11:56 am Stopping bullying in nation’s schools
It is happening all across the country. From Montana to Michigan, Texas to Pennsylvania, and in Cheatham County in Tennessee, cases of bullying are getting lots of attention.
It’s about time.
The attention isn’t necessarily that more schoolkids are getting taunted and hazed now than in the past. It is in part because social media have become a way for tormentors to extend their reach beyond campus and spread their vitriol faster and further. Another reason is that some kids are retaliating with firearms, as in the case in Houston of an 18-year-old who says he was protecting himself from bullies when he shot a classmate in the leg.
There are the harassed youths who take their own lives, as Jacob Rogers did in Ashland City. And then there are the countless students who are bullied every day and no one hears about it. Yet it leaves a mark on the kids’ psyche — the perpetrators’ as well as the victims’ — that makes you nervous about what adulthood holds for them.
It also makes you wonder how they can learn in school with all of this turmoil in their lives.
It’s about time for a big change.
Adults have a job to do. Teachers and administrators, for example, can no longer turn a blind eye to bullying that occurs on school grounds. And lawmakers, such as in the Tennessee General Assembly, should support strong anti-bullying measures instead of watering them down in a way that actually could encourage bullying of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender teens.
As reported recently, conservative lawmakers want to amend laws to say that anti-bullying programs cannot promote a political agenda or focus on the “characteristics of the victim rather than the conduct of” the bully. This would be sort of like changing the laws against armed robbery to allow it depending on whether the bank is made of brick or concrete.
If these lawmakers are confused, as they seem to be, they should consult a number of experts on adolescent behavior and on law enforcement before they do something that will make it easier for bullies to pick on kids.
Ultimately, however, it is not adults who will stop bullying in its tracks. It is the students who see classmates harassing or being harassed who have the collective power for change.
Participating schools will have a week of educational activities designed to inspire dialogue about ways to end name-calling and related bad behavior.
Students can instill a culture of respect that today’s adults have neglected to pass along to them. Stop the name-calling for a week, a month and beyond — and that’s just the beginning.
—Nashville Tennessean
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