Afraid to Go to School: Bullies, part 1

A post or two ago, I made a statement that my high school may have been free of bullying because it was an all-girl school. I was wrong. Flat out. One of my readers pointed this out to me and I thank him because it led me back to consider my own experiences.  I was a school social worker with a Master's Degree who, over the years, worked in more than 15 schools, kindergarten through high school. I was also a student in one school where I experienced bullying and one where I did not. It led me to challenge what I experienced with research about bullying and anti-bullying efforts that are in place in some schools in the US. 

I want to do a post about what I believe to be true about bullying and how we can work to stop it. If it gets too long, I will split it up. I am doing this because I am reminded often how bullying can ruin a child's educational experience and, in fact, a significant part of childhood. For much of the last century, it was thought that not much could be done about bullying. It was poorly understood and measures taken against bullies were ineffective and, sometimes, counter-productive. Kids who "told" on a bully were bullied even more and considered snitches by classmates. Kids who didn't tell suffered silently or avoided school. Some kids dropped out, considered or committed suicide. Often nothing effective was done. Often that is still the case.

Bullying is a phenomenon of power differential, physical aggression and verbal humiliation. In a school system, the culture which encourages or discourages bullying starts with the adults; with those in power. Schools can have a culture of bullying that may start in the administrative offices or the principal's or headmaster's office or in the faculty lounge. If you look at how the adults in a school treat each other, if you look at what they feel is acceptable behavior, you will get a good idea how much bullying goes on by the students. There can be all sorts of reactions to a given incident, such as a teacher losing her lesson plans, and different cultures might define "kind" or "unkind" behavior differently. The more the adult culture values kind interpersonal behavior, the more likely it is that the kid culture can be led in that direction.

It's really not very hard; nasty mean-spirited adults aren't going to work too hard to prevent bullying. They might even enjoy it. I remember being in 7th grade art class when a kid knocked over a paint tray, wrecking his picture. Two of the girls at my table laughed at him; to my dismay the teacher was laughing with them. I didn't know what to do, so I didn't do anything. I've seen a fair amount of that as an adult working in schools and it is pretty typical. The bully laughs, the adult ignores the child's distress, and the onlookers just stand there.

A lot has been said about the self-esteem of bullies; self-esteem is a vague word and I'm going to try not to use it too much. But many bullies (not all) have relatively high (if not healthy) self-esteem. They think the world of themselves and have contempt for others. Often they are popular, well-off, physically attractive, and gifted in one way or another. They are often members of high status groups in the school. When they want to be, they can be charming as all get out. It depends on who they are dealing with and what they want.

Bullies can charm some teachers in the school setting. These teachers are the ones who say things like "He's not such a bad kid; I rather like him." Or, "She's just a kid with a quirky sense of humor. People take her too seriously." Sometimes one teacher will take a bully under his/her wing. Sometimes she feels she can reach the child where nobody else can and it might be a feather in her cap. If she (or he) is able to form a relationship with the child that causes the kid to change his behavior it is a laudable thing. More often, if the teacher is naive or unaware, she (or he) will be played by the savvy bully, and the victimizing behavior is reinforced. Think of the star athlete protected by the football coach.

Other adults feel helpless and bullied themselves, particularly smaller adults in secondary schools. If the adults feel helpless in the face of the bully, they will be unable to effectively intervene. As complaints against the bully mount, the victims start to be perceived as weak and whiney, as "setting themselves up" for being picked on. That is when bullied kids start to hear the following unhelpful pieces of advice: "Ignore them and they'll stop." "Learn how to stick up for yourself." "They're just trying to get under your skin." "He's teasing you because he likes you."

The facts are that they won't stop if you ignore them, they will try harder. It's good for kids to stick up for themselves, but they need help finding strategies. Bullies are damned good at getting under people's skins. They tease because they enjoy seeing distress.

Schools can find themselves in a situation in which neither the adults nor the children have effective ways of stopping the bullying. In the face of this helplessness, bullying was an ignored phenomenon for a long time, in the US and other countries. Being teased or picked on, or even beaten up, was seen as a normal part of childhood, something that people needed to just deal with. Suck it up. Stiff upper lip. It gets better.

I feel like I have written enough for one session. It really does get better though, because we have learned some real strategies that really do change things. I have seen them and they are documented to have worked.