An old idea and technique to help end bulllying in our public schools.

[MineralMan]

Back in the early 1960s, when I was in high school in a small California citrus farming community, we had some bullying problems. Mostly it was bullying of kids who were seen as geeks or nerds or somehow not up to the "standards" of some people. Kids who were gay or lesbian, of course, fit that category, although being out wasn't what kids that age did then.

The problem got mostly solved in two ways:

I was a member of what was the largest protestant church in town, and our pastor got all the teenagers in the church together one day and proposed that we all step in and say something when we observed bullying at school or outside of it. He was eloquent in his call for this, and a lot of the kids took him up on the proposal and began doing just that.

As it happened, the high school football, basketball, and track coaches were also members of that same church, and the same pastor had a talk with them as well. He convinced them that they should use their positions to enlist the school athletes in the fight against bullying. The coaches agreed and counseled their teams on this, in the way coaches do things. The common thread was that if they heard about an athlete being involved in bullying, there would be serious consequences with regard to team membership including suspensions from sports and even expulsion from the team. They also told their athletes that there would also be punishments, but lesser ones, if the individual athletes were discovered to be observing bullying without stepping up and stepping in to stop it.

Between the church kids and the athletes, bullying started getting called out as it happened. The athletes, popular as always, and the church kids, who made up a decent-sized minority of the student body there, got results. Bullying slowed to almost a complete stop and instances of it were drastically reduced. It was a very effective program, and it was all started by a Presbyterian minister who had an idea and enlisted the help of people.

I believe peer unwillingness to accept bullying without speaking up is possibly the strongest measure available to cut down on this destructive behavior. I think it also leads to the formation of relationships between the kids being bullied and those who stand up for them against the bullies. Peer pressure is always more effective than adult action in social interactions among teens and younger kids. Encouraging that is a good start.

[sam11111]

1. Sch Principals shd have been doing this since 10,000 BC

Most deserve prison for not doing it.

Bullying is crime. "Battery" it is called.

[MineralMan]

3. Some schools principals have been doing that. Too few, though,

and school principals just don't have the charisma, in general, that coaches and popular pastors do. These days, it seems like school many administrators are less willing to take on the bullies than they used to be, too. Here in Minnesota, the Anoka-Hennepin school district has gained some unwanted notoriety for their "see no evil" approach. They are now feeling the heat, since there are several lawsuits in process. Perhaps they'll learn to fear the consequences of their inaction. I certainly hope so, and that their education will be a lesson to all school administrators.

[dtexdem]

8. Oh, the Presbyterian ministers weren't as cooperative in 10,000 BCE.

;-)

But principals should be doing stuff like this now.

[MineralMan]

15. Nice catch. I don't know how I missed it.

:thumbsup:

[WingDinger]

2. I had to follow a different approach.

I told those authority figures that ignored my constantly being bullied that my parents OKed my beating the shit out of any and all of them, and would not suffer punishment from them. I told them they were worthless. Cowards. Told teachers that since they ignore multiple bullies threatening me thruout the class, I would leave fifteen minutes early every day.

Finally, it stopped when I had gained more muscle than footballers. Cost me much of my education.

[MineralMan]

6. Well, that was my own approach to being bullied, too.

It worked very well for me, but didn't do anything for others. My father taught me some self-defense moves that could end physical bullying quickly. I joined the campaign to call out bullies in the act when prompted by that minister. That worked better and did more good.

"Hey! Knock that off!" said loudly enough that it caught the attention of others worked a treat.

[HockeyMom]

4. Yes, if the bullied kids stand together

against the bullies, the bullies will stand down. It doesn't matter if they are gays, geeks, nerds, or athletes who were bulled BEFORE they became jocks. All these kids KNOW what it feels like and can sympathize toward others. I have seen it firsthand myself, as a "nerdy little white girl" with a black friend, who reported "macho" boys who beat up gays to my own "weird retarded" daughter who later became a star athlete and reported bullying of other special needs students herself.

[sam11111]

5. "snakepit" means any unpoliced violent area. Most US schools are. Our whole nation is becoming one

due to

Taxcuts For The Rich

30% city cops gone since 1980 here.

Crime "drop"---"only a third of rapes written up by police as a report, to ease overwork of police"

My paraphrase.

Sch's are snakepits
Prisons "
Nation a "


"Take that to a lawyer" is another cop phrase now.

[bedazzled]

31. my eighth grade son agrees with you totally

children don't have proper role models for their
behavior. their parents act just like they do.
barbaric.

[Romulox]

7. In my experience, many of the adults participate in bullying, which extends well into adulthood.

:shrug:

[MineralMan]

9. Yes. There are many adult bullies, too. Lessons learned in

childhood often last a lifetime. Bullies beget bullies.

[Romulox]

11. My point being, bullying is a "feature not a bug". nt

[MineralMan]

13. Personally, I think it's a learned response. Unless the opposite

is taught, the learning lasts a lifetime. I don't really think many people are born as bullies. I think it is learned for most.

There may be some born bullies. There are certainly born psychopaths, which is closely related. But, most bullies I've known were bullied themselves by their own parent. It is what they know. It's a very hard habit to break, but it can be unlearned. I've seen that happen, too.

It's not a simple thing. Nothing psychological is simple.

[bedazzled]

30. you're right -- i really doubt that you can grow out of being a bully

at least, at middle school or later level. i'm
afraid that's what you'll be for life.

[TwilightGardener]

12. They either join in mocking certain kids, or look the other way, in my son's experience.

If a kid is unpopular with peers, he's often unpopular with teachers too, I've found. They aren't going to help at all.

[Kber]

10. I think the most critical step is involving kids in the effort.

My son is a high school freshman. He's also a member of the football freshman squad. During summer practices the older kids talked a lot about leadership, anti-bullying, and standing up for their fellow students. The message was that, as football players, they might not be the target of bullying as much as others, but that "immunity" gave them added responsibility to call out "uncool" behavior on the spot when they saw it. They were told that they shouldn't be afraid to tell a bully to knock it off, partially because they'd have the entire defensive line behind them.

They were also told, however, that if they engaged in bullying that they were a disgrace to the team (which is about as important in football as breathing) and they'd not be welcome.

They also have a strong "no means no" campaign.

The point is, this is all presented by older students as part of the program. The younger kids are invited to be leaders in the effort to keep bullying to a minimum if it exists at all.

I asked him if he thought it worked and he told me that the boys in his class weren't worried about bullying at all, but he thought the girls worried about "social bullying" conducted almost entirely by other girls, which I thought was interesting. So it's not a 100% solution, but it does help.

[MineralMan]

14. Yup. I agree. I saw it work in my high school. It didn't take long

before the bullying pretty much dried up. Thanks for your story. Sounds like your son is at a good school with good leadership. I like to hear about that.

[Kber]

21. It's not perfect, but they are trying.

Honestly, the boys have it easier than the girls, maybe because the bullying girls experience (and inflict) is more complicated and harder to call out? Shove someone into a locker and it's bound to be noticed. Spread ugly rumors and the teachers won't necessarily be in the loop.

They do have peer lead programs to address both physical and social bullying, but I think the one is easier to see and therefore address.

[MineralMan]

23. You sure could be right. Since I'm not a girl, I couldn't have

seen things the same way as the girls in our school did. I know that there were some girls who were considered "ugly" or "geeky" by many people. I was friends with some of them, since I was also something of a misfit in my school. Oddly enough, a lot of those girls grew into themselves and ended up being very successful in their lives. I especially remember one girl in my class. Since this was a small town, that meant I had known her since first grade. She was a very, very nice person, and a good friend. But, she wasn't popular, didn't date, and was generally an object of scorn. She dressed unstylishly, wore her hair in old-fashioned styles, and just didn't fit the mold. She had enough friends, though, that she didn't seem to suffer from it too much.

At my high school 15th class reunion, I ran into her. She had emerged into adulthood as a very self-possessed and extremely attractive woman. I recognized her immediately and we had a nice conversation and caught up. Later, as the party ended and we were all heading to our hotel rooms, we ended up in an elevator together, along with our respective spouses. She told me that a bunch of the guys who had completely ignored her in high school had been flirting with her at the reunion. Most didn't even recognize her, since they never really looked at her or knew her. I gathered that she had given these guys a pretty cold shoulder at the reunion.

She survived all of that without any visible damage to her personality. Not everyone does.

[LaValle]

16. Even Easier

Schools are supposed to be preparing our children to live in the real world right?

Soo Simple Just like the old Father Flanagan Boystown movie, Ya know with Mikey Rooney?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mNqFqinW32Y&
A Student Government. Not just like the student Government schools have now, but Like Father Flanagan had. Where they have police forces trials government just like in the real world.

And laws just like the real world with similar consequences.

What would happen to you if you were to beat the crap out of a co worker at work?

At the minimum youd be fired, and even prosecuted and spend time in jail.

Why can the school not be exactly the same?

They could even make jail and everything It could be a job for a junior or senior that is thinking of getting into law enforcement after they graduate, it's a win win for everyone,

[wickerwoman]

17. They've been doing that in British public schools for hundred of years

with terrible results.

Giving 17 year olds the power to punish other 17 year olds is not a good idea.

[LaValle]

18. And Why Not?

It works at Boys Town.

And any other school that has zero tolerance for Bullying.

The bullies know that what they do has no consenquences, why not? If they learn that they can go to jail for assault I bet they would think twice,

[wickerwoman]

19. Watch Lindsey Anderson's If...

Power corrupts. How do you stop the bullies from becoming the "police" and then using their power to further persecute minorities? Do you think the "police" are really going to prosecute their friends who happen to be bullies?

It's hard enough to protect adult institutions from corruption and perversion of justice. How well do you think the average 17 year old is really going to handle being given the authority to punish fellow students? And why should minority teens be expected to submit to the authority of fellow students? Do you really think the only openly gay teen at a school in Arkansas is going to get a fair shake from "student government"?

[LaValle]

25. yeah?

Power corrupts. How do you stop the bullies from becoming the "police" and then using their power to further persecute minorities? Do you think the "police" are really going to prosecute their friends who happen to be bullies?

And again just like the real world, what happens to a crooked cop?

They go to jail. why is this sooo hard to understand?

[wickerwoman]

26. Can I live in your "real world"?

Because in my "real world" people with power aren't universally benevolent and assholes don't have the hammer of justice brought down instantaneously.

To look at one example, just off the top of my head, take the case of Damian Echols, an 18 year old kid who spent 18 years on death row because his neighbors thought that because he dressed in black, listened to heavy metal music and read books about wicca that he must have raped and murdered three kids. There was absolutely no real evidence against him but the criminal justice system was more than happy to sentence him to death while totally ignoring DNA evidence that implicated one of the murdered kid's fathers. Nothing happened to the cops who railroaded him or to the prosecutors who hid evidence and the father who actually did commit the crimes hasn't been arrested because Damian had to plea guilty as a condition of release so that he couldn't turn around and sue the state for every penny they were worth.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Damian_Echols

Watch Boys Don't Cry if you want to see how the police work in much of the "real world" in America. A transgendered person was raped and the police "lost" the rape kit, asked insulting questions about the victim's sexuality, refused to arrest the two people responsible and basically sat around whistling dixie while the rapists then went on to kill their victim. What do you think happened to that "crooked cop"? If you said "sweet fuck all" you are correct.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brandon_Teena

Also from the "real world", last month a judge was sentenced to 28 years in prison for the "Kids for Cash" scam- he took bribes from private for-profit prisons to convict teens on bullshit charges and send them business. He sent *thousands* of kids to jail unneccessarily over a seven year period before he got caught and if you think this is a completely isolated incident then I'd like a little of whatever you're smoking please.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Ciavarella

These are examples of how people who are different are treated in the *adult* criminal justice system. Do you honestly think 17 year olds are going to be less subject to prejudice, corruption, peer pressure and ignorance than their parents?

[get the red out]

20. I can't imagine!

NO ONE ever did anything to stop bullying at the high school I attended, and the athletes were usually the ring leaders. Athletes could do no wrong with school administrators and teachers either, one time the Principal even called the marching band into the gym to dress them down for "causing" the football team to lose a game by not playing enthusiastically enough (this really happened).

You lived in a community with some remarkable people. I grew up in a community with a bunch of assholes, most all tea baggers now.

But no, gay kids weren't the only ones to get bullied, there were many reasons to torment a child. My best friend, who would come out of the closet in his late 20s, was bullied horrifically while I, as an ugly straight female, was only humiliated daily. If you were perceived as gay your life was made almost not worth living at that school, so they had it the worst.

[MineralMan]

24. It seems like some schools are like that. I don't think it's regional,

either. I think it has to do with the leadership at the school. If it's wrong, there's no way the school will be a friendly, caring place. I hate that. Sadly, it often goes on for decades that way.

[RebelOne]

22. I have a friend whose son was a victim of bullying

here in North Georgia. He was bullied because he was fat. One day, he took his father's gun to school. He stood up in class and said, "I can't take it any more" and shot himself in the head. He died. My friend and her husband have been on a campaign to stop bullying in schools. They were on the Oprah Winfrey and Lisa Gibbons shows. Unfortunately, her husband died of a heart attack last year. I have not spoken to her to see if she is continuing the campaign.

[AndyTiedye]

27. If Only We Had More of That Kind of Church and Fewer of the AFAish Ones

The wingnut churches are rabidly opposed to all anti-bullying programs on the grounds that they are "part of the Gay agenda".
There are lots of them, and some are as big as Walmart stores.

I have never seen or heard of a church like yours before. Too bad there are not more of them.

[Mimosa]

28. K&R. N/T

[bbdad]

29. I believe what you say happened, but it seems ...

... so bizarre to me. It doesn't sound like the norm. In the district where I went through junior high and high school, principals and coaches had the exact opposite attitude towards bullying, especially on the part of individual football players. Bullying was rampant in the district, and some of the worst offenders were players. A friend of mine at another high school in the district was minding his own business between classes when an upperclassman football player strode over to him and deliberately slammed the door of his locker on his right hand, which had to be placed in a cast for two weeks. The nurse said he was lucky he didn't suffer any bone fractures. The player was never disciplined. Another player at the same high school tormented a mentally retarded student (an act of amazing cruelty), yet he was merely suspended for a few days. (Big deal! I'm sure the "punishment" was like a vacation to him.) More than a few high-school football players seem to have bad attitudes towards other students. A childhood friend of mine who played football in the district said that most of his teammates had looked down upon all the nonathletic guys at their school as supposedly being "inferior." Last year I noticed a comment posted by a high-school football player at another website's forum who said that many of his classmates regarded nonathletic guys at their school as "fags." This bigotry directed against nonathletic kids is based upon false assumptions that are easily disproved, but who cares? Pathetic ...

[HughBeaumont]

32. Huh?

I grew up in a redneck cocaine/alcohol/meth-flecked hellhole called Vermilion, Ohio . . . one of many white rural/suburban hellholes in Northeast Ohio:

Athletes were serial victimizers.

I went to church with many, many victimizing idiots.

Most of my bullies were children of teachers, which is why nothing at all was done about it.

Coaches did absolutely nothing about bullying. Some coaches were bullies and threatened kids with violence (myself included).

Teachers . . . same thing. They berated and humiliated weaker kids in class, often.

Nobody stood up for anyone. It was every person for themselves. Adults failed to protect any of us. My grades suffered tremendously because I couldn't concentrate and was only thinking about 3:00 PM. My relationship with my family was massively strained because they, like many others (including some on this board) blamed ME for it all. My sister never saw where I was coming from because she was friends with all of them.

"It gets better?" No, it fucking doesn't. It NEVER goes away. It was the most miserable experience of my life and might as well have been an eternity as long as it lasted.

I carry hatred for these fuckers every single day, to this day. I can't go back to that city without my senses going haywire. I can't look at a former asshole without wanting to hospitalize him. I have a grave hatred and intolerance for drunks and assholes. I won't step into a bar because I see these very types of people.

Every day one of my former tormentors walk around not giving me or anyone else one "sorry" or feel one ounce of remorse or pay even the slightest bit physically, I feel there's something terribly wrong with that.

Adults (particularly administrators) and police need to get their hands dirty and stop this. There's no two ways about it. Bullying is assault. Assault is a crime, a crime that's being committed by and large BY CHOICE. These aren't kids with mental or behavioral issues, they're normal kids who are choosing to be an asshole and commit a CRIME.

It's a massive disgrace that people on a progressive board fail to see that.

[bbdad]

33. "I went to church with many, many victimizing idiots."

How sick! Yeah, I had a similar experience in my parents' denomination when I was a kid. I know how you feel. People like that make me as a Christian sick to my stomach. Their hypocrisy is so blatant they should feel too ashamed to show their faces in public; but, of course, they're not ashamed or embarrassed at all. It's amazing. Whatever became of the Golden Rule (Matt. 7:12)? Forgotten, I guess.

[Bandit]

34. It is nice your church took this on but I keep hearing about Churches in today's world

That are actually the instigators in bullying...Especially right wing Churches...They actually think they are the ones being bullied by the government for their discrimination against gays and Liberals.. :shrug: