For my first review, I chose Alexander Russo's "This Week in Education", he apparently compiles and publishes various articles on education and the current environment in America's schools. His site had a number of choices but the one that struck me was a blog on Jezebel titled " Kids are Homophobic Jerks and Teachers Don't Know How to Stop Them". The main point here, being bullying in schools and how teachers and administrators need to do more to stop it. Bullying of every kind is toxic to the learning environment, the bullied student suffers in many' from loss of self esteem to thoughts of and, sadly, completion of suicide. This particular writing was centered the bullying of gay and other "non-conforming" students. The author, who experienced bullying in middle school felt that the school environment, the daily vibe of the school is largely the responsibility of teachers and administrators.It takes more than posters and platitudes, it takes constant focus and diligence to find the students who are doing the bullying. The administrator must have a variety of tools in his/her bag to deal with those students who are doing the bullying. One method suggested in the article, is to have the student(s) responsible for bullying work with students with disabilities as well students with poor or disadvantaged home lives. Often the bullying student is simply not aware of the challenges experienced by those they choose to bully. The hope here is to enable the bullying student to see life from the victim's point of view, see the other side as it were. Bullying often is the product of ignorance and fear. The non-conforming student spoken of earlier,is the perfect target, the bullying environment sees this person as someone who must be made to fall in line, wear approved clothing, listen to approved music and above all, be attracted to the approved sex. Any "deviation" from this norm will result in an immediate and escalating reaction by those designated by the bully. Generally the reaction begins with negative words, derisive comments and group laughs when the targeted person is within ear shot. Should this "intervention" by the bully society fail (and it often does)more robust measures are employed including threats, scrolled comments and graffiti,vandalism of lockers and personal items, followed by physical confrontation. The Facebook/social networking vector is often as or more powerful as any of the other bullying behavior, this includes physical intimidation and hitting. This is because social media based bullying is most often anonymous and the format is conducive to "piling-on" with several people hating on a chosen victim. Social networking can project bullying through time and space. Should the student move for instance,the original bulliers can find the student and continue to victimize even when he or she has moved to a different town or state.
I have personal experience with bullying and have been through it with my daughter. She fell afoul of a girl who had been her best friend. Something my daughter did ( got her nose pierced, read nonconforming behavior) made this little monster angry and she started a "hate book" on Facebook, what was interesting was that only a few girls responded to the call to hate. The other girls in the circle of friends called the hate book girl out and ganged up on her so vociferously that she had to take the hate book down. Further as the statements remained on the girl's page for three days, I was able to print it and pass it on to the principal. The hatergirl received a two day suspension. It never happened again. I believe my daughter is stronger if a little sadder for the experience.
I will continue to follow Jezebel for more articles about schools and education, I like this site as it is raw in a sense and definitely takes the side of the victims of bullying in all it's ugly forms.
I like this post and how it correlates with the use of the web to bully, however, it is also interesting that you can now follow the bullying because there is evidence, the Facebook "hate book". I too have gone through bullying, my older sister has learning disabilities along with having facial paralysis and she is also deaf, she was bullied a lot, and thank goodness she couldn't hear the awful things being said, I did. bullying doesn't just affect the person that is being bullied but it also affects those who are closest to them. I like the fact that instead of just punishing the bully or bullies, they should really be taught a lesson so they can understand how hurtful it really is and the social and emotional damages it can have on that individual now and later on in their life.
ReplyDeleteI also forgot to add that it is imperative to let the person who is being bullied that it wasn't their fault and that they are stronger for going through with it and that those who bully are insecure about something so they have to take it out on others. I constantly reminded my sister that and she actually listened! :) When someone says something hurtful to her, she will tell me "it's okay, they were mean, but they did it because they don't like themselves" (ASL is different than how you and I talk or write). I too have gone through bullying when I was younger and it really has made me a stronger person, and it is funny to me now because those individuals who used to bully me now try to be my friend but I do feel bad for them because of where they are at in life.
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