Bullying lessons to be learned from the Awl

I haven't read too many articles on The Awl, simply because I find the vocabulary to be rather fanciful and the overall tone a little snooty for my taste, but this was a very interesting article about bullying--always the hot topic. I perked up a bit because I took the headline ("How to Bully Children") a little to literally and thought it might give me a handy guide for making small, rude, annoying children go away. Alas, it was not meant to be. But reading into the article, I still discovered some interesting points.

I wasn't exactly bullied in school, but there was a girl in elementary school who liked to single me out for whatever reason. But it wasn't all that terrible because I had friends, even if they were also friends with this girl. And I had a friend who was bullied terribly, for reasons I never really understood why. (She turned out okay though, since she's now a model. Literally.)

It's probably because I finished elementary school (and in fact, high school and most of college) before bullying became "cool" in the sense that it was THE thing to talk about, but I never received anti-bullying classes. We had "conflict management" where we learned to sort out our differences with classmates by telling them how we felt using the "I" statements. That was enough for me, because the one thing I learned to do with my elementary tormentor was to leave her alone and avoid her as much as possible. It was pretty much pointless to tell her to stop bothering me, because I knew she wouldn't--she had too many friends who were my friends, and she simply didn't like me. And in a closed environment like an elementary school, it's not like you can get lost in the crowd.

So that's why I found the Awl's article about a writer observing a classroom being "taught" (I'll explain the quotes later) how to stand up to bullies completely ridiculous. Don't get me wrong, the article itself wasn't a problem, it was the nature of the subject. And the author knew it.

If you didn't read the article, it's a first-person account of the author tagging along with a couple friends as they visit a classroom to talk about bullying. The friends go through some steps and role playing where they pretend to be bullied and then deal with the situation in a positive way. Then they have the kids practice on each other. The writing got on my nerves a little bit with all the "likes" the author put in in an attempt to sound real, but that's beside the point.

Here's a little excerpt of the idea:

“Now we’re going to do role playing,” Linda says as she hands out little slips of paper. “One of you is the one being bullied, one of you is a coach they go to for help. The slips of paper let you know what you’re being bullied about.”
I visit Caroline and her seatmate. His name is Andrew. He looks like a nice solid person, and he has dark eyes and a great smile. If he were 45, I would probably try to go out with him and the fact that I don’t mention this to him is what I believe is often referred to as personal growth.
Andrew unfolds the slip of paper in his hands and reads it to Caroline: “You’re too short to play kickball.”
Caroline looks at me. “I don’t know what do say because I’m not short.”
“Ok,” I say. “That seems reasonable.” I don’t understand this either.
“I’m not short,” she tells him.
“You’re not supposed to say that,” Andrew tells her. “You’re supposed to say, ‘Stop bullying me,’ and walk away.”
“Stop bullying me,” Caroline says, and, not getting up from her chair, pantomimes a walk. She smiles shyly into her hand. “I just pretended to ‘walk away.’”
“Are we done?” Andrew asks me, and because I know he will actually take my word for it, I tell him yes and good job.

And when the author asks the kids if they'd ever be bullied in real life, this is their response:

“Does anyone ever bully you?” I ask Caroline.

“Not really,” she says. “I am just not that nerdy of a kid.”

“What about you?” I ask Andrew.

“No. I'm too big.”

“What would you do if someone did?”

“I don’t know,” Caroline says, “Because they wouldn’t.” Andrew seems to be trying to imagine being bullied and failing. He shakes his head and shrugs.

“What would you say to someone who said you can’t play kickball?”

Caroline says, “I’d just say, ‘Shut up, I’m playing.’”

Andrew nods. “Yeah. And it would never happen.”

“Would you ever say to anyone, ever, ‘stop bullying me’?”

They look at each other. Andrew says no, he wouldn't. Caroline adds, “You’d sound really stupid.” 

 That seems to be the problem right there. It's stupid, and everyone knows it. All of the ideas around stopping bullying by bringing awareness to the issue and saying "stop bullying me" simply do not work. I don't understand where the adults who decided to use this tactic got the idea from, because they clearly must have forgotten childhood. I am sure there are some children who would be shocked into silence by such brazen action, but I would be willing to bet the majority would not. And that's based on my extremely limited interaction with schoolchildren, but I remember elementary school fairly well. And I won't even get into middle or high school.

This isn't to say that I think talking about bullying or dealing with it is a waste of time. It certainly is not. I can well remember my own hurt over the teasing I got in elementary school, and I'd classify that as fluff bullying, if such a thing exists. I know there can be real pain caused by the words and actions of others. And if there isn't a support system to help those people in the form of peers, parents and teachers, there's a real problem.

I think that's the most important issue--getting kids to stand up for their peers. It's hard for adults to understand sometimes that they can't always step in and save the day--it just causes more teasing because then the person being bullied is labeled a teacher's pet or worse. Kids need to see what is happening to their friends and report it, if it's a serious situation (ie violence) and comfort the person being victimized. Maybe include them in their game of soccer or four square. Something to make the victim NOT feel as if they're a loser, rather than standing by the sidelines and assuming it's going to go away. If bullies see that their victims are being included in the classroom, then they'll be the ones ostracized and might actually shut up.

Not to brag, but I stood up for my friend and made sure I still talked to her in class and hung out with her after school--which we did,  A LOT. And it was my parents who taught me to always be nice to others, even if everyone else in class picks on them and I wanted to be "cool" by not associating with said victim. And it didn't kill me! Not all my friends liked this particular girl (rather obvious I guess if no one wanted to hang out with her except me) so I made sure to arrange play dates that didn't involve conflicts of interest, if I could. And if I couldn't it's because it was my birthday and I didn't care.

The point is, there are other ways to stand up to bullies besides telling them "It's not cool to bully me" and walking away. I don't think kids are going to stand there in shock and miraculously leave their victims alone, and I'd hardly expect them to. You just sound stupid.

I could go on and on about this, but I won't. I won't even mention my reaction to learning that the kids in class didn't even discuss the insults (or put-downs, as the anti-bullying instructors called them) they were supposed to write down from the TV shows they watched, as mentioned at the beginning of the article. (It's weakness and stupidity, I think. If you're trying to prove that our culture is endorsing bullying by example of all the different TV shows people are insulted and cowed into submission on, you can't very well say "Oh yes, they exist, ok, let's move on!" and expect there to be change. It won't happen.) If you want to have a change in the bullying culture, it's not going to come from people politely asking you to leave them alone. It comes from having the confidence to stand up for yourself and having the support of your peers and school community to help you get that confidence.