Bullying: Exaggerated or Epidemic?

Dear Neighbors:

Today at physical therapy, one of the therapists asked if bullying was indeed the huge epidemic that the media makes it out to be, or if it's being blown out of proportion. Not wanting to give a hasty answer to a thoughtful question, I took the time to think about the issue. I've been a student; I am a teacher -- is bullying really a problem?

The best answer I could come up with is that yes, bullying is a problem and yes, it's being blown out of proportion. 

Allow me to explain. 

When I was a kid, I was bullied relentlessly. I didn't have the skills to combat those cruel kids with either physical prowess or nasty retorts, so the torture went on for years. I learned at an early age that I was ugly and would always be ugly. To this day, I still don't spend a great deal of time in front of mirrors. The only one I have is the one in my bathroom.These days, I have the perspective to know that I'm not ugly, that there are many women much worse off aesthetically than I am. Still, standing in front of the mirror reminds me of those days when I could see nothing but faults in my appearance.

Back then, kids would have to plan out a bullying scenario, and it wasn't always possible to do when they weren't in school together. So they would wait for a break from class in which they could plot and plan and find ways to target the one kid who wouldn't be able to fight back. Notes would go around the classroom; groups would sit together at lunch and laugh while pretending they weren't up to anything at all. And if one person in the group decided to be sensible, there was a small chance that the rest of the group would see reason and abandon the whole thing. If the voice of reason was drowned out, the group would go to their separate homes after school and have at least 15 hours before returning to come to their senses. The act of bullying was a personal, face-to-face encounter. Even if they passed nasty notes to the victim, everyone was still at school and not at home. 

Today's bullies have the advantage of impersonal technology. 

I don't remember many of my classmates owning their own cameras, and very few had access to the Polaroid cameras that would allow a finished picture to be produced in less than five minutes. That's probably why I can't recall any incidents in which an unflattering picture was taken and posted for all to see, though I don't doubt that this happened to someone. If they took a regular picture with a regular camera, they would have to wait for the picture to be developed before being able to use it against anyone, and it was nearly impossible to do so without any sort of parent involvement. In addition, those pictures probably seemed like a great idea at the time and less of a great idea a few days later. Today, kids have cameras on their phones and internet access to post it anywhere and everywhere. If the picture isn't bad enough, they can use any number of programs to alter it so that it suits its purpose of humiliating someone.

The best thing is that they can do so anonymously. 

There are chat rooms and message boards and zillions of opportunities to embarrass someone without getting one's hands dirty. How many of you have had a conversation via some chat program only to find out later that the person you were chatting with was not, in fact, the person you thought? And now there's information about you that was obtained in the worst way possible? None of this is a crime, and for the careful, devious perpetrators, there are no repercussions. Bullying is as easy for a child as it is for an adult. 

Unlike when I was a kid, a person who wants to make a fool of someone else does not have a waiting period. A child who goes home and has unlimited online access can, in a heartbeat, completely ruin a classmate's life. He or she has no concept that what's online stays online -- forever. It's just as easy to find the story of Amanda Todd's suicide as it is to find the picture that drove her to it. In spite of the fact that the damage has been done, that damning picture is still available. Kids just don't understand that the Internet is a black hole of information. Everything in its vicinity is sucked in and held prisoner. A hasty decision one minute can ruin a life forever. There is no dialogue box asking, "Are you sure you want to do this? You can't take it back when the two of you decide to be friends again!"

So why do I say that bullying is being blown out of proportion?

As Dean Koontz often writes in his novels, a person must confront and defeat adversity early in order to learn from it. If a child's world is sanitized to the extent that he or she never has to solve problems without help, the child will grow into a helpless adult. Many kids will come home from school and complain that something is happening in class and the teacher won't do anything about it. I pick and choose my battles because some are more important than others and some must be handled by me while others must be handled by the student in order to stop it. 

For example, if a student comes to me because another student called him or her a name, I ask the child to solve that problem. If the name calling is happening on a regular basis, it's time for me to step in. I don't threaten punishment; rather, I prefer to sit the two kids down and hear both sides of the story. Know what I find more often than not? I find that one kid is being called names because he or she did something, often without realizing it, to the other kid and it turns out that both kids think they're being bullied. 

When bullying arises from a misunderstanding, it's being blown out of proportion. It's also a good opportunity to teach kids that even the smallest slight can result in a great deal of hurt feelings. 

I wish we lived in a world where people spent less time plotting about how to hurt other people and more time finding means of self-improvement. 

I wish there was an app for that. 

Headed into the weekend,

D