bullying

Matthew Lynch published in Early Childhood & K-12 EdTech, EdTech & Innovation, Education Leadership, Teachers

How to Use Technology to Prevent School Bullying

Every year during October, schools, and organizations all over the world celebrate National Bully Prevention Month. The goal: increase awareness of the effects of bullying on children of all ages, and motivate community stakeholders to collaborate to end all forms of bullying. Over a decade old, National Bullying Prevention Awareness Month was initiated by PACER’s National Bullying Prevention Center in October 2006. Since its start, the event has grown to an entire month of learning and awareness activities, which are designed to help individuals become more aware of the grave consequences of bullying.

Every October, I am approached by organizations looking to bring awareness to this cause. In response, I send out their messages and resources to my social media followers, but that’s about it. Well, this year, I am to stepping my game up. To support National Bully Prevention Month, I decided to author an article aimed at helping schools use edtech solutions to prevent bullying.

Bullying in the era of hyper-connectivity

The proliferation of edtech in schools has given students an entirely new way to connect and communicate. Unfortunately, being able to access the internet also tempts students to peruse inappropriate content, or harass and bully their peers. The irony in this is that although technology is the root cause of a significant number of problems in modern schools, it can also be used to prevent them before they start or solve them once they occur.

To save students from their own curiosity, many schools block access to all websites that are not education related; especially social media sites. This certainly can stop cyberbullying, but it also prevents students from becoming responsible digital citizens. Also, the act of blocking websites is not a perfect science, and the lack of flexibility always causes issues for the teaching and learning process. Ordinarily, sites like Facebook would be flagged as inappropriate and blocked district-wide, but what if they are needed by high schools seniors studying digital marketing?

Overall, blocking social media sites does not stop cyberbullying. The proper response is to educate students about appropriate online behavior and how to be good digital citizens. This approach needs to be coupled with online monitoring, which includes tracking the search terms that students use, what they talk about on social media, as well as the websites that they visit.

How can edtech help schools prevent bullying?

 More than ever, we need innovative ways to keep our student’s safe in today’s hyper-connected world. How can edtech help? Companies like NetSupport are creating software solutions designed to help schools stop bullying events before they start, and respond appropriately to bullying that becomes fully realized. Their award-winning IT Asset Management and Internet Safety solution, NetSupport DNA, helps technicians to track, monitor, and manage IT assets across individual schools and entire districts.

NetSupport DNA contains a “Report a Concern” tool that students can use to quickly and anonymously report any issue that they are encountering to an adult that they trust. With its most recent update, teachers can also use the same tool to report an issue in situations where they are verbally told of a student’s concern. In addition to reporting the issue, students also have access to the contact information for several national support organizations. These organizations can help support students in ways that underfunded school districts cannot. Empowering students to confront bullying can give them the confidence they need to attend school without fear.

School IT administrators can use NetSupport DNA to schedule real-time monitoring and search for exact phrases and keywords in several languages to keep an eye on suspicious activity. Keywords are presented in a word cloud format, along with other intuitions, so school officials can be alerted to recurring themes across groups of students. If keywords or phrases suggest bullying or harassing activity that may place the student in danger, they would be presented in the word cloud. In addition to being presented in the word cloud, the term is also placed into the original context in which it was used.

When an alert is triggered, the system can ascertain the threat level of the phrase and use differing sensitivity levels based on the time and context in which the phrase was used. To document instances of cyberbullying, educators can capture screenshots and video clips of bullying episodes. Teachers can use the word cloud feature as a springboard for discussing the significance of having a positive online footprint. This can help educators prevent cyberbullying and help students gain invaluable digital literacy skills.

NetSupport DNA gives schools the context that they need to piece together the full picture, instead of trying to decipher bits of information. School staff can avoid “false positives” by determining the context of possible matches. If a keyword is triggered and reviews as a false alarm, a “false alarm” note can be added. By looking at a student’s entire journey, not just the end event, schools are able to spot trends and issues that would have ordinarily been overlooked.

Let’s look at a practical example. A student searches for ‘Smith & Wesson,’ which is a company that manufactures firearms. Thankfully, the school IT staff have included phrases and keywords related to various types of firearms into the keyword database. As soon as the student initiates the search, the system is triggered, and the school IT staff are alerted. They inform the principal, who decides to investigate the matter further. She finds out that the student who conducted the search recently reported that they were being bullied by a classmate. The alleged bully had been disciplined, and she thought the issue had been resolved.

She sits down with the bullying victim and asks him about the search. He says it was a mistake and blames it on Google’s autocomplete feature, but who knows what the truth is. The principal sends him back to class and puts together a plan to monitor the situation further. She knows that students who are being bullied and feel like they have no other options may resort to gun violence to protect themselves. We know the story all too well. A student walks into a school with a loaded gun, and tragedy ensues. Edtech apps like NetSupport DNA can help you prevent this from happening.

Conclusion

As educators, we have a professional obligation to make schools and classrooms safe environments for all students. To achieve this, we must actively deliver the message that bullying is wrong in all circumstances and be proactive in preventing it. However, in today’s hyper-connected world, we can’t be everywhere and see everything that happens within our learning environments. Well, not until now.

With technologies like NetSupport DNA, schools can monitor their student’s activity at all times, even if they are on the other side of the classroom. By putting power like this in the hands of educators, we ensure that bullies don’t stand a chance.

 

  • no reactions
0
Share
Matthew Lynch published in Bullying

The use of homophobic slurs in sports: It’s for the athletes’ own good, right?

**The Edvocate is pleased to publish guest posts as way to fuel important conversations surrounding P-20 education in America. The opinions contained within guest posts are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official opinion of The Edvocate or Dr. Matthew Lynch.**

A guest post by Jennifer Fraser

“…male athletes in particular are held up as and expected to be paragons of a certain kind of masculinity, seen as the rejection of all that is coded ‘feminine.’ Exhortations that male athletes ‘be a man’ or ‘not act like little girls’ are even more pervasive in sports than they are in general culture. So it’s little surprise that a coach would use insults that imply his players are less than men to shame, humiliate and control them.” —T. F. Charlton

Homophobic slurs are an ideal way to stop young athletes from reporting abuse: if the coach regularly calls boys “pussies” or tells them to “grow some balls” or screams at them that they are “soft,” these boys are very unlikely to report because they worry that if they can’t hack such tough, masculine coaching, they might just be the feminized, degraded players the coach accuses them of being. Chances are good if you ask this kind of coach why he speaks to the boys this way, he will tell you that it’s to ‘toughen them up’. He will tell you that humiliating, taunting, and insulting, namely bullying, are effective tools to build athletic greatness. That’s how he was coached.

Unfortunately, there are many studies that reveal this kind of coaching harms athletes and fails to make winning teams. According to University of Toronto experts in the use of emotional abuse in sports: “One of the barriers to the implementation of an athlete-centered approach is the assumption, held by many sport practitioners, that holistic development comes at a cost to athletic performance.” However, there is “no empirical evidence” to back this belief up.[1] One of the greatest misconceptions in the sporting world is the belief that being hard on athletes makes strong teams.

As long ago as 1983, psychiatrist Dr. Alice Miller exposed a poisonous pedagogical approach as having devastating effects on children. Her study, For Your Own Good: Hidden Cruelty in Childhood and the Roots of Violence has been so influential that a new edition was released in 2002. Essentially, Miller argues that care-givers who use abusive approaches, whether physical or emotional, harm children in significant ways even though they claim to have “the child’s best interests” in mind.[2]

Poisonous pedagogy underpins the argument that coaches need to yell, swear, humiliate and demean athletes in order to get the best out of them and for their team to be successful.

I resigned from a school where homophobic culture was widespread and tolerated in the basketball program. To give some examples of the culture: one day, while the Senior Boys Basketball team were competing in the Provincial Championships, one of the coaches wrote an email to all faculty at the school using a homophobic slur: “Boys lose by 11 with a soft second half performance.” This is a team where the term “soft” is hurled at the boys on a regular basis at practices. The messaging is that the abuse is deserved because the boys are failing to achieve masculine hardness (with all of its sexual overtones likely not lost on adolescent boys or in sports culture in general). One of the coaches would yell at students that they were “soft as butter”; according to Google’s online urban dictionary, “soft as butter” is an “expression to describe an absolute pussy who makes the most cowardly person look like a hero.”[3] Fourteen students came forward to report that taunting and insulting language was eroding their confidence and killing their love of the game. They were clear that homophobic slurs were harmful to them.

The use of misogynistic or homophobic terms to humiliate teenage boys is both widely discussed and well documented in sports journalism and abuse literature. However, as the coaches themselves said in their responses to the student allegations of bullying, in a School culture where using this language is seen as “normal” it was difficult to know when they’d crossed the line. And far more insidious and poisonous are the students’ beliefs, when exposed to repeated humiliation, as they recorded in their testimonies, that perhaps they deserve it because they are “soft.” And to bring it full circle, the worry that they are in fact soft stops them from asking for help or protection.

When Rutgers’ basketball coach Mike Rice was exposed as using homophobic slurs, there was significant outcry and he was fired. In Yahoo Sports in April 2013, sports reporter, Erik Adelson says that when the video of Mike Rice abusing players was aired: “social media exploded with horror and one resounding question: Why didn’t anyone fight back?” He looks beyond Rutgers University to multiple athletics programs for his answer and concludes that the question of why athletes tolerate abuse has “a one-word answer: fear.”[4] Athletes, boys in particular, are afraid that if they speak up, they will be accused of being “soft”.

In an article that responded to the Mike Rice scandal, T. F. Charlton examines the phenomenon of athletes not reporting on abusive coaches:

We should hardly be surprised, then, that players don’t speak up about abuse — and even, as in Rice’s case and many others, actually defend abusive behavior. Male and female players alike model the message they receive: that coaches who violate their emotional and physical boundaries do so for players’ good, and players who don’t handle this stoically aren’t up to snuff.[5]

Only one player on the Rutgers University Scarlet Knights risked speaking up against Coach Mike Rice before the video was played on ESPN. Homophobic coaching must be stopped. As T. F. Charlton argues:

“Instead of teaching young athletes to accept and shoulder abusive coaching as being ‘for their good,’ let’s teach them — and remind ourselves — that they have a right to not have their emotional and physical boundaries violated. Let’s provide an institutional structure that is proactive about preventing and addressing abuse and protects athletes and staff who speak out about it.”[6]

As a society, we will never eradicate bullying until we create a culture of support and remedy for those who find themselves in a cycle over which they have little or no control. Just like children who bully are not tolerated, coaches who bully need to be removed instantly from their positions until they are able to stop, get a clean bill of health from a psychologist, and hopefully return to their job. We would never let a teacher with a highly contagious disease near students. Likewise, we should never let a coach or teacher who suffers from a bullying or other psychological disorder to interact with students as their tendencies may well be passed on.

As one student recounted in his testimony at my former school: “I worry that I might become like [two of the coaches]. I’m scared I will snap and coach like them. It’s a really big worry for me. I have the fear that being abused, I’ll abuse others.” Another student reports that when coaching his little brother’s team, he found himself resorting to the same abusive practices to which he had been subjected. When his behaviour was pointed out to him by the adult with whom he was coaching, he felt terrible. Nevertheless, it was still a struggle for this bullied player to stop emulating the abusive coaching style he had learned as a younger player. He wanted to be seen as tough, hard, and successful after having that beaten into his mind over and over again at practices and games.

This honest admission by teenagers about how they have been negatively impacted is extremely concerning especially in terms of the students who normalize bullying behaviour, do not speak up against it or turn a blind eye when they witness it happen. Perhaps this is why there is a bullying epidemic not only in schools, but also in the workplace. For further discussion of emotional abuse in athletics, see Fraser’s forthcoming book, Teaching Bullies: Zero Tolerance on the Court or in the Classroom.

 

[1] Ashley E. Stirling and Gretchen A. Kerr, “Abused Athletes’ Perceptions of the Coach-Athlete Relationship”, Sport in Society Vol.12.2, March 2009: 227-239.

[2] Alice Miller, For Your Own Good: Hidden Cruelty in Childhood and the Roots of Violence, trans. Hildegarde and Hunter Hannum, New York: Farrar, Straus, Giroux: 2002.

[3] http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Soft%20as%20butter

[4] Erik Adelson, “Why do College Athletes Tolerate Abuse?” Yahoo Sports, April 2013: http://sports.yahoo.com/news/ncaab–why-don-t-college-athletes-call-out-abusive-coaches–222535612.html

[5] T. F. Charlton: “Why do athletes tolerate abusive coaches? In locker rooms, insubordination is a worse crime than abuse of authority. Unless that changes, nothing else will.” Salon.com http://www.salon.com/2013/04/05/why_do_athletes_tolerate_abusive_coaches/

[6] T. F. Charlton: “Why do athletes tolerate abusive coaches? In locker rooms, insubordination is a worse crime than abuse of authority. Unless that changes, nothing else will.” Salon.com http://www.salon.com/2013/04/05/why_do_athletes_tolerate_abusive_coaches/

_____

Jennifer Fraser has a PhD in Comparative Literature from the University of Toronto and is a published writer. She is presently teaching creative writing and International Bacclaureate literature classes at an independent school in British Columbia.

  • no reactions
0
Share
Matthew Lynch published in Bullying

The use of homophobic slurs in sports: It’s for the athletes’ own good, right?

**The Edvocate is pleased to publish guest posts as way to fuel important conversations surrounding P-20 education in America. The opinions contained within guest posts are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official opinion of The Edvocate or Dr. Matthew Lynch.**

A guest post by Jennifer Fraser

“…male athletes in particular are held up as and expected to be paragons of a certain kind of masculinity, seen as the rejection of all that is coded ‘feminine.’ Exhortations that male athletes ‘be a man’ or ‘not act like little girls’ are even more pervasive in sports than they are in general culture. So it’s little surprise that a coach would use insults that imply his players are less than men to shame, humiliate and control them.” —T. F. Charlton

Homophobic slurs are an ideal way to stop young athletes from reporting abuse: if the coach regularly calls boys “pussies” or tells them to “grow some balls” or screams at them that they are “soft,” these boys are very unlikely to report because they worry that if they can’t hack such tough, masculine coaching, they might just be the feminized, degraded players the coach accuses them of being. Chances are good if you ask this kind of coach why he speaks to the boys this way, he will tell you that it’s to ‘toughen them up’. He will tell you that humiliating, taunting, and insulting, namely bullying, are effective tools to build athletic greatness. That’s how he was coached.

Unfortunately, there are many studies that reveal this kind of coaching harms athletes and fails to make winning teams. According to University of Toronto experts in the use of emotional abuse in sports: “One of the barriers to the implementation of an athlete-centered approach is the assumption, held by many sport practitioners, that holistic development comes at a cost to athletic performance.” However, there is “no empirical evidence” to back this belief up.[1] One of the greatest misconceptions in the sporting world is the belief that being hard on athletes makes strong teams.

As long ago as 1983, psychiatrist Dr. Alice Miller exposed a poisonous pedagogical approach as having devastating effects on children. Her study, For Your Own Good: Hidden Cruelty in Childhood and the Roots of Violence has been so influential that a new edition was released in 2002. Essentially, Miller argues that care-givers who use abusive approaches, whether physical or emotional, harm children in significant ways even though they claim to have “the child’s best interests” in mind.[2]

Poisonous pedagogy underpins the argument that coaches need to yell, swear, humiliate and demean athletes in order to get the best out of them and for their team to be successful.

I resigned from a school where homophobic culture was widespread and tolerated in the basketball program. To give some examples of the culture: one day, while the Senior Boys Basketball team were competing in the Provincial Championships, one of the coaches wrote an email to all faculty at the school using a homophobic slur: “Boys lose by 11 with a soft second half performance.” This is a team where the term “soft” is hurled at the boys on a regular basis at practices. The messaging is that the abuse is deserved because the boys are failing to achieve masculine hardness (with all of its sexual overtones likely not lost on adolescent boys or in sports culture in general). One of the coaches would yell at students that they were “soft as butter”; according to Google’s online urban dictionary, “soft as butter” is an “expression to describe an absolute pussy who makes the most cowardly person look like a hero.”[3] Fourteen students came forward to report that taunting and insulting language was eroding their confidence and killing their love of the game. They were clear that homophobic slurs were harmful to them.

The use of misogynistic or homophobic terms to humiliate teenage boys is both widely discussed and well documented in sports journalism and abuse literature. However, as the coaches themselves said in their responses to the student allegations of bullying, in a School culture where using this language is seen as “normal” it was difficult to know when they’d crossed the line. And far more insidious and poisonous are the students’ beliefs, when exposed to repeated humiliation, as they recorded in their testimonies, that perhaps they deserve it because they are “soft.” And to bring it full circle, the worry that they are in fact soft stops them from asking for help or protection.

When Rutgers’ basketball coach Mike Rice was exposed as using homophobic slurs, there was significant outcry and he was fired. In Yahoo Sports in April 2013, sports reporter, Erik Adelson says that when the video of Mike Rice abusing players was aired: “social media exploded with horror and one resounding question: Why didn’t anyone fight back?” He looks beyond Rutgers University to multiple athletics programs for his answer and concludes that the question of why athletes tolerate abuse has “a one-word answer: fear.”[4] Athletes, boys in particular, are afraid that if they speak up, they will be accused of being “soft”.

In an article that responded to the Mike Rice scandal, T. F. Charlton examines the phenomenon of athletes not reporting on abusive coaches:

We should hardly be surprised, then, that players don’t speak up about abuse — and even, as in Rice’s case and many others, actually defend abusive behavior. Male and female players alike model the message they receive: that coaches who violate their emotional and physical boundaries do so for players’ good, and players who don’t handle this stoically aren’t up to snuff.[5]

Only one player on the Rutgers University Scarlet Knights risked speaking up against Coach Mike Rice before the video was played on ESPN. Homophobic coaching must be stopped. As T. F. Charlton argues:

“Instead of teaching young athletes to accept and shoulder abusive coaching as being ‘for their good,’ let’s teach them — and remind ourselves — that they have a right to not have their emotional and physical boundaries violated. Let’s provide an institutional structure that is proactive about preventing and addressing abuse and protects athletes and staff who speak out about it.”[6]

As a society, we will never eradicate bullying until we create a culture of support and remedy for those who find themselves in a cycle over which they have little or no control. Just like children who bully are not tolerated, coaches who bully need to be removed instantly from their positions until they are able to stop, get a clean bill of health from a psychologist, and hopefully return to their job. We would never let a teacher with a highly contagious disease near students. Likewise, we should never let a coach or teacher who suffers from a bullying or other psychological disorder to interact with students as their tendencies may well be passed on.

As one student recounted in his testimony at my former school: “I worry that I might become like [two of the coaches]. I’m scared I will snap and coach like them. It’s a really big worry for me. I have the fear that being abused, I’ll abuse others.” Another student reports that when coaching his little brother’s team, he found himself resorting to the same abusive practices to which he had been subjected. When his behaviour was pointed out to him by the adult with whom he was coaching, he felt terrible. Nevertheless, it was still a struggle for this bullied player to stop emulating the abusive coaching style he had learned as a younger player. He wanted to be seen as tough, hard, and successful after having that beaten into his mind over and over again at practices and games.

This honest admission by teenagers about how they have been negatively impacted is extremely concerning especially in terms of the students who normalize bullying behaviour, do not speak up against it or turn a blind eye when they witness it happen. Perhaps this is why there is a bullying epidemic not only in schools, but also in the workplace. For further discussion of emotional abuse in athletics, see Fraser’s forthcoming book, Teaching Bullies: Zero Tolerance on the Court or in the Classroom.

 

[1] Ashley E. Stirling and Gretchen A. Kerr, “Abused Athletes’ Perceptions of the Coach-Athlete Relationship”, Sport in Society Vol.12.2, March 2009: 227-239.

[2] Alice Miller, For Your Own Good: Hidden Cruelty in Childhood and the Roots of Violence, trans. Hildegarde and Hunter Hannum, New York: Farrar, Straus, Giroux: 2002.

[3] http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Soft%20as%20butter

[4] Erik Adelson, “Why do College Athletes Tolerate Abuse?” Yahoo Sports, April 2013: http://sports.yahoo.com/news/ncaab–why-don-t-college-athletes-call-out-abusive-coaches–222535612.html

[5] T. F. Charlton: “Why do athletes tolerate abusive coaches? In locker rooms, insubordination is a worse crime than abuse of authority. Unless that changes, nothing else will.” Salon.com http://www.salon.com/2013/04/05/why_do_athletes_tolerate_abusive_coaches/

[6] T. F. Charlton: “Why do athletes tolerate abusive coaches? In locker rooms, insubordination is a worse crime than abuse of authority. Unless that changes, nothing else will.” Salon.com http://www.salon.com/2013/04/05/why_do_athletes_tolerate_abusive_coaches/

_____

Jennifer Fraser has a PhD in Comparative Literature from the University of Toronto and is a published writer. She is presently teaching creative writing and International Bacclaureate literature classes at an independent school in British Columbia.

  • no reactions
0
Share
Matthew Lynch published in Ask An Expert, Bullying

The Link between Bullying Prevention and Healthy Body Image in Children

A guest post by Keir McDonald MBE

The U.K. Government recently released the results of a nationwide survey to better understand public perceptions of body image. It found that 87% of girls aged 11- 21 think that women are judged more on their appearance than on their ability.

This statistic is worrying because research has shown that in addition to affecting how people feel about their looks, poor body confidence can have a devastating effect on many aspects of their lives. According to the research, this is especially pronounced in adolescent children.
From achieving at school to effectively dealing with bullying, healthy body image is important for children to develop. As educators, we all have a responsibility to do everything we can to share positive messages about our bodies and help children develop healthy ideas around body image to further the fight against bullying.

Here are 3 ways educators and parents can encourage healthy body image in children.

#1. Engage in a healthy conversation with students and children.

First and foremost, it is important for parents and teachers to talk to kids about body image. Asking kids for their opinions about how bodies are depicted in the media is one good way to start the conversation.

Consider asking questions like “Does that look real?” “Do a lot of people really look like that?” and “What do you think might have been done to that picture to make it look that way?”

Teaching children to view media images with a critical eye is an important first step in encouraging healthy body image in children.

At a time when they should feel secure with their body, too many children learn to feel anxious about weight and begin to make choices that contribute to the very problems they hope to avoid. Weight stigma and body dissatisfaction in fact lead to poorer eating and fitness choices, less physical activity, weight gain and diminished health.

As a result, researchers at the Yale Rudd Center for Obesity and Health and elsewhere have issued a call for weight stigma reduction programs to promote positive eating and fitness habits without regard to size. Most important to this is developing an identity based on who they are rather than how they look, choosing positive role models that support their deeper values, and actively embracing health and vitality through positive eating and physical activity. This is all part of the important conversation educators and parents must be having with children.

#2. Take a hard line on bullying.

Being bullied is a major contributing factor for depression and low self-esteem in children. Bullying behavior focuses on ‘difference’ and the difference can be real or perceived. In fact, recent research from a U.S-based anti-bullying organization revealed that special needs students, LGBT students, students who are overweight, and students who are perceived as “weak” are the most likely targets of bullying by others.
Weight is often one of the “differences” referenced in bullying.

The classroom, cafeteria, library, restrooms, on the bus, and on the playground are all areas where teachers and parents can strive to create safe and bully-free environments. A safe and supportive school climate can be one of the best tools in preventing bullying. Children need to feel safe or they can’t focus on learning.

The easiest way for teachers to take a hard line on bullying is to intervene immediately. It is important to only address the kids involved separately, never together. Also, forcing resolution in children will not teach them successful coping methods for the long term. Do not make the kids involved apologize or patch up relations on the spot

A recent survey of 250,000 children aged between 10 and 15 showed that nearly half have been bullied at school. And even if they had not been bullied, a quarter of the sample said they were worried about it.
Today, bullying does not just exist within the perimeter of the school. It can carry on day and night through the use of mobile phones and the internet via chat rooms and social media. In short, it can create a vicious cycle that can make a child or young person feel worthless and unvalued. Teachers are uniquely situated to stop bullying on the spot and create a safe learning environment in the school.

#3. Focus on personal strengths and relate to social media

The Internet and social media provide a platform for adolescent children to seek out images of what they want to look like, as well as an outlet through which children can perform outward comparisons with their peers and celebrities. Social media may not create new problems for children, but they do certainly intensify existing ones.

With social media, children are constantly critiquing and analyzing bodies in such a way that promotes body dissatisfaction, constant body surveillance, and disordered thoughts. All of these factors can lead to very serious vulnerabilities and make children susceptible to bullying.

Moving towards student-centered classrooms, which are big on collaboration, are one way teachers can begin to curb bullying by sharing control with students. Taking that one step further, teachers can become a participant and co-learner in discussion, asking questions and perhaps correcting misconceptions.

A simple activity is to give everyone a list of the personal strengths and get them to cross off the strength that is least like them one at a time until they reach three that are left. These are each person’s personal strengths. Consider getting everyone to write their personal strengths on stickers/paper and show them to the group.

Do students recognize the strength in themselves? What about the top strengths of others in the group? Identifying personal strengths is a great way to encourage positive feelings. In small groups, think of a way in which you could exercise your top personal strength more in the next week.

By facilitating a conversation about personal strengths and encouraging students to collaborate around this topic, teachers can begin to help children foster ideas of personal strengths.

In conclusion, by taking a hard line on bullying, focusing on personal strengths and teaching children to understand what’s realistic and what’s not, we can begin to help adolescent children encourage healthy body image now and always.

About the Author
Keir McDonald MBE is Chief Executive Office and Founder of EduCare, an online training solutions company that specialize in child protection, exploitation and online safety, and bullying and child neglect. EduCare is associated with both Kidscape and Family Lives and customers include over 4000 schools and colleges and 12000 pre-schools as well as councils, NHS, charities and more.

  • no reactions
0
Share
Matthew Lynch published in Ask An Expert, list, Matthew Lynch, Policy & Reform

3 Ways to End Anti-Gay Bullying

With the Supreme Court’s decision this year to recognize same-sex marriage and promote marriage equality, it is clear that attitudes toward individuals who are LGBT are changing. However, anti-gay bullying is still an issue today, and is a major concern especially with cyber-bullying on the rise.

Furthermore, biased and homophobic comments are rampant in many schools, with a staggering 90 percent of LGBT students experiencing verbal harassment related to their sexual orientation.

Regardless of a teacher’s personal ideology, as educators we are bound to uphold a code of tolerance and acceptance. Here are three ways to ensure that LGBT students feel safer and more accepted at school:

  1. Disallow discrimination based on sexual orientation. The National Education Association, the American Federation of Teachers, and the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development have all passed resolutions asking their members and all school districts to step forward to improve the educational experiences of LGBT students. These resolutions call for providing a safe environment, support groups, and counseling options for LGBT students and by employing anti-harassment rules and practices.  In nine states, the state government has instituted legislation prohibiting the harassment and discrimination of LGBT students. We need to continue this trend until every state has these rules in place, in every district and school – no exceptions.
  2. Expand “inclusion” policies.  There are some schools in which LGBT students are accepted and accommodated.   Same-sex couples are invited to school dances and there are unisex washrooms for transgender students.  School districts in some states include LGBT students in non-discrimination policies with the goal of making schools safe places for all students, parents, faculty and staff.  However, there are also states where it is illegal to even utter the word homosexual and in which the word homosexual (or lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender) can only be portrayed in a negative light within the classroom.  This makes it difficult for teachers to teach about sexual orientation diversity or to make their classrooms and school environment safe and accepting of LGBT students.  Regardless of location, teachers can explain to students that they don’t have to agree it is okay to be gay or lesbian, but they do have to agree that it is not okay to discriminate against them.
  3. Promote LGBT student groups.  It is important that all students, regardless of who they are or their sexual orientation, have a safe environment in which to learn and grow as an individual.  Gay and lesbian organizations have been at the forefront of trying to create safe and accepting environments for LGBT students.  Students have also taken up the cause and student groups have begun springing up in schools all over the country.  There are currently approximately 4,000 Gay-Straight Alliance Groups registered with the Gay, Lesbian & Straight Education Network (GLSEN).  These groups are alliances between straight and LGBT. They work together to support each other and promote education as a means for ending homophobia.

By schools taking the reins on this issue, real change will eventually be realized.

What are you suggestions on how we can improve the school environment for LGBT students?

  • no reactions
0
Share
Matthew Lynch published in Bullying

What should students do when the teacher or coach is the bully?

**The Edvocate is pleased to publish guest posts as way to fuel important conversations surrounding P-20 education in America. The opinions contained within guest posts are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official opinion of The Edvocate or Dr. Matthew Lynch.**

A guest post by Jennifer Fraser

Our sixteen year old son was competing at the 2012 Provincial Basketball Championships in British Columbia when one of the boys on the team texted his parents to say he “couldn’t take it anymore.” The coaches were calling the team “a bunch of pussies”, “hopeless” and “retarded.”

For my husband and me, that was the point of no return.

When we heard those words, we knew we had to get our son away from those coaches. No matter what it took, we could not let our son be spoken to like that. This wasn’t the first time we’d seen or heard there was something wrong on the team with how the coaches were “motivating” the players, but this time, there was no going back. We could no longer excuse or forgive. The basketball court, that our son loved so much, was becoming a place he dreaded and hated. We didn’t want him to join the statistics discussed by Professor Mark Hymen: 70% of children drop out of sports by the age of thirteen.

This coaching crisis happened a year before the Mike Rice scandal erupted and there were still those who thought it reasonable for a coach to scream obscenities at student athletes. There were still those who believed that this kind of humiliation was in fact “motivation”. Post Mike Rice, in many parts of America that changed.

The logic is that these coaches give athletes the worst in order to get the best out of them. But at what cost? People excuse — or even celebrate — such behavior as a passion. But, let’s call it by its real name: abuse.

– Charles M. Blow, New York Times, April 2013

But in many parts of world, including my son’s high-school, it hasn’t changed and I don’t think it will until bullying—by adults in power over children—namely emotional or verbal abuse joins sexual and physical abuse in the Criminal Code.

At the school where our son played basketball, at the request of the Headmaster, fourteen students gave detailed testimonies about how the coaches were treating them. The police said that there was a “definite pattern in the complaints, all pointing to verbal and emotional abuse.” However, the police could not intervene, as emotional abuse is not in the Criminal Code. And so, over the course of three years, along with a dedicated group of parents, we appealed to school administrators, the Inspector of Independent Schools, BC School Sports, the Commissioner for Teacher Regulation, the Ministry of Education, and the Ombudsperson. To date, no one has done anything to hold the teachers to account for bullying conduct.

Decades of psychological, psychiatric, and sports abuse research has been done that reveals that bullying contributes significantly to a whole host of suffering: low self esteem, dropping out of sports and school, failure to reach potential, addiction, suicide and so on. However, in the last ten or so years, there have also been important neurological studies that illustrate the damage done to the brain of a bully victim whether at school or in the workplace. And in the last few years, there have also been further neurological studies that reveal that the adolescent brain is as fragile as that of the infant to toddler aged brain. It is in full development and therefore at great risk.[1]

Despite substantial research, emotional abuse from teacher to child, or coach to student-athlete continues to be minimized and dismissed as less serious than physical or sexual abuse. This dismissal is impossible to understand considering the neuroscience that chronicles the scars emotional abuse leaves on the brain. Dr. David Walsh, one of the world’s leading authorities on children and teens, stresses the way in which “Brain science lends even more urgency to confronting the scourge of bullying” exactly because there are “studies suggesting that the brain changes are long-term and therefore can create emotional scars that last for a lifetime”.[2] I doubt that when parents insist that “old-style coaching” is okay because it gets results and toughens kids up, they are informed about what is being done to their child’s developing brain. Parents may not know, but it is the job of teachers, school administrators and educational authorities to know.

Endless studies of peer to peer bullying are conducted while at the same time we wring our hands about how bullying is on the rise. We lament the fact that suicide is the second leading cause of death in adolescent populations. But, we do not take a hard look at bullying done by teachers or coaches. It seems to be a taboo subject even among researchers. Yes, there are many wonderful teachers and coaches out there, but that does not mean that bullying from those who have power over children doesn’t happen.

The research Dr. Martin Teicher, Associate Professor of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School conducted in 2002 found that “verbal abuse by parents was as psychologically damaging as physical abuse.” More surprising, his research has shown that “kids suffered more depression, anxiety and other psychiatric disorders when bullied by peers than by parents.”[3] If bullying in the school setting causes more harm than the home setting, and verbal abuse is just as damaging as physical abuse, what happens when it’s teachers or coaches who are doing the bullying at school?

If a child finds it hard to report on peer bullying, or not be a by-stander when he or she witnesses peer bullying, that challenge becomes exponential when it is a teacher who has power over the child. Besides, it becomes much more difficult to recognize. Teachers are invested with the professional credentials to assess students and therefore if a teacher says a child is a “retard” or that a child is “not trying” then those words are stamped with official force in a child’s mind. Children don’t want to tell their parents that the teacher is disgusted with them or has rejected them. That’s like having to show a bad report card. On a profound level, the child may believe that the teacher’s humiliating “assessment” is true.

In a recent ground-breaking study by Duke University, that followed almost two thousand students into adulthood, researcher William E. Copeland, Professor of Psychiatry concluded: “If the results of this study are dismaying because they indicate that bullying is permanently scarring, the findings also strengthen the argument for prevention. Copeland underscores this idea. ‘Consider me a reluctant convert, but I’m starting to view bullying the same way I do abuse in the home,’ he said. ‘I honestly think the effects we’re observing here are just as potent.’”[4] The focus of the Duke study is peer bullying which raises the concerning question: how permanently scarring is it when the bullying is done by a teacher to a student or a coach to a student-athlete?

Do we really want to keep saying that when coaches scream obscenities at kids it’s to help them develop as athletes? When a kid calls another kid a “retard” on the playground, we don’t say it helps the child learn. We say that we have zero tolerance for children who bully, but we appear to have vast tolerance for adults who bully.

Until there are consequences, until teachers and coaches are held accountable, until emotional abuse is in the Criminal Code, it’s going to continue to be on the rise and suicide will continue to be the second leading cause of death in adolescent populations. It’s time to make a change and protect children from all forms of abuse. These concerns form the basis for Teaching Bullies: Zero Tolerance on the Court and in the Classroom. The book is a call to action.

[1] Laurence Steinberg, Age of Opportunity: Lessons from the New Science of Adolescence, Boston and New York: Houghton, Mifflin, Harcourt, 2014. Frances E. Jensen with Amy Ellis Nutt, The Teenage Brain: A Neuroscientist’s Survival Guide to Raising Adolescents and Young Adults, Toronto: Harper Collins, 2015.

[2] David Walsh with Erin Walsh, Why do They Act that Way?: A Survival Guide to the Adolescent Brain for You and Your Teen, 2nd edition, New York: Simon & Schuster, 2014 (254).

[3] See Amy Anthes, “Inside the Bullied Brain: the Alarming Neuroscience of Taunting,” The Boston Globe, November 28, 2010: http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/articles/2010/11/28/inside_the_bullied_brain/?page=2

[4] http://www.slate.com/blogs/xx_factor/2013/02/20/new_duke_study_on_bullying_childhood_victims_bullies_and_bully_victims_all.html

________________

Jennifer Fraser has a PhD in Comparative Literature from the University of Toronto and is a published writer. She is presently teaching creative writing and International Baccalaureate literature classes at an independent school in British Columbia.

  • no reactions
0
Share
Matthew Lynch published in Bullying, Teachers

Why don’t kids speak up about bullying?

**The Edvocate is pleased to publish guest posts as way to fuel important conversations surrounding P-20 education in America. The opinions contained within guest posts are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official opinion of The Edvocate or Dr. Matthew Lynch.**

A guest post by Jennifer Fraser

We keep telling kids they must not be bystanders, but what really happens when students speak up about bullying? Why are they so afraid?

Not only do they risk becoming the bully’s next target, but it seems that all too often when students report on bullying a reversal occurs and they become the ones who are in trouble. They are seen as a problem. If the bully is a teacher or a coach, these students might even be shamed or humiliated for daring to jeopardize the adult’s reputation.

If we truly do want students to report on peer bullying and report on abuse by adults in caregiver positions, then we need to change the way in which these complaints are handled in schools and in the law. The first thing a lawyer will ask a bullied child – whether it is by peers or teachers – why didn’t you transfer schools? Expecting the victim to leave suggests that the victim is at fault. If my house is robbed twice, the lawyer will not ask me why I didn’t move. If I’m sexually harassed at work, the lawyer will not ask me why I didn’t find another boss. So why do lawyers ask students bullied at school why they didn’t leave?

In Rod Mickleburgh’s Globe and Mail article, written after Amanda Todd’s suicide as a result of bullying, he consulted with another family whose son, Ashkan Sultani, also committed suicide after being bullied. Sultani’s father pointed out that both his son and Amanda were vulnerable because they had learning disabilities. Rather than be accorded special care, as the Ministry of Education documents state educators and administrators must use, Ashkan’s father found that there was a reversal: bullies were exonerated and victims were held accountable: “Too often, [Ashkan’s father] said, school officials become defensive when approached by parents with concerns their child is being bullied. ‘They don’t want to admit there’s a problem. Or, the first thing they do is try to find out what is wrong with the person getting bullied. How come he doesn’t fit in?’”[1]

This reversal is intensified when students report on teacher or coach conduct.

In the articles I have read about Assistant Coach and Whistleblower Eric Murdock, whose contract was not renewed after he went public with his concerns about basketball coach Mike Rice’s abusive conduct, there is a glaring lack of a proper process in place for reporting on bullying or abuse. Although Mike Rice yelled in apparent fury when coaching games, it was actually his conduct at practices that got him fired. As reported by Steve Eder in the New York Times, there were all kinds of warning signs that abuse was occurring and the administrators were already aware prior to video footage hitting the news:

There was the upperclassman who earlier in the year had come forward to say that he felt bullied. There was an outburst during a game that led to Mr. Rice’s ejection. And there were the months of allegations from a former assistant, who repeatedly claimed that Mr. Rice was abusive.

Tim Pernetti, the athletic director, knew all of that and had repeatedly tried to rein in Mr. Rice, according to a 50-page report that Rutgers commissioned outside lawyers to prepare. He personally reprimanded him, attended Mr. Rice’s practices and even assigned the university’s sports psychologist to work with the team, the report said.[2]

Note that the University commissioned a legal report, but they do not appear to consult Human Resources personnel in terms of the whistleblower’s vulnerable position nor do they consult experts in student health to assess the harm being done to student-athletes.

I acted as Whistleblower once at an independent school. Being Whistleblower is the adult version of not being a bystander and from my experience, I understand why students do not speak up. Just like it seems to do for bully victims, a reversal happened: I was treated as if I was a problem employee. The Headmaster exonerated the teachers about whom 14 students gave testimonies detailing bullying conduct and allowed a toxic environment to emerge around me so that I ultimately resigned.

There wasn’t just one student who came forward to say he was feeling bullied, there were 14. There was a Lawyer/ parent’s report informing the school that “child abuse” was occurring in 2011. There were at least thirty parent complaints in 2012 alone. There were many warning signs. It seems that at best, institutions like Rutgers and my former school lack the necessary processes for handling abuse situations; at worst, they have significant conflict of interest in themselves investigating student concerns. There is clearly work that needs to be done in terms of Human Resources, record keeping, anonymous reporting, proper oversight and so on if we truly do want students to not be bystanders.

In a 2013 article in The Atlantic psychologist, Dr. Joseph Burgo studies the power of reversal whereby the abuser positions himself as the victim and he uses cyclist Lance Armstrong’s conduct as an example. Witnesses who first spoke up about Armstrong’s performance enhancing drug-use were humiliated by the cyclist in the press: “To shore up his winner status, Armstrong wanted to make his detractors appear like contemptible losers; he tried to turn public opinion against them, enlisting the support of his many fans.” In Canada, disgraced Canadian musician, writer, and former CBC radio broadcaster, Jian Ghomeshi presented himself on Facebook as being the victim after being accused of sexual assault: “I’ve been fired from the CBC because of the risk of my private sex life being made public as a result of a campaign of false allegations pursued by a jilted ex girlfriend and a freelance writer.”[3] He has since been charged with multiple counts of sexual assault.

Notably, this dual personality type or charismatic bully appears to be especially attracted to competitive sports because of the win-lose dynamic. Dr. Burgo explains:

It helps to view the bully as a kind of competitor on the social playing field, one who strives not only to win but to triumph over the social losers and destroy their sense of self. As in competitive sport, where winners and losers exist in a binary relation to one another, the bully is yoked in identity to his victims. To a significant degree, his self-image depends upon having those losers to persecute: “I am a winner because you are a loser” [emphasis in the original].

The Headmaster and Board of Governors of my former School responded to students and parent reports of abusive behavior by the adult involved by publicly discrediting them in a report written by a lawyer that said the students were telling manufacturing evidence and lying.

This is why students do not speak up. This is why Whistleblowers are so rare. We can keep encouraging students to report bullying and more importantly abuse, but they won’t do it until they actually know that they will be respected and protected. At present, that is not the case. For further discussion, please see my forthcoming book: Teaching Bullies: Zero Tolerance on the Court or in the Classroom.

[1] Rod Mickleburgh, “Before Amanda Todd, the Sultani family suffered silently,” The Globe and Mail, October 23, 2012 http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/british-columbia/before-amanda-todd-the-sultani-family-suffered-silently/article4633468

[2] http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/07/sports/ncaabasketball/rutgers-officials-long-knew-of-coach-mike-rices-actions.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1&smid=tw-nytimes&partner=rss&emc=rss

[3] Staff, “Full Text: Jian Ghomeshi’s Facebook Post Why He Believes CBC Fired Him,” Global News, Oct 2014: http://globalnews.ca/news/1637310/full-text-jian-ghomeshis-post-on-why-he-believes-cbc-fired-him/

____

Jennifer Fraser has a PhD in Comparative Literature from the University of Toronto and is a published writer. She is presently teaching creative writing and International Bacclaureate literature classes at an independent school in British Columbia.

  • no reactions
0
Share
Matthew Lynch published in Bullying, Teachers

Why don’t kids speak up about bullying?

**The Edvocate is pleased to publish guest posts as way to fuel important conversations surrounding P-20 education in America. The opinions contained within guest posts are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official opinion of The Edvocate or Dr. Matthew Lynch.**

A guest post by Jennifer Fraser

We keep telling kids they must not be bystanders, but what really happens when students speak up about bullying? Why are they so afraid?

Not only do they risk becoming the bully’s next target, but it seems that all too often when students report on bullying a reversal occurs and they become the ones who are in trouble. They are seen as a problem. If the bully is a teacher or a coach, these students might even be shamed or humiliated for daring to jeopardize the adult’s reputation.

If we truly do want students to report on peer bullying and report on abuse by adults in caregiver positions, then we need to change the way in which these complaints are handled in schools and in the law. The first thing a lawyer will ask a bullied child – whether it is by peers or teachers – why didn’t you transfer schools? Expecting the victim to leave suggests that the victim is at fault. If my house is robbed twice, the lawyer will not ask me why I didn’t move. If I’m sexually harassed at work, the lawyer will not ask me why I didn’t find another boss. So why do lawyers ask students bullied at school why they didn’t leave?

In Rod Mickleburgh’s Globe and Mail article, written after Amanda Todd’s suicide as a result of bullying, he consulted with another family whose son, Ashkan Sultani, also committed suicide after being bullied. Sultani’s father pointed out that both his son and Amanda were vulnerable because they had learning disabilities. Rather than be accorded special care, as the Ministry of Education documents state educators and administrators must use, Ashkan’s father found that there was a reversal: bullies were exonerated and victims were held accountable: “Too often, [Ashkan’s father] said, school officials become defensive when approached by parents with concerns their child is being bullied. ‘They don’t want to admit there’s a problem. Or, the first thing they do is try to find out what is wrong with the person getting bullied. How come he doesn’t fit in?’”[1]

This reversal is intensified when students report on teacher or coach conduct.

In the articles I have read about Assistant Coach and Whistleblower Eric Murdock, whose contract was not renewed after he went public with his concerns about basketball coach Mike Rice’s abusive conduct, there is a glaring lack of a proper process in place for reporting on bullying or abuse. Although Mike Rice yelled in apparent fury when coaching games, it was actually his conduct at practices that got him fired. As reported by Steve Eder in the New York Times, there were all kinds of warning signs that abuse was occurring and the administrators were already aware prior to video footage hitting the news:

There was the upperclassman who earlier in the year had come forward to say that he felt bullied. There was an outburst during a game that led to Mr. Rice’s ejection. And there were the months of allegations from a former assistant, who repeatedly claimed that Mr. Rice was abusive.

Tim Pernetti, the athletic director, knew all of that and had repeatedly tried to rein in Mr. Rice, according to a 50-page report that Rutgers commissioned outside lawyers to prepare. He personally reprimanded him, attended Mr. Rice’s practices and even assigned the university’s sports psychologist to work with the team, the report said.[2]

Note that the University commissioned a legal report, but they do not appear to consult Human Resources personnel in terms of the whistleblower’s vulnerable position nor do they consult experts in student health to assess the harm being done to student-athletes.

I acted as Whistleblower once at an independent school. Being Whistleblower is the adult version of not being a bystander and from my experience, I understand why students do not speak up. Just like it seems to do for bully victims, a reversal happened: I was treated as if I was a problem employee. The Headmaster exonerated the teachers about whom 14 students gave testimonies detailing bullying conduct and allowed a toxic environment to emerge around me so that I ultimately resigned.

There wasn’t just one student who came forward to say he was feeling bullied, there were 14. There was a Lawyer/ parent’s report informing the school that “child abuse” was occurring in 2011. There were at least thirty parent complaints in 2012 alone. There were many warning signs. It seems that at best, institutions like Rutgers and my former school lack the necessary processes for handling abuse situations; at worst, they have significant conflict of interest in themselves investigating student concerns. There is clearly work that needs to be done in terms of Human Resources, record keeping, anonymous reporting, proper oversight and so on if we truly do want students to not be bystanders.

In a 2013 article in The Atlantic psychologist, Dr. Joseph Burgo studies the power of reversal whereby the abuser positions himself as the victim and he uses cyclist Lance Armstrong’s conduct as an example. Witnesses who first spoke up about Armstrong’s performance enhancing drug-use were humiliated by the cyclist in the press: “To shore up his winner status, Armstrong wanted to make his detractors appear like contemptible losers; he tried to turn public opinion against them, enlisting the support of his many fans.” In Canada, disgraced Canadian musician, writer, and former CBC radio broadcaster, Jian Ghomeshi presented himself on Facebook as being the victim after being accused of sexual assault: “I’ve been fired from the CBC because of the risk of my private sex life being made public as a result of a campaign of false allegations pursued by a jilted ex girlfriend and a freelance writer.”[3] He has since been charged with multiple counts of sexual assault.

Notably, this dual personality type or charismatic bully appears to be especially attracted to competitive sports because of the win-lose dynamic. Dr. Burgo explains:

It helps to view the bully as a kind of competitor on the social playing field, one who strives not only to win but to triumph over the social losers and destroy their sense of self. As in competitive sport, where winners and losers exist in a binary relation to one another, the bully is yoked in identity to his victims. To a significant degree, his self-image depends upon having those losers to persecute: “I am a winner because you are a loser” [emphasis in the original].

The Headmaster and Board of Governors of my former School responded to students and parent reports of abusive behavior by the adult involved by publicly discrediting them in a report written by a lawyer that said the students were telling manufacturing evidence and lying.

This is why students do not speak up. This is why Whistleblowers are so rare. We can keep encouraging students to report bullying and more importantly abuse, but they won’t do it until they actually know that they will be respected and protected. At present, that is not the case. For further discussion, please see my forthcoming book: Teaching Bullies: Zero Tolerance on the Court or in the Classroom.

[1] Rod Mickleburgh, “Before Amanda Todd, the Sultani family suffered silently,” The Globe and Mail, October 23, 2012 http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/british-columbia/before-amanda-todd-the-sultani-family-suffered-silently/article4633468

[2] http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/07/sports/ncaabasketball/rutgers-officials-long-knew-of-coach-mike-rices-actions.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1&smid=tw-nytimes&partner=rss&emc=rss

[3] Staff, “Full Text: Jian Ghomeshi’s Facebook Post Why He Believes CBC Fired Him,” Global News, Oct 2014: http://globalnews.ca/news/1637310/full-text-jian-ghomeshis-post-on-why-he-believes-cbc-fired-him/

____

Jennifer Fraser has a PhD in Comparative Literature from the University of Toronto and is a published writer. She is presently teaching creative writing and International Bacclaureate literature classes at an independent school in British Columbia.

  • no reactions
0
Share
Matthew Lynch published in Matthew Lynch, Policy & Reform, Teachers

Has education failed at “no bullying” programs?

**The Edvocate is pleased to publish guest posts as way to fuel important conversations surrounding P-20 education in America. The opinions contained within guest posts are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official opinion of The Edvocate or Dr. Matthew Lynch.**

A guest column by Judith A. Yates

On September 5, 2015, a 14-year-old high school girl stood before bullies and drove a kitchen knife into her own heart to fall dead at her tormentor’s feet. The little girl’s name is Sherokee Harriman. Some of her peers and family members report Sherokee was, in part, hopeless due to the school district’s lack of protection from these bullies. The bullying has not stopped as people (her peers suspect students) are now destroying the memorial placed, where Sherokee fell, in a La Vergne, Tennessee Public Park.

“Even in death,” says one student, “they disrespect her.” Her mother demands an answer: “Why do they continue to try to hurt her?” Has the education system’s “No Bullying” programs failed these kids?

According to the Suicide Prevention & Resource Center, suicide is the third leading cause of death for young people ages 12–18. Other factors are contributed to suicide, yet “Bullying is associated with increases in suicide risk in young people who are victims of bullying (and) increases depression and other problems associated with suicide.” This encompasses both the bullies and the children being bullied. (SEE CITE 1, below, for source)

Friends, classmates, and students in other schools, who knew Sherokee Harriman personally or marginally, report there are in-house programs to report bullying at all their schools. They also explain why so many students do not trust the programs. “They (the administration) don’t do anything” when bullying is reported and “if you report, then you are (called) a snitch (by other students),” creating more problems for the victim, the students who want to report, and the program. “So, it’s not worth it” one student says blatantly. Sherokee’s parents call the “Zero Tolerance for Bullying” program in their child’s school district “a joke;” her mother assisted Sherokee in completing multiple “Bully Reports” in both junior high and high school, supporting her with long talks, and trying to follow up. The last time they completed a report, it never went through the system because Sherokee was in her grave.

These are opinions of a handful of students from classrooms across the U.S. and anguished parents, but one student in fear of the school hallways and one parent let down by the education system is too many. Despite all of the “No Bully Zone” and other similar programs, the system appears to be failing students who feel unsafe in the school … and students who are bullies. Why?

One of the suspected barriers in preventing the success of “Stop Bullying” school programs is lack of funding. In 2013, the United States public school system reported an outstanding debt of $415,238,582.00 (For some information on this report see below link labeled CITE 2). The funding to create and keep school programs may look impossible with a school system that scrambles to afford basic supplies while meeting all budget demands. “We have to pay for so much classroom supplies,” says one Nashville, Tennessee high school teacher. “How are they going to find money to keep a new program running?”

Another suspected barrier is what teachers can do versus what the system demands. In 2001, “Secretary of Education Arne Duncan … reported 82 percent of U.S. schools may be failing by 2013” explains researcher / author Ron Berler. “… On paper, idealistically, No Child Left Behind was a wonderful thought, but it wasn’t put out there with any practical thought … (education needs to) reduce and adjust the amount of standardized testing” (source see CITE 3 below). It appears learning now focuses on tests; the system seems more concerned with teaching to a standard rather than combining compassion, education, and social etiquette.

How does the education system create “Stop Bullying” programs that meet faculty, students, and parents’ goals for a safe school environment while fitting the budget, with a place in the overall curriculum? The effort cannot be deemed impossible or useless to try.

It is far too late for students like Sherokee Harriman and the kids who bullied her; who, somewhere, all became lost in the mix of programs, budget demands, and education system requirements. They slipped through those cracks to fall dead in the grass, to face potential criminal charges at the age of 14, and to trash a child’s memorial.

The Society for the Prevention of Suicide offers free information for educators. It includes education, books, training, and provides a free toolkit. Learn more here:
http://www.sptsusa.org/educators/

SOURCES;

http://www.sprc.org/sites/sprc.org/files/library/Suicide_Bullying_Issue_Brief.pdf

http://www2.census.gov/govs/school/13f33pub.pdf

http://www.usnews.com/opinion/articles/2013/04/11/why-excessive-standardized-testing-is-causing-american-schools-to-fail

____

Judith A. Yates is currently completing a PhD in Criminal Justice. She has taught at several schools, within the field of law enforcement; has worked as trainer, attended classes across the country, and has been a mentor in several programs. Her website can be found at judithayates.com.

  • no reactions
0
Share
Matthew Lynch published in Bullying

It shouldn’t take legal action for schools to act on bullying

Sally Varnham, University of Technology Sydney

A former pupil is suing her Victorian school for the psychiatric harm she allegedly suffered from bullying.

There is now a strong body of evidence that demonstrates the severe psychiatric and emotional damage bullying can cause, and the significant impact it can have on life’s expectations. And its harm is widespread – the sufferers, the bullies and society as a whole.

Investigations of school shootings such as Columbine speculate that they are acts of retaliation. Not infrequently there are reports of suicides of students who are bullied. Tolerance in schools can lead to bullying in workplaces, families and other areas of life.

We have come a long way to recognise bullying as intentional, often criminal behaviour, which would be treated as such outside the schoolyard. It should never be tolerated, especially now that we are aware of the harm it causes.

Does failure to take action render schools liable for harm?

The courts believe so. In 2003, following the successful action of former student Lisa Eskinazi against her Victorian school, incredulity turned to concern in the education community.

Doubt was further cast aside when the New South Wales Supreme Court and Court of Appeal decided that former students Benjamin Cox and Jazmine Oyston (2007 and 2013 respectively) were entitled to damages from their schools.

Firmly buried was the traditional notion that bullying should be endured as part and parcel of school years. More recently, though, technology has provided ample opportunity for a widespread, remote and more cowardly form of bullying – cyberbullying. This clouds the question as to the extent of a school’s responsibility.

It makes the position of schools more difficult, or alternatively perhaps (though yet to be tested), it affords them greater escape from liability.

So what is the basis of a school’s responsibility to deal effectively with wrongful actions by one student against another? In legal terms, liability relies on a breach of a duty of care causing the harm suffered.

Schools clearly owe a duty of care to students. A long line of precedents where students have suffered physical injury is testament to this. It becomes hazier when psychiatric and emotional harm is alleged many years later.

In simple terms it relies on a school’s lack of effective action in the face of knowledge, and on a causative link between that inaction and the harm suffered.

This is easy to determine in the case of playground accidents, but decidedly more difficult in cases of school bullying, particularly with a long period of time intervening. However, as demonstrated above, it’s not impossible.

The question of liability misses the point

A much wider and more pressing question is what may be done to erase this huge blot on the landscape of schools and society. Taking the problem seriously is the first step.

Most would agree that a school that has knowledge of bullying behaviour within its grounds or online but arising out of school relationships, and fails to take remedial action, is complicit.

But what to do? Most reactions, such as excluding of perpetrators from school, may be more damaging. There are many suggestions that any disengagement from schooling can lead to increasingly bad behaviour from bullying perpetrators.

Schools need to take action to protect the well-being of all students, not because they could be held liable.
from www.shutterstock.com

A short term fix with no long term gain

A quick flick through the websites of schools and state education departments reveals endless anti-bullying programs and policies. But are these helping the child now being excluded from games, being called names, receiving hate messages or having nasty material about them circulated on social media?

More importantly, are they leading to changes in school cultures? The biggest challenge is how to break the cycle from the very beginning – at family, preschool and school level. This is not an easy overnight fix. It requires all members of the community having equal responsibility for a peaceful, hostile-free learning environment.

On one level this includes a “bystander” responsibility and encouragement of “telling”. It also requires each member of the school community showing respect, responsibility and developing the communication skills for dealing with differences.

It requires assisting young people to put themselves in another’s shoes, to see the harm they have caused, to repair it and restore relationships. For many schools there is evidence of success but it is easy to say and hard to do, especially given meagre resources in many cases. A highly commendable initiative is Bullying. No Way and its mantra: Taking a Stand Together. There’s a long way to go but the journey must be taken.

Wrongs must be redressed and the threat of legal action in many instances may lead to galvanising action. It would be lamentable, however, if this was the main driver of action. The better view is that modern educators see bullying as serious anti-social behaviour which has a severe impact on all children’s right to education, and are working on creating school cultures where bullying cannot exist.

The Conversation

Sally Varnham, Professor of Law, University of Technology Sydney

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

  • no reactions
0
Share