As stated in “Suicide rate increases in teens as an effect of bullying” (CT, April 28), columnist Brooke Leonard wrote that “if school officials will not take responsibility for the safety of their students, someone must.” This someone must
be you.
So, how do you fit in “the Bullying Circle?” Dr. Dan Olweus defines the role of each individual in this circle: students who bully, followers, supporters, passive supporters, disengaged onlookers, possible defenders and defenders. Data collected from many schools participating in the Olweus Bullying Prevention Program found that only 25 percent of fourth graders and 22 percent of fifth graders say they “often” or “almost always” stop bullying. Do you have the courage to tell someone to stop when you see or hear bullying? If you are like most elementary school students, then you don’t do anything either. For bullying to stop, we need a shift from watching to acting, from disengagement to engagement, from hurting to helping.
More laws will not solve this issue. Zero-tolerance policies have been shown to be ineffective, particularly among teens where negative consequences are not part of their decision-making processes. Punishment and reactive programs have shown to reduce the unacceptable behavior but not extinguish it.
Suicide caused by bullying has become so prevalent in recent years that the word “bullycide” has been coined. Suicide is not the only danger as health concerns, school violence and other disconcerting behaviors result as well. According to the “Final Report and Findings of the Safe School Initiative” by the Department of Education, of the 41 individuals in 37 school-based attacks occurring between 1974 and 2000, “most attackers felt bullied, persecuted, or injured prior to their attack (on others).” Those who bully often are more likely than peers to get into frequent fights, be injured in a fight, vandalize or steal property, drink alcohol, smoke, be truant from school, drop out of school and carry a
weapon (Nansel et al., 2003; Olweus, 1993).
Given the drastic effects that bullying has on individuals and had on institutions such as our campus on April 16, 2007, undergraduate and graduate students have spent the last year in the Center for Applied Behavior Systems of the
A version of this article appeared in the Apr 29 issue of the Collegiate Times.
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Shane, you desire a world that treats everyone like lost puppies. You see, your fantasy cannot and should not be a reality. This talk of bullying always neglects the important outcome from social pressure - feedback to the person to improve who they are. If a person cracks because they get picked on a little, they weren't stable to begin with, and their parents are to blame for shielding them from reality their whole life. Most people, however, react to being picked on in a pretty positive way - they learn where they fit in society and where they don't. They choose to adapt or they choose not to.
But when no one gets feedback from others on things they are doing wrong (wrong, as opposed to just different) we all fail, because this wrong continues. This is what can be seen in every one of our classes here at VT. Everyone is afraid to criticize others' work because they might offend them, or worse, break the magical "Principles Of Community". What a joke, this school is failing to prepare its students for this very reason.
Worse, you're justifying violence as a viable outlet for being bullied. This is an atrocity.
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Really? What about the numerous kids who are picked on, bullied, and assaulted simply for being nonheterosexual, mentally handicapped, a different ethnicity, disabled, or a foreigner? How do you propose that they "adapt"? Not everyone who is bullied is just guilty of doing something "wrong".
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And not everyone is bullied for those reasons. I think you need to discriminate between bullying and harassment.
My point is that the result of the "anti-bullying" mentality is also "anti-critical-thinking". Until these are more clearly addressed, this (and much of what Shane advocates) are just fantasy.
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Too bad the people who participate in these programs are not practicing what they preach.
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Uhhh, what exactly is the point of saying something like that?
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Did you even read the article? It talks about decreasing bullying in elementary schools?
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Hm, to be completely honest, I'm not sure how to react to this post. I could treat it one of two ways:
1. I suspect it to be pure trolling and simply trying to say something auspiciously wrong and illogically derived that it simply can't be anything more than to work someone up.
2. Treat it as if it as actually possible for someone to make this kind of conclusions and thereby attempt to enlighten on a situation which they seem to know so little about.
I'm going to go with the 2nd route and hope I'm not wasting my time...
First off, your justification of "bullying" I personally can't help but feel is a product of the way you were raised and the predatory american culture in which you have observed to be 'reality' and the best way. Americans simply treat things in a purely "what can you do for me" approach, whether it be their food (instant gratification) relationships, foreign policy, and jobs. No one hardly ever stops to think about the well-being of others, and as something so black and white wrong such as bullying I really couldnt' imagine someone to be defending but you have proved me wrong.
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See the most crucial part about empathy, is that it requires you to understand the world from another person's perspective, which in your case I may sadly have to admit you may never reach that ability to diffuse your own ego and unbias view a situation such as these without immediately impressed your own ridiculous dog-eat-dog world of social darwinism that apperently because you got your a kicked around a bit it made you a tougher and better person.
"Most people, however, react to being picked on in a pretty positive way".....awhaaaaaaat? Hm, i'd love to see your statistics on that one, I love it when people make such non-committal statements to prove a point that is ill-based in the first place. And i love how you used the word they "choose" to adapt or not, well it seems one individual whose name I won't mention didn't "choose" to "adapt" in the right fashion and caused a lot of grievance to this school.
SO! You're right Jeff! Let's have people just become the best they can through getting their teeth kicked in and treated like dirt while every once inawhile someone goes buck wild. Yeah, that's just how people choose to adapt, can't be helped right?
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Hm, just by reading your post I can tell a few things. One, you're probably white, two you're probably from a well-off family, and three you don't quite like people of different views. Voila! We have our run-of-the-mill conservakid who was spoonfed ideals from his parents and never really thought for themselves. Your views seem so staunchly lazy and not even worthwhile to indulge that I can't believe i'm spending such time to edify someone who will probably read all of this NOT with an open-mind but getting irked and trying to presume to themselves how to make some kind of talking point and attack on me to diffuse my argument. That's all our country's politics and debates have devolved into anyway, why not jump on the bandwagon eh?
"This school is failing to prepare its students for this very reason" hmm, not sure what school of hard knox you came from, but I'd love to see you spend the life in a day of a child with 0 friends, 0 financial security, abusive parents, and on top of all that bullying at school and see how you turn out to some kind of erudite better-than-before superman.
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I leave for a day, and you have a conversation with yourself, Brad? I hope you kept yourself company.
"One, you're probably white, two you're probably from a well-off family, and three you don't quite like people of different views. Voila! We have our run-of-the-mill conservakid who was spoonfed ideals from his parents and never really thought for themselves. "
Scroll down genius. You are 180 degrees wrong, and how you made a guess about race is beyond me. Just another arrogant racist, it seems.
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Gah, the more I think about it the more I'm astonished there are people out there who really think like you do, it really makes me lose a lot of faith in society and the human race in general. 0 humility, 0 empathy, the world revolves around them, AND you've made the presumption that you know what's going on here and you know what makes you happy.
Haha, so young, so foolish. Kids these days. Ironically, you don't even know it but you're just the kind of person this school loves to have as a student. Keep blindly listening to that which you hold dear my friend, I have no belief you'll ever change anytime soon, I just hope you don't guide anyone on the fence to such mindless mental masturbation. Heck you probably haven't even taken the time to read all this because you've moved on to look up the sports stats or fox news, some kind of easily digestible information that indulges you and makes you numb. Something you can understand.
And you say much of what Shane advocates is fantasy, haha, you're living in a fantasy boy and you don't even know it. Quite sad.
You fear change because you're the one who is benefiting most from the current system, you have no idea what's on the other side of the fence. Don't bring such mindless arguments to that table until you have some sort of evidence to back your mindless dribble.
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Keep up the great work Shane, resistance is natural, these people don't know what they want because they're too lazy to find out what's best. Keep altruism close to you heart and you will fall into the history books along with the ranks MLK, Ghandi and so forth hopefully. Your hard work is not unnoticed. Good luck.
"This is an atrocity" This is not an atrocity Jeff, you are.
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I desire a world where children can go to school and LEARN instead of getting mentally, physically and verbally harassed by the feral genetic by-products of people who failed as parents. Does that make a world of lost little puppies? What an absurd statement from an ill-informed person. Why is it OK to expect children -CHILDREN- to accept the kind of bad behavior that would get one fired in an adult workplace?
Thugs pick not on those who have "something wrong with them". They pick on others who don't conform to their idea of what is cool. They pick on others out of their own insecurity. They have learned that shaming and intimidating someone is acceptable behavior.
And who reacts positively to being picked on? Really? Either it's never happened to you, or you were the bully.
Kids go to school to learn. They deserve not to be terrorized.
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I was bullied for being fat as a kid. What did I do? I critically thought of a way to be not fat and suddenly I wasn't bullied anymore. We don't need a more caring society, we need less softies.
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Same here - I failed to mention that I, personally, made many positive changes to my life as a result of being picked on. Nothing I could do about the color of my skin, but the kids who picked on me for that were bullied themselves for doing so. Funny how that works.
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I wish you had failed to mention everything you said on this page.
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