Where the Hell Have I Been?

If there is anyone who has been reading my posts, I apologize for the long delay between postings. The truth is that I'm trying to get syndicated. I've been turned down by three syndicates so far, but I did get some encouraging words from the Tribune Syndicate people. Since no one is picking these columns up except the Kenosha News, I guess I'll keep putting them out here for anyone to see.

Bullying--Part Two

When Jill Boyd started as Dean of Students at Bullen Middle School in the 1990's, she was appalled at some of the student behaviors she witnessed. Coming from a social service, not an educational background, Boyd remembers, "What I saw was illegal: sexual slurs and touching and grabbing that often escalated into sexual assault." "But," Boyd admits, there were no set, clear-cut policies in the district in the 90's, and the few guidelines we had were unfamiliar to most people."
Boyd set out to discover if an effective, available bullying program existed. "There are a lot of sites out there that offer only someone's opinion, nothing that is research-based. The people who promote these sites are just out for a fast buck." Finally, Boyd found the Olweus (ol-VAY-us) Program which originated in Norway and is distributed in this country through Clemson University. The situation at Bullen was not improving. "Every time I turned around," Boyd recalls, "someone was complaining that most of their time was spent dealing with a bullying issue."
Ultimately, Boyd took the Olweus plan to then-principal Bill Haithcock. Haithcock soon realized that despite what would be an enormous amount of work and staff commitment, the program was exactly what Bullen needed.
The program started with the training of a core cadre of staff members who, in turn, trained the rest of the staff. It is also the task of the core group to keep the bullying program in the forefront, to keep it fresh, a task that is not easy. "Our bullying incidents went down 46% in the first two years of the program," says Boyd. "But then they increased a little because people got complacent." Now in its seventh year of utilizing the Olweus Program, Bullen has been so successful that the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development has produced a DVD about it. Titled "One School's Bullying Prevention Program," the DVD and its accompanying viewer's guide provide a compelling look into Bullen's anti-bullying culture and the roles of teachers, other staff members, students, bus drivers and parents in maintaining that culture.
In that video you can see two eighth grade "Transition Coaches," Tiffany and Katie, talk to a new group of sixth graders and answer their questions about bullying. The sixth graders open up much more readily to fellow students than they would to an adult.
Teacher Jeff Winden puts a dinner plate in a towel and asks his Advisory students to use hurtful language and hit the towel with a hammer. At first, the students treat the activity lightly, but as the insults and the hammer blows pile up, they become more serious. Teacher Jennifer Barbian then points out that while the towel looks pretty much the same, the plate inside is shattered beyond repair. The students then discuss the symbolism of the towel and plate.
Band Director John Nepper leads his Advisory students through a problem-solving exercise, "Magic Shoes," in which one student must help the others across a lake of acid. Afterwards, the metaphor of the exercise is translated into everyday life.
The most significant component of the Olweus Program is its process for changing the behaviors of bullies. For example, any student accused of bullying is required to fill out a "Think-About-It-Form." The first question on the form is "What did you do?" The student must be specific and start the answer with "I." Subsequent questions ask the student what was wrong with the behavior, why the behavior occurred, and how the student should behave in future similar situations. Boyd insists, "Kids are honest on paper, and the activity encourages the art of writing. Kids see it as non-threatening; the pencil just sort of takes over."
Is there still bullying at Bullen? Yes. Is every staff member 100% on board? Not yet. Still, over the last seven years, the Olweus Program has provided the school with extraordinary success by any standard.
Haithcock is now the principal of Harborside Academy. Jill Boyd now serves as a guidance counselor at Bullen. The good work that they and the staff, students, and parents of Bullen Middle School started serves as a model to any school which decides to take on the persistent and pervasive problem of bullying.

Bullying--Part One

They're supposed to be places where you want to go, places where you can learn and grow. They're supposed to be safe places, free from harassment and humiliation. That's what schools are supposed to be. For the victims of persistent bullying, however, locker rooms, deserted hallways, even the bus they ride on can be places of torment.
Growing up fat taught me all about the realities of bullying. Fatty, fat boy, porky, pork chop, two-ton: these were names I heard every day. Back then, kids had two choices: stand up for yourself (fight) or ignore the taunts. I hated fighting. I fought back a couple of times, to no avail, and the names may not have broken any bones, but they did take their toll.
Bullying has persisted in our schools because for years parents and teachers did not know how to properly deal with bullies and their victims. Yes, bullies often earned detention or suspension, but those actions did nothing to stem their behavior. Victims were told to "rise above" insults. Often, complaining about a bully was viewed as tattling or snitching. Until the 1990's, bullying pretty much got swept under the carpet. Then, kids started killing other kids and their teachers and their principals. In what were monstrous acts of revenge, young men retaliated for years of being bullied by killing those they saw as their oppressors.
Studies show that bullying incidents rise sharply in late elementary school and , especially, middle school. Bill Haithcock and Jill Boyd, two local educators, have been at the heart of a very successful anti-bullying program at Bullen Middle School. "Bullying is an imbalance of power," says Haithcock, "a stronger person taking advantage of a weaker person." "And," Boyd notes, "bullying affects everything else that is going on in a school."
Both are adamant about dispelling some of the myths about bullying. "Bullying is not fighting," insists Haithcock. "Often kids who like to fight will defend victims of bullying." Boyd agrees. A short child, Boyd was occasionally the victim of physical bullying. "I got shoved into lockers because I fit." Boyd's father had been a street fighter in his youth , and he taught her how to defend herself. She admits that some of the things she did would get her expelled in today's schools, but she often came to the defense of other kids who were being bullied. "I had no business stepping in when I did," Boyd admits. "Sometimes I got pulverized, but I saw bullies picking on cognitively disabled kids and I was a scrapper."
Both Boyd and Haithcock readily admit that fighting back is not the answer. Violence should never be the proper response in or out of school. But victims of bullying have had it tough. Bullies use intimidation to keep their targets from reporting to a responsible adult. "Bullies thrive on quiet victims," says Haithcock. "They need authority figures out of the picture. There's a big difference between standing up for yourself and tattling." Boyd agrees: "Tattling is trying to get someone in trouble."
The roots of bullying behavior are varied and complex. Sometime a bully comes from a home in which one or both parents are highly authoritarian. Such kids feel "helpless" at home according to Haithcock. Conversely, some bullies come from homes in which neither parent takes much of an interest in them. This is what was once called "passive abuse," but Boyd has a tougher word: neglect.
Like many people, I thought that all bullies were secretly insecure, that they intimidated others as a way to counter their poor self-esteem. That is true for some, but Haithcock insists, "Many bullies have high self-esteem and feel powerful." They are often considered "good" students by teachers and parents.
Boyd and Haithcock insist that bullies need more than just punishment. "The bullies are our students as well. We care for them too," says Haithcock. Boyd notes that statistically, bullies whose behaviors go unchecked have 3-4 criminal convictions by the age of twenty-four.
Boyd sums up: "We must deal with the prejudices that are out there, or kids will get chipped at. If they're chipped at, they're not going to learn. If they're not going to learn, what's our education system going to be?"
Next time: Turning a school around.

Playing the Victim Card

In my last column, I took exception to the belief that people who do bad things are really "good" inside. This was in reference to the beating and sexual violation of a girl in Lincoln Park. Of all the statements made by both sides of this tragedy, the one which disturbed me the most was made by the mother of the alleged ringleader of the attack. She insisted that her daughter was a victim, too.
A victim of what or whom? Certainly the schools are not responsible for creating a violent young woman who has two children at the age of seventeen. I don't think that peer pressure forced this girl to make all of her bad decisions. Who's left to take the responsibility?
The "victim card" is played so often in our society that it is losing its validity. It is commonplace for perpetrators to shirk responsibility for what they have done and point the finger elsewhere. I fail to see why any young person who has the opportunity to learn and better herself is a victim of anything except her own upbringing.
Bruno Bettelheim was a Jewish prisoner in a Nazi concentration camp. Like many prisoners, his hands developed frostbite and gangrene in the bitter winter weather. Knowing that he needed the use of his hands to keep working (and stay alive), he visited the camp infirmary even though it was almost impossible for a Jew to get treatment. When the screeching SS officer challenged Bettelheim's right to medical help, Bettelheim replied calmly, without begging or arrogance, that he needed the removal of the dead skin on his hands so that he could work as ordered. The SS officer grabbed Bettelheim's hands and began to tear off the dead flesh. Bettelheim made no protest. The SS officer stopped and ordered Bettelheim into the clinic and watched him for signs of weakness or pain as the festering flesh was cut off. Bettelheim remained calm. The result was that the SS officer gave Bettelheim a card which gave him immediate admittance into the clinic thereafter,
Bettelheim explains: "Because my behavior did not correspond to what he expected of Jewish prisoners on the basis of his projection, he could not...activate the anxieties that went with his stereotype." In other words, if Bettelheim did not act like a victim, he would not be treated as one.
Brent Staples, in his essay "Black Men And Public Space," wrote of how his presence would disturb white people he would encounter on the sidewalk at night when he was a student at the University of Chicago. Used to being "scarcely noticeable" in the tough Pennsylvania industrial town of his youth, Staples realized that as a "youngish black man--a broad six feet two inches with a beard and billowing hair," he triggered strangers' fears because of their stereotypical beliefs regarding young black men.
Later, as a journalist, Staples was often the target of prejudicial thinking, once being mistaken for a burglar at the very paper for which he was writing. Staples admits that often he had to "smother the rage (he) felt so often at being taken for a criminal." To his credit, he did smother that rage and instead chose to quietly prove to people that their preconceived notions about him were wrong.
I do not mean to minimize the effects of prejudice in our society. I have been guilty of it myself. Once, on the first day of classes, I watched in silent dismay as a burly young man, dog collar around his neck, six-inch-tall spikes of hair on an otherwise shaved head, and, what seemed to me, an angry scowl on his face, walked into my room. Without ever having seen this boy before, I prepared myself for the worst. That young man was one of the most thoughtful, considerate and decent students it has been my privilege to teach.
There are two lessons to be learned in all of this: (1) People of all kinds are still often the victims of one prejudice or another. (2) The best way for victims to combat prejudice is not to act out in violence and anger. The best way is to follow the examples of Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr. Refuse to be a victim. Choose to be a leader.

What People see Is What You Are

As many of you have, I have been following the story of the 17-year-old girl who was viciously attacked by her "friends" in Lincoln Park. The father of one of the attackers was quoted as saying that his daughter needs a chance to "show society that she's a good kid."
I was reminded of an essay by the renowned psychoanalyst Willard Gaylin titled "What You See Is The Real You." Gaylin contends that the "tendency to think of the 'inner man' as the real man and the outer man as an illusion" is patently false. Gaylin asks his readers to imagine a "ninety-year-old man on his deathbed...joyous and relieved over the success of his deception. For ninety years he has shielded his evil nature." "Suppressing all the malice he knew was within him," the man "calculatedly and artificially substituted grace and charity." Does that sound tough to accept? It's no more difficult than believing that someone who snatches purses for a living is really "a good boy."
Like it or not, you are what the world perceives you to be. Your public persona is the one with which society must deal, regardless of what you delude yourself into believing you really are. Similarly, some parents ignore their child's bad behavior, clinging to the notion that there's a better person residing within the child who has not had the opportunity to emerge. Thus, many teachers who have caught their students cheating or misbehaving in other ways are stonewalled by parents who adamantly insist that such acts could not have been perpetrated by their child even when confronted by overwhelming evidence of the child's guilt.
If a teacher must continuously put a class on "hold" to deal with a disruptive student, that teacher will find it difficult to believe that the student's intentions are not bad. Youngsters who act upon their most negative impulses, unchecked, often grow up to be like the two men who attacked and broke the arm of a local theater patron because he asked them to get off a cell phone and be quiet during a movie. Does anyone believe that those two thugs are really good boys?
I suspect that underlying a lot of parental denial is suppressed guilt. Logically, if parents do not foster bad behavior by committing it themselves, they certainly encourage it through their lack of diligence and discipline. And, it starts at an early age. Is there anything more frustrating than hearing an indulgent parent threaten punishment over and over again without following through? Kids are smart. They quickly learn that the threat of consequences which are never fulfilled carries little weight.
In parent conferences I would have mixed feelings when a distraught parent would complain, "I just don't know what to do with him (or her) anymore." Part of me empathized with their frustration. Having raised two boys through their teen years, I know how much work--yes, work-- kids can be. Like any other serious responsibility, parenting is labor-intensive much of the time. Anyone who is not willing to accept that should never have children.
The other part of me wanted to say, "Whatever needs to be done, you should have been doing it sixteen years ago." Parents cannot divorce themselves from the actions of their children by implying that they are stymied regarding what to do. You don't get to abandon your parental responsibilities just because the situation has become more than you want to handle.
The good news is that parents are not alone in their struggles. Schools are more than willing to work with parents to turn their kids around. Parents working with instructors, counselors, and, when warranted, school psychologists, can get most kids back on the right track. A "united front" is the key. If a child realizes that all of the significant adults in his or her life are in accord, it becomes impossible to play one side off the other.
If more parents would regard the schools as allies rather than opponents, all the parties concerned could be happier and more productive.