Thoughts On Bullying
One of the common points against home education is that kids are removed from the positive and negative aspects of schools. “But how will they learn to deal with bullies?” is a line too often repeated, often under the assumption that there are no bullies outside of the classroom environment for which children to learn from. This assumption is of course both false and absurd. For starters if the only place to learn how to adapt to bullies is in the school setting then perhaps learning to deal with them is not a useful thing to learn, one that is not really needed in the world. However we know that bullies can be found everywhere and that the chance to be bullied occurs far too often in everyone’s day. You don’t need to go to a special building to find it.
I recently read two articles on bullying. The first dealt with bullying in the schools, this wonderful experience that children not in schools are missing out on. Billy Wolfe, a 15 year old boy, was repeatedly bullied and tortured in school by his classmates. They physically hit him, emotionally tortured him, and humiliated him endlessly with no consequences. After all, kids just need to learn how to deal with bullies, right?
Not long after, a boy on the school bus pummeled Billy, but somehow Billy was the one suspended, despite his pleas that the bus’s security camera would prove his innocence. Days later, Ms. Wolfe recalls, the principal summoned her, presented a box of tissues, and played the bus video that clearly showed Billy was telling the truth.
Though this did not stop the bullying, or erase the torture that had already been inflicted upon Billy. And the lesson was already taught well to the other students who laughed as Billy was suspended and the bullies walked free with bragging rights. Suddenly I have an urge to reread Lord of The Flies.
Of course this type of bullying continues unchecked into adulthood. The second article I read dealt with the adult bullies we so often face in the workplace. The typical bullies, the “cool kids” of school who gain more power by holding down those that they see as lesser than grow into the bosses that torture their employees. Adult bullies learn to adapt their tactics into what will fit better into the adult world. They realize that many of the ways they can torture people as children themselves will not work as adults, so they change tactics. Yet it is still bullying just the same.
This month, researchers at the University of Manitoba reported that the emotional toll of workplace bullying is more severe than that of sexual harassment.
Some may read this and feel that it is a perfect reason to keep kids in school. After all if bullies are so prevalent in the workplace than surely kids need to learn how to deal with them in other controlled settings such as school. Many home schooling families would be quick to point out that bullying also occurs are the park, the play group, the club, and even in the home giving home schooling children many chances to learn how to handle bullies.
For my family we have a different idea. I don’t want to teach my sons how to deal with bullies. In schools students who are bullied have limited options. Too often adults look the other way, bullies continue with what they are doing. Years through middle and high school teach students two things. 1) The bullies will get away with it and rarely punished, 2) those bullied will be punished. Learning to deal with bullies often means sinking to their level and becoming a bully as well or learning to turn away and pretend it is not there. Those values exist into adulthood.
I don’t want to teach my sons to deal with bullies. I want to teach them that this behavior is unacceptable, that hurting others in any way does not make them “cool”, that they don’t have to fit into the crowd and that standing out does not have to be painful, and that they do not have to become the kind of adults that use words that hurt as much as fists. They can be better. If that means keeping them out of the bully-rich environment until they have a solid foundation built up and a strong enough personal base to stand up to those who use power-over, then good. They will be strong er for it in the long run.
For a good discussion on bullies both in schools and in the workplace read both the post The bullying epidemic and the comments that follow.
March 27th, 2008 at 7:52 am
Has it ever occurred to these nimrods that as an adult, one has legal options to defend oneself against bullies? As in “You hit me, I call cop” (it helps to use words of one syllable). It is illegal to harass one’s co-workers as well.
Pity that the most vulnerable in our society do not have legal protection against violence by their peers.
Female aggression is another thing, though. I recommend “Odd Girl Out” by Rachel Simmons to help deal with female bullying, which is subtle and seldom involves perceptible violence.
March 27th, 2008 at 8:39 am
I thought I would voice my opinion about the intellectually void argument I hear about homeschoolers and the socialization issue dealing with bullies. The nonsense, I mean argument I have heard from so called educated individuals is a child who is homeschooled will not be able to function in the “real world” because they have not been exposed to bullies. A child needs to get a bloody nose on the playground to relate in the world. I kid you not. Some “educated” professionals actually say this.
First, the reason I put “real world” in quotations is because the school atmosphere does not resemble the real world in any way shape or form. You do not only work or socialize with people who are within months of your age. You do not only do projects or have meetings with co-workers who are into the same activities as you or are of the same ethnic background. If you do, you need to find a new company to work for. The one you are with will not last long in the “real business world.”
Now onto the bully issue. I have a question for all you educated professionals. If someone in the office building in which you work comes up to you and pushes you into the wall, steals stuff off your desk, and later corners you in the bathroom, hits you and bloodies your nose and takes your money, what do you do? Surly, you would not call the police and file assault charges because that is NOT how they do things in a public school. No, of course not. First, your boss and the bully’s boss would question both of you and make sure they get the “whole story” and send you both back to your cubicles while they decide how to deal with the situation without involving the police. Later, you would be called into the boss’s office and told that you are to just avoid the bully and a reprimand was being put in your file because you were technically fighting. You would then be sent to human resources to discuss how you were really at fault for this and for a training class on how to control your anger and not to go anywhere alone.
Homeschoolers, like everyone else in the real world, would call the cops, file charges (turning the trip to the police station into a field trip), call the prosecutor on a continual basis to make sure he does not let this crime slide by (all the time finding out about the laws governing this), show up for the trial (turning it into an educational experience and impressing the judge with their behavior and knowledge of the law), and then haul the punk onto the People’s Court to sue for medical expenses (and impress the national viewing audience with their mature behavior and knowledge of the law).
Again, I ask, if you educated professionals are going to give me an excuse as why I should not homeschool, please, please, PLEASE do yourself and me the common courtesy of thinking the argument through before regurgitating to me.
March 28th, 2008 at 2:13 pm
Both the article and the comments so far are excellent. I’ll be passing this on. I’m homeschooling my kids and hoping that someday they will play a part in changing the way this world works!
March 29th, 2008 at 6:40 am
[…] Mom Is Teaching I ranted a little about bullies in school and out. At the bottom is a link to a great conversation about this at one of my favorite […]
March 29th, 2008 at 8:20 am
Summer, as you know, my daughter and her friend are being bullied on the playground by another girl in their class. Even though they have repeatedly told several teachers, the school has never come to me to discuss what has been going on. Talk about turning the other cheek.
My city school district had a case go to trial about a year ago in which a few white middle-school boys were assaulting a black girl on their bus. The driver did nothing, and it got so bad that she switched schools.
Bullying should not be seen as an inevitable part of growing up. We must teach our kids that bullying at any age and on any level is unacceptable.
March 29th, 2008 at 6:00 pm
I agree with you about teaching that the behavior is unacceptable. At the tender age of 4 years old, my son had to deal with one bully already at a McDonald’s PlayPlace. This child started punching him in the face and he just took it because he didn’t know what to do. It was the first time we’ve EVER had to deal with such a thing, and the child’s mother did nothing to stop him. I went over and told my son how to tell him no, that it was not okay to hit him. But I didn’t teach him to hit back. I believe there are ways to empower our children against this type of behavior without making them into bullies themselves.