A Patriot's Page: Forum for Political and Social Moderates
Stop the Bullying--You can get help. You can help.
The poet Shelley was teased and taunted as a boy; they called him "Mad Shelley;" he stood up against the established system of hazing young students,and he was pinched, his clothes were torn, he was hit with mudballs and his textbook was thrown into the mud. In "Look Homeward Angel," Thomas Wolfe describes the suffering he endured because of his height and ill-fitting clothes. Such childhood harassment produces emotional damage that lasts a lifetime.
These were idyllic moments compared to the bullying of schoolchildren today, which often includes kicks, punches, theft, death threats and even rape as both girls and boys are targets of abuse. Occaisionally children have died later from injuries sustained at school, and many youngsters have committed suicide because they saw no other way out of being the target of a bully. The National Association of School Psychologists reports that MORE THAN 160,000 CHILDREN SKIP SCHOOL EACH DAY BECAUSE OF BULLYING.
Individuals, community service groups and governments around the world are now struggling to offer assistance and solutions to the problem, and to enact legislation that will enable victims of bullying and their parents to get help.
Some programs plan to remove the repeat bully from the school where the aggression took place and transfer the child to another school.
Salon.com's Fiona Morgan quotes Rand Corporation's Jaana Juvonen, a social scientist who's studied school violence for years: "all kids can benefit from conflict resolution education and learning about strategies to deal with peer ridicule," but Ms. Juvonen worries about efforts to identify possible troublemakers in advance; besides the fact that such efforts are likely to be imperfect and do more harm than good, with the notion of isolating bullies at a separate school "we may actually increase their antisocial and delinquent behavior."
There are some who voice concerns about government intrusion into the school situation; others worry about the effectiveness of efforts to help kids because students often are reluctant to come forward about being bullied.
Judging by postings on a recent AOL bulletin board
there have been students who have spoken to a teacher and gotten help. Making friends and bodybuilding have been ways out for other kids.
Review of cases of school violence suggests that a multi-faceted approach is likely to be the most effective: teaching youngsters consideration, self-respect, and respect for others; instruction for kids, parents, and school employees on what to do if they are being bullied, witness bullying, or are informed of bullying; the teaching of conflict resolution and peer mediation; effective disciplinary action, and when the event is serious enough, police involvement rather than brushing the incident under the carpet with a "kids will be kids" attitude; effective guidelines for deciding what is bullying and what is not (so that a child is not severely punished for one simple kiss on the playground or for bringing a 2-inch toy gun to school when a note to the parent[s], and a talk with the teacher or confiscation of the toy until the end of the school day may be enough) so that the anti bullying program does not turn into a bullying-by-teacher program; identification of, and counseling or therapy for, seriously troubled children; emergency protection for a child who is in immanent serious danger from a bully or a gang; and reporting of threats of shootings by students.
Most schools have already designed a "lockdown" program to protect students in case of school shootings or other threat in the area (such as an escaped criminal being sought in the neighborhood).
These measures appear to me to be very necessary, yet still only a bandaid for the results. I suggest we look at a broader range of strategies to prevent the problems from occurring in the first place. We might encourag
Censorship
Censorship today is discussed as if there were only two positions on the subject: absolute freedom of expression or complete removal of many wonderful classics from our lives. Defenders of absolute freedom believe we have no ability to moderate ourselves once any censorship is begun.
A concept used a few decades ago as a yardstick, "redeeming social value," has been forgotten in current dialogues. Also, too many multifaceted situations have been--in the courts--reduced purely to free speech issues.
As a writer and artist myself, I am aware that the ACLU expects me to automatically take an anti-censorship posture; but I chose to censor myself, for this reason: I agree with Tolstoy in his somewhat subjective definition of art as something that is new and is significant for humankind. Art helps us look more clearly at ourselves and helps us to understand how we might make ourselves and our society better; excessive violence and unhealthy sex intended to shock and entertain but not to enlighten only deaden our emotional reactions, making us LESS susceptible to real art.
Reason and Fashion: What does "Bone Thin" mean?
Throughout history the ideal of beauty has changed. This is partially the natural result of our inner need for variety. But lately fashion has taken a very disturbing turn, and even more disturbing is the lack of outcry against it.
More and more of our youngsters are suffering from anorexia, bulimia, and just plain
malnutrition because the fashion and entertainment industries continue to promote images of emaciation as some sort of ideal. Some actresses have very bravely come forth in defense of the general health, but the pressure on aspiring models and actresses has not yet diminished.
The fashion industry used to explain the fact that models had to be thinner than most women because "clothes hang better" on women who were more slender than average and also "the camera adds ten pounds." Fifteen years ago, in a misguided attempt at self-improvement I dieted until I was the thinness of a fashion model and when I shopped for clothes I found that everything in my current size had pleats and other designer tricks to make me look more voluptuous! The "clothes look better on them" argument was a lie because their clothes were designed to deceive! In The Screwtape Letters, a book written decades ago, C. S. Lewis has a devil say to his apprentice (this is my best recollection of the words until I can look up the exact ones)"If you're lucky, you can get a man to desire a woman who doesn't exist at all."
The "waif look" came into style very recently and was justifiably crushed by outraged women; it has come back in the "bone thin" ideal and it's time we rose up against this heinous fashion slavery again.
It is significant progress for the human race that young ladies who are naturally very thin can now be considered beautiful; but we have gone too far when we allow the imagemakers to insist that only unusually thin women are beautiful. Next time you go to a bookstore that sells coffee, why not have a cup and browse through the magazines that tell you, your daughters and nieces, and the mothers (if you catch them before they starve themselves into infertility) of your grandchildren how they are expected to look. Make a note of their mailing addresses and write to the editors.
Or call the reference librarian at your local library and ask for the address of the Motion Picture Association or a television network's address (whatever person or medium your child or you yourself spend the most time watching or whichever you would most like to see changed).
I recently called a store that was part of a larger chain to get the mailing address of the head office and write to them, after I got an advertising circular showing almost exclusively models who looked barely strong enough to stand up by themselves. And I returned a Christmas catalogue with a letter stating my position and that I didn't want to get any more catalogues from them until they quit using models of unhealthy thinness because I had impressionable daughters in my house. But my letters alone won't be enough. If more women take an interest in helping our gender avoid eating disorders and developing appreciation of themselves whatever their weight, we could solve this whole problem with letters and if necessary a boycott of the movie and fashion industries!
Besides letting them know that I won't buy from them as long as they encourage young girls and women to diet excessively, I tell them I'm encouraging my friends to do the same.
Even more importantly we need to remind our young girls that every woman is beautiful in her own way and that your true beauty is expressed in how you respect yourself and how you treat others. And do some soul searching yourself, because you can't really teach this to your children until you believe it yourself!:)
I feel pretty pompous saying that, because I know the real truth is that most women today are just too busy to act. But writing o
What to Do About Bullies
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