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Saturday, February 9, 2013

Bully Pulpit

I make no secret that I'm more than a little socially naive.  I lived with my folks off and on throughout my 20s, and it wasn't until I was nearly 29 that I had moved out for good.  I had no idea until fairly recently - like within the last year - that kids are no longer taught cursive handwriting in school anymore.  Supposedly the methods used to teach math functions like multiplication and division are also radically different from what I remember of my days in grade school as well.  I almost wonder what will happen when I will likely help my girlfriend's kids with their homework as they get older, since I might have to re-learn everything I was originally taught all over again.

My point is that as shocked as I am over how education is handled these days, bullying has taken over schools now.  I read this horrifying story yesterday about a boy who was beaten up by several kids in his school, and now lies in a medically-induced coma.  This story was merely the latest example of kids fighting and bullying one another in school that I found.

At what point exactly did bullying become so prevalent in schools nowadays?  I feel kinda old saying this, but when I was 14 and a freshman in high school, I never got into a fight with any other kids at all.  Sure, I was super awkward entering a public school for the first time (I was in private school from kindergarten all the way up to 8th grade), and I didn't really build a network of good friends until probably late freshman year or early sophomore year.  I don't even remember any other kids I knew who were bullied around by other kids in school.

Don't misunderstand me; there were plenty of clicks across my high school.  There were the jocks, the bandies, the emo crowd, and the bookworms, among other mini-groups.  I somehow danced around between each click, never really delving fully into any one circle.  I don't recall of anyone really having a serious issue with me at any time, nor do I recall any kid or group of kids consistently picked on by others.  There certainly weren't any cases like one linked above where someone was taken to the hospital and induced into a coma.

Clearly bullying has spiraled into a major, major issue affecting kids today.  I follow Ray Rice on Facebook, and he posts links to stories like the awful one above, asking fans and parents to help resolve the problem.  He also promoted a documentary that was released last year called Bully, which examined the state of kids who faced being bullied in school over the course of a full school  year.  I haven't seen it yet, but it will be released on DVD and Blu-Ray next week.  It's supposed to be pretty rough with lots of foul language, though I don't see how the subject matter could be otherwise handled properly without it.

One thing I do wonder is how much of a role geography plays in bullying..  I grew up in a small town in eastern PA, not really close to any major metropolitan area.  Had I gone to a school near a city like Philly or New York, my experiences in school might have been much different.  Then again, the website for Bully has a few stories highlighting people featured in the film, and they all hail from small towns throughout the midwest.  I'm not saying any one area is truly safe from bullying, but I have a hard time picturing Sioux City, Iowa, as a place where kids break out into fights.  And yet, the stories on the website have proven me wrong.

Like I said at the start of this post, I've been very socially naive for most of my life.  I imagine if a parent were to read this post, he or she would have lots to say about my reactions to why bullying exists, how kids deal with it, what parents can do about it, and how much times have changed (or not) in the last 20 years.  My social awkwardness during my teenage years was mostly the result of being in private schools until my freshman year of high school.  That was uncomfortable enough for me to adjust to life in a public school.  I'm sure if a bully or group of bullies picked on me during those years, I would have begged one or both of my parents to move me out of my school.

As I'm learning more and more of what life is like for teenagers now, I have a better grasp of what my parents must have gone through when I was in high school.  My mom has told me stories of what she feared during those years of my life, at least some of which surprised me.  I didn't think I had given her much to worry about when I was a teenager, but a mother's instinct will override any comfort a kid can give her.  I'm sure she was afraid there would come a day when I would get in with the wrong crowd at some point, but I always dodged that proverbial bullet.  I made other mistakes and bad choices when I was a kid, but it never led to becoming a bully or being bullied by others.

I'm sure bullies in school are mostly a form of social acceptance so kids can feel more powerful than others.  I don't envy parents who have to find ways to protect their kids from bullies in school, especially in the case of the child who is now in a coma.  I'm not even sure what kinds of answers there are for parents or kids either, which is incredibly frustrating.  Maybe documentaries like Bully can inform kids that they aren't alone, which is probably what they need to know more than anything else.

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