Sunday, September 05, 1999
Bullies feed school violence
Victims reacting more aggressively, panelists report
BY CINDY KRANZ
The Cincinnati Enquirer
Kids are tired of being victims of bullies. When they're hurt, the hurt turns to anger. The anger turns to hate. Hate turns to rage. Rage to revenge.
“They're striking out at kids or groups whom they feel have rejected them, made them feel inadequate or different,” said Dr. Allan L. Beane, special education professor at Murray State University and a national authority on bullies in the classroom. “We're seeing enough of it now, we can't ignore it anymore.”
Already this year, the worst fears of Dr. Beane and other experts have been validated.
A few days after school started in Freeburg, Ill., a freshman killed himself because upperclassmen shut him in a locker and made him say derogatory remarks about himself.
In the last month, three major studies were released. They say bullying is rampant across the country. The most frequent targets are students who appear different — in race, body size or the clothing they wear. And bullies may be stoking adolescent anger that can erupt into violence.
A panel of 10 educators and parents assembled by The Cincinnati Enquirer said bullies are a significant concern this week as school resumes in earnest after Labor Day. They said every person involved with a child — educator, parent, peer and victim — should play a role in keeping aggressive behavior in check.
These local experts don't believe bullying has escalated locally. But they too have witnessed changes in how victims react.
“Their fuses are a little shorter,” said Darcy Hanley, principal of Kings Mills Elementary in Warren County. “They're ready to deal with things. Instead of walking away or being intimidated by somebody, I find them to be more aggressive. "I'm going to deal with this. I'm not going to let this happen to me.'”
The shock of one school shooting after another has reverberated through the nation's classrooms, but it was Columbine that sealed this notion: School violence can happen anywhere.
Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, the Columbine killers, were the victims of bullies. Their revenge in April was America's bloodiest school massacre and has prompted school officials locally and around the country to shore up security in their buildings and retrain staff on how to stop aggression.
Since most bullying happens when adults are not around, experts say teaching adolescents how to deal with bullies is vital.
• A 12-year-old Anderson Township boy was taunted by bullies at school who called him “fat” and took away his lunch, treats and soccer ball. He got assertive with his chief aggressor.
“My son chose to resolve this by confronting him, and telling him he did not like it when he did these things to him, and if it didn't stop, he would be forced to take other actions by telling the teacher or a parent. The kid said, "OK' and it stopped,” his mother said.
• A 14-year-old Green Township student was bullied for years by two neighborhood brothers and some kids at school, partly because he wasn't interested in sports. With a lot of support from his parents, the 14-year-old is happy and self-confident after learning to thrive by doing volunteer work.
“It doesn't do any good to solve his problems for him,” his mother said. “There are bullies in the adult world, too, and he has to learn to deal with it.”
• A 10-year-old Clifton girl was shunned by her best friend because she still plays dress-up and other activities the friend has outgrown. The girl's mother said she doesn't know how to stop her daughter's pain.
“Don't ask me how I've handled it. I haven't yet,” she said.
The Enquirer is not identifying the victims, who fear further embarrassment and retaliation from their tormentors.
Bullying behaviors manifest themselves in many ways. Among them: embarrassing people, breaking people's things, carrying weapons, hitting, kicking, making fun of people, making obscene gestures, pushing, ignoring, making people do things they don't want to do, forcing people to hand over money or possessions.
Dr. Beane, author of The Bully Free Classroom, defines bullying as overt, aggressive behavior that's intentional and persistent.
“There's some children who face peer rejection or victimization on a daily basis,” he said. “We've all been teased. It's important for children to learn how to deal with some teasing, but some children get too much of it. Nobody deserves this kind of treatment. It is a form of school violence.”
: Helping kids fit in
Five million elementary and middle school students face bullying. According to the National Association of School Psychologists, about one in seven school children is a bully or a victim.
Schools must create an environment where all students feel valued, panel members said. They must teach students to respect themselves and others. They must encourage students to treat others as they want to be treated.
“Believing they're valued in the social climate that they're in, in school, helps a lot in making them feel that "My behavior counts. My decisions count,'” said Ms. Hanley, the Kings Mills principal. “How I act with somebody else counts. Somebody cares about that.”
Not everyone can afford to shop at Abercrombie & Fitch. Not all children are born gorgeous. So what can be done to help kids fit in? Teachers have to set the stage, the panel said.
“As a teacher you have to go to that ugly duckling, and that's where you bring them up,” said Ken Welsh, a Walnut Hills music teacher. “A kid with great self-esteem doesn't quite need you as much.”
You don't ignore self-confident kids, but connecting with the loner or quiet student is worth the effort, he said. Help those students find a niche in school by getting them involved in an extracurricular activity.
“Every person needs a stage on which to shine,” agreed Jane Knudson, principal of Indian Hill Middle School.
The beginning of a school year can be difficult, especially for new students, Dr. Knudson said. Parents should encourage their children to welcome them.
“I think when parents and teachers take time to reinforce with kids how much it could mean to a new kid on the block when somebody even just smiles at them or says, "Come to lunch with me. I'll show you where the cafeteria is,' that can really make a difference in how a new student gets off to a good start.”
Reaching out to bullies
There is little sympathy for school shooters, but if we're ever going to solve this problem, Dr. Beane said, we need to ask ourselves, “What made them go there?” It's a lack of belonging in school and the complete rejection they feel.
Schools need to reach out to bullies, too, panelists agreed, not just discard or give up on them.
Debby Welsh of Indian Hill, a former preschool director, had a child's parents bully her, wanting a child expelled for being a bully.
“I kept trying to explain to them that, at 3 years of age, we don't want to throw this child away. It's our duty to work with this child and to teach the child different ways to respond.
“I know they were thinking of their own child, but their own child has to learn how to deal with a child who is verbally or physically abusive, even at that sweet tender age of 3.”
By coaching all the children during circle time, asking questions like, "What would you do if ... ,' even the meek or shy children learned to respond when the child began to act out, Ms. Welsh said. Little by little, the troublesome child learned better ways to get along with his peers.
David Payne, a social studies teacher at Porter Middle School in the West End, said teachers have to establish rapport with all students. Stroke the bully. Don't embarrass him. Take him aside and talk. Put him in time out to calm him.
“You have to be sensitive enough and know your students well enough to know some of the dynamics going on in their lives because there are some reasons.
“You have grade school students getting up and doing the hair of their sisters and brothers. They can't reach the stove but they're up on a little stool trying to fix breakfast in the morning. We give them all these adult roles and then we bring them school and say "You have to sit down and be this little angel.”'
Many children have never been taught to express or handle their feelings, said Elizabeth Sabo, owner of Designing Success, a company that provides self-esteem programs to schools, businesses and correctional facilities. She helped conduct an anger management class for eight troubled students last fall at Hughes Center.
“What came out is they didn't have anybody to talk to about things that were bottled up inside. ... They just needed some place to talk where nobody would criticize them or condemn them.”
Brenda Parrish Miller, who teaches an eighth-grade self-contained classroom at Bloom Middle School in West End, tries to be a listener. When you learn what's on young people's minds, she said, there's much you can do to help them.
“I always try to tell them that I value them. I think they're important. I love them. ... Sometimes we don't value our kids. The worst kid has good in him. You've got to find it.”
Role of adults
Parents and teachers can take steps to deter bullying and build self-esteem, panelists said.
“When young people are cruel to other children, that needs to be met with adult disapproval in a timely and an appropriate fashion,” Dr. Knudson said. “When students display appropriate behavior, that needs to be reinforced and valued.
“When young people display a sense of empathy for other people and other classmates that really needs to be acknowledged. How you reward that and reinforce that is have a significant adult in the young person's life say, "What you did was really a wonderful thing.'”
It also helps to teach children a bully's motives. The motives often are power and control. Some are bullied at home, so they're determined not to be victimized at school. Some have poor self-esteem and pick on others to uplift themselves.
Dan Zadra of Poulsbo, Wash. is CEO of Compendium Publishing Company, an Edmonds, Wash.-maker of inspirational products and self-esteem builders. His two children have been bullied at school.
“I said to them at a very young age, "There are people, adults and children, who, in order to feel better about themselves, will tear other people down in order to build themselves up.' It's not a perfect tool. It's helped them when they're being confronted or bullied.”
Bullying and short fuses are a reflection of what's going on inside our homes, Dr. Beane said. Parents need to spend more time teaching their children values and how to treat others.
At a recent workshop with 150 preschool teachers in Louisville, Dr. Beane heard from them that a dominant behavior among their 3- and 4-year-old students is social rejection or shunning of other kids.
“Somewhere, we teach kids what's beautiful, what's ugly, what's normal and what's abnormal in terms of appearances,” he said. “We couldn't have a beauty contest if there weren't some kind of criteria. We don't teach kids what's beautiful on the inside.”
What schools can do
Tristate schools use a number of tools to combat bullying.
• Milford School District subscribes to a Safe School Hotline service for its middle, junior and senior high schools. Students and parents call to report any wrongdoing, such as bullying, violence, sexual harassment, and drug and alcohol use.
A third party takes their complaint and keeps their anonymity. The hot line notifies the school and reports back to the complainant on what action was taken.
“I think you're going to see more and more schools going to this, just for security purposes,” says Darrell Edwards, Milford Junior High principal. “This provides a safe avenue for kids. They feel they can talk to somebody in the privacy of their own home. A lot of times kids who are being bullied don't want to talk about that.”
Last year, the first year the hot line was used, 22 calls were directed to the junior high. Of those, seven complained of bullying. The complaints, Mr. Edwards said, are investigated in such a way that the alleged bully isn't tipped off that someone turned him in.
“We have to tell kids we're not going to tolerate harassment of any form,” he said. “If you can't stop that behavior you're not going to be part of our student body for awhile until you learn how not to do that.”
• Indian Hill Middle School has had success with its peer mediation program. Teachers identify and invite certain students to train as peer mediators. Thirty-plus students give up two days of their summer vacation to learn conflict resolution skills. During the school year, students can go to peer mediation to resolve interpersonal problems.
“The process has been helpful because even very sophisticated young people, whose verbal skills are very high and who are very bright, sometimes don't know how to tell someone in an appropriate way to stop doing what they're doing if they don't like it and why,” Ms. Knudson said.
• Summit Elementary School in Anderson Township has seen significant decreases in bullying and other discipline problems since it adopted a Responsive Classroom approach five years ago. Among the components of the program is teaching respect for others.
When children are bullied, the first thing they want to do is lash out physically, said Ms. Welsh, the former preschool director.
“We tell them, "Use your words. How did that feel when he called you a cry baby?' "I felt sad.' And so the bully hears it and the child who was picked on hears it. ... When the bully realizes somebody was made to feel bad by what the child did, sometimes that makes an impression on him and helps him to change.”
Sometimes, you just have to draw the line in the sand, said Ms. Hanley of Kings Mills Elementary.
“You have to finally say to the parent and to the child, "This is not tolerated or accepted in this school. Whether you believe it's the right way you want to act, that's your decision and your choice, and I'm not here to make an opinion about that. These are the expectations in this building and how we treat each other.'”
Bullies feed school violence
Parents teach ways to deflect tormentors
Tips for parents, students
Educators, parents speak out
Fireworks define four generations of Rozzis
Riverfest crowd guess pure fantasy
Can we feather our nests with Beanie Babies?
Heimlich quits charter school board
Inside the house that Mike built
Voters scarce in local races
Wasps feeling feisty, not festive
Welfare to work: Success in human terms
Broadway supporters reduce debt
Bully sheriff has met his match
Cincinnati's stage struck
Critic's choices, week by week
Lavish 'Ragtime' portrait of an era
Cast of players on theater scene
Democrats eye state Senate seat
Old-fashioned challenge to road checkpoints on target
Belated memorial at Kent State
Rhodes still troubled by youths' protests
Family might be movin' out for a piece of quiet
'Sabrina' star moves her career every witch way
Broadcasters group honors WEBN as 'station of year'
Dating doc 'Soup' server
GET TO IT
Radtke's 'Dream' catches eyes at fest
Telluride films focus on life, human content
Apartment building fire leaves families homeless
Bank to accept tax payments
Court to decide term limits
Disabled workers part of report
Drivers might be caught on camera
Florence Y'all fest distills fun
Golf tourney will aid organ-donation efforts
Justice center won't displace businesses
Magistrate follows up on domestic violence
Miami offers outdoor pursuits
Monroe CityFest offers crafts, food, fun
Old Timers Day draws Rabbit Hash revelers
Photographer of Reds dies
Republicans salivating over council possibilities
Soccer league asks parents to zip their lips
TRISTATE DIGEST
