. However, as has been pointed out, such advice is useless to a kid who is in immediate threat of having force used against him by another student.
Personally I think most teachers are already aware of who the bullies are. Also, sometimes there’s just some conflict between students that isn’t necessarily classified as bullying.
I don’t have a perfect solution to the problem either.
I understand your points, but my thinking in suggesting a program of formal or informal mediation is that conflict of any sort should be hashed out in an appropriate way. By allowing both sides to present their case before an impartial party, some sort of agreement can be reached. If there is just a conflict, then it can be talked out, no harm no foul. If it is, in fact, bullying, further action can be taken if necessary.
Honestly, there isn’t a perfect solution to the problem. I just know that ZT isn’t it.
There’s the central conflict, right there. Nicely summed up. What’s a teacher to do? I guess if we put ourselves in the shoes of the student being bullied we’d probably want to fight back, too. But it seems that encouraging them to do so would just be proliferating the cycle of violence, which is something no one wants to do. I need to think more about all of this.
I still disagree with the “I can fight somebody in the streets” comparison. I don’t think it’s particularly wise to say that about a school. Provided you had the right concealed weapon permits, you could brandish a gun at a mugger in the streets to protect yourself, couldn’t you? But you couldn’t do that at a school. Also, before you can be subject to punishment for something that occurred in the street you’d have to be given the due process of the law. At a school, though, you can be punished at a teacher’s whim. In a schoolyard setting many of the normal rules don’t apply, I think.
All that having been said, if I was being bullied I would fight back. If I had a student being bullied I would tell him to report it to a teacher. This is a case of two different people (teacher and victim) viewing the same situation in different ways, both being justified to some extent or another in their view, and both being wrong in some extent, as well.
To what extent is my son wrong to defend himself? Maybe I should teach him more lethal self defense techniques so I can say he did not hit him he just choked him out.
Sorry, pissy mood tonight. It does not bother him to stay in for a few days near as much as it bothers me. I am trying to let this go, but it pisses me off that the next time will not be any different.
Hey **JF **(*Sorry, but to this French Canadian, you’re JF, short for Jean-Francois Luvly * )
Perhaps what we need to teach our kids are means of defending themselves that don’t look like a grade 3 teacher’s idea of fighting. She (yes, she) will think fists & punches & kicks are fighting. She may not see a solid 2- handed push away with a sneaky knuckle to the solar plexus as “fighting”.
An open palm strike to the chin is low and mostly hidden by the torsos of the two opponents.
A twisted ear is hard to see from even fairly close. So are small joint manipulations like finger locks and twists.
There’s a U-shaped notch where the right and left collar bones meet. Even a single finger applying pressure there can get the biggest guy to back away.
A quick dodge & trip to a bully trying to tackle you just looks like he fell down.
If the victim can be taught to block and deflect punches, then if the bully tries to retaliate with a blow, it will seem like the victim is not counter attacking.
Sorry, I should clarify that I didn’t mean your kid specifically, just the hypothetical situation a teacher and student might find themselves in in the case of bullying.
Let me put it this way:
The teacher is wrong because the zero tolerance violence policy is not always good or useful and self-defense is sometimes the only response possible. But the teacher is right because he’s following policy, however misguided it may be.
The student is right because self-defense is an instinct and he shouldn’t be punished for acting according to self-preservation. But the student is also wrong because he broke a rule, however misguided it may be.
In other words: I have no idea how to make sense of a situation like this.
I can’t remember what you said in the OP, but have you been in touch with the bully’s parents? It might make some difference.
Children don’t give up their rights when they go to school. If Suzy Q. punches little Johnny Rotten in the throat after he grabs her chest and tries to make her touch his penis do you really think it’s fair to suspend her for fighting? Under zero tolerance policies little Suzy Q. is just as responsible as Johnny.
No, the student is not wrong. There is nothing at all immoral about using force to stop someone who is trying to physically harm you. It makes no difference whether your an adult in a Wal-Mart parking lot or a 1st grader standing near the swing set.
)