We were just having a discussion of bullying at the breakfast table this morning -- with one present teacher, two former teachers, and two starting teaching this year.
The first question, of course, is to define bullying. I notice that the article never defines bullying. We may think we know what it is, but if you get right down to it, there is much disagreement. Under our school's brand new bullying policy, for example, namecalling is bullying, so that if one kid calls another fat, the first kid has bullied the second under our school's policy. We are really going to wipe out kids calling other kids names? And is child B calling child A a bully itself a case of bullying?
If the medical establishment wants to address the problem, they have to start with a clear medical definition, with symptoms that can be diagnosed so that it is possible to say with a high degree of certainty "this behavior is bullying, that behavior isn't." Of course, context matters a lot -- behavior that is bullying on the playground is not bullying on the football field, but some football field behavior could constitute bullying, couldn't it?
Our school has also eliminated, this year, all recesses because the administration thinks that's where much of the bullying takes place, and they can't afford enough staff to manage the playground. So 6 year old children will be shut in their classrooms for four hours at a stretch. Never mind that this violates virtually everything we know about brain friendly learning. Never mind that almost every developmental specialist understands that play is an important aspect of human development. Those things are less important than overreacting to the latest thing.
One of the breakfast participants who has never been a teacher and isn't planning to be one was concerned about the kind of citizens we're going to turn out if we try to insulate children from every even mildly bad thing that might happen to them. How will they learn to deal with adversity? How will they learn the give and take of living in the world? How will they compete, economiclly, socially, and militarily, against citizens from other countries who are being schooled in a harsher environment?
Certainly we need to address the consequences of serious bullying. But the best way may not be to try to sanitize every child's life so they never learn to deal with anybody who is ever less than totally nice to them. And maybe the best answer is not to work so hard on eliminating every vestige of bullying, but rather to work on helping children learn positive ways of responding to and dealing with bullies. |
