Editorial
Front Page - Friday, December 17, 2010
County schools take proactive stance against bullying
David Laprad
School bullying today is meaner and more pervasive than it once was, and the consequences can be tragic. To nip the problem in the bud, the Hamilton County school system is training elementary and middle school teachers how to reduce existing bullying problems, prevent new bullying and improve peer relations among students.
- David Laprad
A 17-year-old New Hampshire teen is charged with criminal harassment for allegedly bullying another student to the point where she checked herself into a mental health facility.
Another New England girl, 15, commits suicide after reportedly being bullied. Parents in Murray County, Ga., sue their school district, claiming their children were victims of bullying. One of the boys, a high school student, had killed himself; another boy, a third grader, had suffered a broken arm.
Fed up with students on his daughter’s school bus reportedly teasing, hitting and throwing condoms at his 16-year-old daughter, who has cerebral palsy, a Florida father unleashes a raw and obscene outburst on the bus, threatening to kill the teens supposedly involved. Police charge the man with disorderly conduct and he spends four months in jail.
Compared to what bullied Baby Boomers had to endure, school bullying today is meaner, more pervasive and the consequences can be tragic, says Dr. Deborah Poteet-Johnson, a local pediatrician and former director of adolescent and young adult medicine at TC Thompson Children’s Hospital. She says a culture that glorifies violence is partly to blame.
“Kids today are exposed to more violence through the media than when I was young, and the violence is more intense. Studies have shown they become desensitized to violence when they’re exposed to a lot of it,” she says.
Johnson also says an increase in the number of broken families is a factor in the current bullying trend.
“It’s becoming a rarity for both parents to be in the same household, and it can be confusing for a child to have to continually adjust to new living situations. Sometimes, those kids will act out of anger or frustration.”
Although domestic violence, substance abuse at home and other environmental factors can also cause a child to engage in bullying behavior, some young people simply behave meanly toward others, Johnson says.
“Some kids derive a feeling of power from picking on someone weaker than them.”
Like most school districts across the nation, Hamilton County has had its share of bullying. Although none of the episodes have been extreme enough to warrant headlines, that’s not stopping school officials from being proactive and nipping the issue in the bud.
Through its STARS, or Stu-
dents Taking a Right Stand, pro-
gram, the school system is train-
ing elementary and middle
school teachers how to reduce
existing bullying problems, prevent new bullying and improve peer relations among students.
Karen Glenn, executive director of STARS, says bullying is nothing less than abuse.
“Bullying is intentional and cruel. It’s a repetitive, blatant disrespect for someone. And there’s usually an imbalance of power. It could be that one person is bigger, more popular or even richer than the other one. And the other person has a hard time defending him or herself,” she says.
To prepare teachers to intervene, a staff of six at STARS trains a core team of educators, who then return to their schools and pass on what they have learned to the rest of the staff. STARS utilizes the Olweus Bullying Prevention Program, developed by Norwegian re-searcher Don Olweus.
Part of the training teachers receive involves on-the-spot intervention. The first step is a no-brainer: a teacher should stop bullying behavior when he or she sees it taking place. The other steps are not as obvious.
“Teachers have a tendency to zoom in on the person doing the bullying. But the second thing you should do is support the person who was targeted. You should tell him he deserves to be treated respectfully, and you won’t tolerate someone mistreating him. You should also tell him he’s someone of worth,” Glenn says.
Validating the victim is important because students who are bullied tend to experience depression, low self-esteem, health problems, poor grades and even suicidal thoughts, according to the Olweus Web site (www.olweus.org).
“In the catastrophic situations, the students were depressed and felt as though no one cared,” Glenn says, referring to teens who have committed suicide after being bullied.
The Olweus Program also emphasizes the power of bystanders to prevent bullying.
“When we talk about bullying behaviors, we spend a lot of time discussing the person doing the bullying and the victim, but there’s a whole group of kids whose behaviors can encourage or diffuse the bullying.
“The Olweus Program helps these kids to understand bullying behavior is a social injustice and should not be applauded. It also encourages them to gravitate toward the target. It aims to reshape the norm and foster a positive environment,” Glenn says.
Glenn says it’s also important to rescue the student doing the bullying.
“Our research shows a child who engages in bullying behavior is more likely to end up with a conviction by the time he’s 24, so we can’t allow them to continue to push boundaries and break rules. If they break the rules of inappropriate behavior, they might break the rules of drugs and alcohol.”
While teaching a child to be
more sympathetic and less in-clined to pick on someone might not be easy, Johnson says it begins with getting to know him.
“He’s probably having trouble understanding something that’s going on in his life. Find out what’s motivating him, if he’s angry about something, and if he feels badly about himself.”
Johnson also recommends building the self-esteem of both the one doing the bullying and his or her victim.
“Everyone has strengths, so focus on those. Find out what the kids do well and praise them for those things. That will build their sense of worth and cause them to be less of a bully or a victim.”
Although STARS was implemented in 2009, Glenn says the program is already bearing fruit. In one school where the staff tracks incidents, the counselor told Glenn there had been only one bullying situation in which there was a third incident.
The healthy conversations teachers are having with students are directly reducing the amount of bullying that’s taking place at the school – which is precisely what will keep Hamilton County’s schools out of the headlines, keeping kids who engage in bullying behavior out of jail and keekping potential victims from making catastrophic decisions.
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