Perspectives on Bullying

Bullying Prevention Perspectives

One of the great joys of serving as the Program Director for EDTrainingCenter is the opportunity to communicate directly with educators.  Whether it is the conversations that come up with those in class or the responses to our surveys, your first-hand perspectives are always pushing us to do more, be better, and speak to the realities you face in the modern classroom.

Today I would like to bring up some perspectives on bullying that we felt were best shared with the entire educational community.  These were raised in conversations with our learners…you!

1.) Assuring the Victim that He/She did nothing wrong…

It is common for our learners to express that when they intervene to handle bullying behaviors, they assure the victim that he/she did nothing wrong.  And that’s because as an educator, you’re a compassionate person with a natural inclination to be comforting and supportive.  Believe me, if I were hiring educators, I’d want the kind of people that have a natural desire to protect children and be kind to them!

Buuuuuuuuuuuuuut.  Bullying is an interesting “form” of aggressive behavior.  It’s often portrayed very simply as just bully (aggressor) and victim (submittor), but things are not always this simple.  When you dig into the personal accounts of bullying incidents taking place at your schools, you’ll often find a pattern of retaliation and escalation.

Often, some initial incident or argument can trigger a cascade of bullying.  The bully attacks the victim, the victim strikes back.  Friends join the bully, friends MAY join the victim.  (And this is how a weekend dust-up turns into a schoolyard brawl on Monday.)  Incidents get worse and worse until they come to the attention of educators.  At this point, the school steps in and has to sort out what happened.  Unfortunately, this can be complicated.  There will be plenty of times when both parties feel wronged for one reason or another.  The child you were certain was the bully may claim that the victim started a vicious rumor about him/her first.  Now what?

Assuring the victim that he/she has done nothing wrong without being certain of this can be kind of like calling a foul in a game and missing the fact that the “victim” had just fouled the “bully” seconds prior.  If you aren’t certain yet whose done what, its best to be open-minded and reassure BOTH children that you’ll treat the situation fairly.  You can then reinforce the expectations of behavior with both the students and their peers.  The good news in this case is that formerly covert activities have now been brought to light, protecting both students.

The Problem of Shame

2.) What if He/She Did Do ________?  The Problem of Shame.

In keeping with the theme of point 1, we’d also like to address the problem of shame.  A typical narrative in rumor-related bullying is that the victim didn’t really do the things of which he/she is accused by the bullies.  This adds to the sense of unfairness when, for example, girls are labelled as promiscuous.  But keep in mind that there are ALL kinds of rumors that can be used by bullies.  In addition to calling a girl promiscuous, calling any peer a liar, cheater, thief, thug, drug user, or a homosexual can incite peers to “pile on.”   Rumors like these are very easily fueled by rapid means of communication like text messaging and when a victim is demonized as being a bad person somehow, peers may feel justified in adding to the mistreatment of the victim.

What is worse is when the victim actually DID do the thing of which he/she is accused.  This DOES happen.  In fact, some bullies (this is often girls) will “bait” a victim into trusting them with secrets as if they are friends, and then spreading those secrets to others for bullying purposes.  Or sometimes people in the school observed or have evidence that a student did something.  A female student may have lost her virginity at a party.  A male student may have kissed another male student behind the fieldhouse.  Someone may have shoplifted, or told a whopping lie, or used drugs…which creates another problem to compound the original issue: shame.

When the victim feels ashamed of what he/she did, they are less likely to report the bullying, less likely to fight back, and may ultimately be less resilient.  These are cases in which educators should be particularly concerned about the victim’s state of mind.  Students who are depressed, withdrawn, self-deprecating, or self-harming may be at risk for suicide.  When handling a case of bullying in which the victim actually has done something about which he/she feels shame, it’s essential that a counselor be involved.   Work will need to be done to help the student and his/her peers to “rewrite” the narrative about this student who may have simply made a mistake…like lots of young people do.

Just some thoughts from the VAULT…the Educator’s Vault, that is!  Keep Learning and Teaching!

Rachel Fisher, Program Director

[tags] Bullying, Perspectives, Shame, educators [/tags]