Bullying
Kid Power Is the Answer to Verbal, Physical Harassment
Note: The following article is reprinted with permission from the September 2004 issue (Volume 47, Number 3) of Counseling Today, published by the American Counseling Association.
The bullying experience at school is nearly universal. As a child, nearly everyone experiences it at some level—spectator, bully, or victim. The experience is so common that many consider it just something that happens in almost every childhood and something to be largely dismissed as a serious threat. Yet, report after report has documented the damage that cruel, long-term, and pervasive bullying can cause—physical and psychological harm, including depression, stress-related illnesses sometimes leading to suicide, and a desire to retaliate with violence.
A new economics report also links the destruction of self-esteem and resultant detrimental effects on educational and economic achievement. And the latest report from the Centers for Disease Control indicates that high school students are increasingly likely to miss school because they felt too unsafe to attend. It therefore may come as a surprise that the solution to this problem is to be found among the kids themselves.
Bullying Does More Harm than Meets the Eye
A retrospective study during 14 years of a large group of high school students who suffered from low self-esteem and a resultant poor attitude was conducted by researchers from the University of Oregon's Department of Economics. The professional working paper demonstrates these students attain fewer years of post-secondary education relative to their high school cohort, are less likely to be employed 14 years after graduation, and, where working for pay, realize lower earnings. Further, the paper demonstrates that low self-esteem and poor attitude in high school are significant predictors of the degree of supervision under which individuals ultimately work.
While low self-esteem and poor attitude in students are not always the result of bullying, they are the most commonly reported consequences. These and other relationships included in the paper suggest that real educational and economic consequences of bullying have been previously ignored or at least underreported.
To examine changes in violence-related behaviors among high school students in the United States during 1991–2003, the CDC analyzed data from the national Youth Risk Behavior Survey. In 2003, one in three students reported involvement in a physical fight, and nearly one in ten reported being threatened or injured with a weapon on school property during the preceding 12 months. As a result, not going to school because of safety concerns increased significantly from 4.4 percent in 1993 to 5.4 percent in 2003.
Address the Peer Culture and Its Problems
The primary target for bullying prevention and safer-schools efforts should be the peer culture. The norms, actions, beliefs, and values within broad sectors of today's youth peer culture are socially destructive and demeaning.
Many youth experience a trial by fire in negotiating the complex and difficult social tasks involved in finding their place in this peer culture. Far too many fail this critical test, become lost within it, and wander aimlessly while seeking acceptance that is generally not forthcoming. They become homeless persons within the larger peer group, and their lack of fit is well-known among peers. This process forces many marginalized youth to affiliate with atypical or deviant peer groups, which can prove destructive to them.
Transforming this destructive peer culture is perhaps our most formidable task in the area of school safety. This culture is not of the schools' making, but schools are perhaps the only social institution, beyond the family, capable of addressing it effectively. Five ongoing strategies are recommended for your consideration in this regard.
Strategy 1
Adopt and implement the Ribbon of Promise school violence prevention programs By Kids 4 Kids and Not My Friends, Not My School. These programs are designed to transform peer attitudes and beliefs about the risks to school safety that emerge from the peer culture. They promote ownership by peers of the tasks involved in preventing school tragedies and are highly recommended as a first strategy for enlisting the school's peer culture in this effort. These programs include a video that has been widely distributed and is available to all local schools.
Strategy 2
Bully-proof the school setting by adopting effective anti-bullying/harassment programs, such as 'STEPS TO RESPECT'. The best disinfectant for bullying, mean-spirited teasing, and harassment is sunlight. These events need to be defined as clearly unacceptable in the school by everyone (administrators, teachers, other school staff, students, and parents) and made public when they occur. Students should be given strategies for reporting and resisting them in an adaptive fashion, and the reporting of those who commit these acts should be made acceptable. The above-cited programs incorporate these principles and strategies.
Strategy 3
Teach anger management and conflict-resolution techniques as part of regular curricular content. The SECOND STEP violence prevention program, developed by the Committee for Children in Seattle, is one of the best means available for creating a positive peer culture of caring and civility and also for teaching specific strategies that work in controlling/managing anger and resolving conflicts without resorting to coercion or violence. This program was recently rated as the most effective of all those currently available for creating safe and positive schools by an expert panel of the Safe and Drug-Free Schools Division of the U.S. Department of Education.
Strategy 4
Refer troubled, agitated and depressed youth to counseling and mental health services and ensure that they receive the professional attention they need. Youth with serious mental health problems and disorders who are alienated, socially rejected, and taunted by peers can be dangerous to themselves and others. These students are often known to peers and staff in the school and should be given the appropriate professional and parental attention, access to services, and social supports. Having mental health problems combined with being the target of severe bullying and taunting by peers has proven to be a dangerous combination in the context of school shootings.
Strategy 5
Ask students to sign a pledge not to tease, bully, or put down others. Reports from schools that have tried this tactic indicate that it makes a difference in the number of incidents that occur and in the overall school climate.
Kids have proven they can take responsibility for school safety During a series of mass school violence in the 1990s, culminating in the attack on Columbine High School in Colorado, Ribbon of Promise founded a student organization known as By Kids 4 Kids. BK4K was founded on the principle that students were in the best position to learn in advance of threats of violence and weapons and to report them. To break a self-imposed code of silence, a 12-minute video was written, developed and acted entirely by students, with the assistance of a professional video production company. The video, called Not My Friends, Not My School, emphasizes that students must speak up to protect their friends and their school. The video was distributed nationally.
Nationally prominent playwright William Mastrosimone created a play, known as Bang Bang You're Dead, designed to be performed by an all-student cast, that delivered a powerful message about the horror of school violence and the need to break the code of silence to report threats of violence. Since the premiere production, the play has been performed thousands of times around the nation and abroad and has received widespread acclaim in violence prevention.
In September 2002, the producers of Showtime Networks, Inc. announced the production of a made-for-television movie based on the play. The movie added a new and powerful dimension to the play by establishing a connection between bullying and violent school attacks. The movie was then aired several times before a national TV audience and was made available for schools through the Cable in the Classroom program.
So far, according to media reports, 26 threats of violent school attacks have been stopped by reports from students.
Trusted Reporting May Include Anonymous Hotlines
Students are encouraged to report threats of violence to someone they trust to keep their identity confidential. However, not all students will place their trust in another person. Students may fear harassment or physical retaliation for reporting. In some areas, regional or statewide 24-hour hotlines have been established to permit anonymous reporting. For hotlines to be used properly, a significant publicity campaign is required as well as prominent listing of a toll-free number (for example, on student identification cards and phonebooks).
Student Non-Tolerance of Bullying Must Become the Norm
Stopping bullying will require a paradigm shift in the student culture. Adults have successfully learned not to tolerate racism, sexual harassment, domestic violence, and other forms of intimidation. Students can learn to do the same with bullying. They must take the same initiative with bullying as they have in stopping school attacks. Only then will there be a serious reduction in the incidence of school bullying.
Recommended Programs
SECOND STEP violence prevention program (available from the Committee for Children, Seattle, 800-634-4449, www.cfchildren.org).
STEPS TO RESPECT anti-bullying program (available from the Committee for Children, Seattle, 800-634-4449, www.cfchildren.org).
Bully-Proofing Your School (available from Sopris West, Inc., P.O. Box 1890, Longmont, CO 80502-1809, 800-547-6747).
Ribbon of Promise Programs (available from Ribbon of Promise National Campaign to Prevent School Violence, 1410 Orchard St., Eugene, OR 97403, 541-726-0512, www.ribbonofpromise.org).
By Dennis Murphy
For Counseling Today
Dennis Murphy is chief of the Springfield, Oregon, Department of Fire and Life Safety. He is a past section chairman for the International Association of Fire Chiefs and is a frequent conference speaker and journal columnist.
On May 21, 1998, his community was rocked with a violent shooting at Thurston High School. Within seconds, 25 students were wounded and two died. Murphy's department was first to respond to the tragedy and, within an hour, treated and transported all injured students. The next day, as the attention of the nation was focused on this grieving community, he founded the Ribbon of Promise National Campaign to Prevent School Violence, a grass-roots movement.
Ribbon of Promise is active in promoting a balanced approach of prevention, intervention, and enforcement activities to prevent bullying and violent school attacks. Its trademark sky-blue ribbon has been worn by the U.S. president and taken aboard the Space Shuttle Discovery and is now recognized as the symbol of a national campaign against school violence.
Dennis Murphy is the founder and board vice president of the Ribbon of Promise National Campaign to Prevent School Violence.
