Anti-Bullying Entrepreneurs on the Job After School Shooting
No sooner had the school shooting in Chardon, Ohio, occurred than producers started dialing up P.R. people working for a number of anti-bullying entrepreneurs. Joining together, they presented, as early as that evening’s news, the narrative that began with the 1999 Columbine shooting, which was then applied to the 2007 Virginia Tech shooting and other similar incidents: the shooter was a victim of bullying.
Some of the Ohio victims, who have since died, were still clinging to life when Jodee Blanco made an appearance on CBS News that night, February 27. It was the latest in a long line of appearances on CBS, as well as on CNN, NBC, NPR, Oprah Winfrey, and many others. Her bio page brags about these appearances as well as consultations at the Department of Health and Human Services, the United States Department of Justice, and many others. Her advertised qualifications are her personal experience as the victim of bullying.
For rates ranging from $4,000 to $5,500 a school can enjoy Blanco’s presentations to students, teachers, and parents. For this fee, they also have the privilege of buying her books afterwards.
Her literature for her trademarked program “It’s NOT Just Joking Around!” describes what she does for students in a ninety-minute presentation:
I relive painful episodes from my past in front of the students so that they can witness firsthand what I endured at the hands of my peers. … My primary message to students is three fold: bullying is not just joking around, it damages you for life; bullying just isn’t the mean things you do, it’s all the nice things you never do; and if you’re being bullied or shunned, there’s nothing wrong with you. … In addition to the re-enactment of my school days, during which that tri-teared (sic) message is continually reinforced, I also give students specific advice on how to handle what I call “elite tormentors,” the mean members of the cool crowd. I conclude the presentation with an empathy exercise for students that brings my anti-bullying message home on a visceral and deeply personal level.
While real bullying is certainly a problem that needs to be addressed, namely by swift punishment, Blanco, like many other free-styled “consultants,” has jumped on the lucrative bandwagon of defining any behavior that does not entail a scouring of conscience, preemptive confession, sympathetic tears, and a group hug as bullying.
Repeating lines from her promotional literature, she told the CBS interviewer that bullying is “all the nice things you never do.” A video of one of her eighth-grade presentations features her saying, “Being left out hurts!” while choking back feigned sobs.
This line — equating bullying with sins of omission in terms of behavior — was repeated from her presentation at Joliet Catholic Academy, ironically. The video is expertly edited, but students’ boredom and discomfort are apparent even in the scenes left in. As an adult I find it difficult not to wince at Blanco’s histrionics. But the student is forced to absorb a lesson that goes far beyond traditional schoolroom lessons in respect for rules and politeness. He is asked to emotionally identify with victims, and to defy his own desires for friendship. Boundaries are violated. Students are subjected to emotional inquisitions.
I saw such consultants at a 2010 conflict resolution education conference in Cleveland, Ohio. As I noted in my report, the strategies were invasive and emotionally coercive. Then “safe schools czar” Kevin Jennings told assembled educators that bullying involved “social rejection.” Much of the anti-bullying legislation is written by gay rights groups like GLSEN, which Jennings, a former high school teacher, founded and directed for 18 years. They use the threat of bullying to impose an agenda that goes far beyond simple tolerance. Anti-bullying efforts are nothing less than attempts to modify human nature, to make pacifist “global citizens” out of students.
Now Blanco and her colleagues push the envelope even further, equating being “left out” with bullying because “it hurts!” as she proclaimed on national news.
Such consultants are riding the gravy train of anti-bullying legislation that bullies school administrators into hosting their workshops lest they be sued should some student commit an act of violence or suicide.
But two days after the Ohio shooting, on Wednesday, T.J. Lane, the 17-year-old who had confessed to the shooting, had not yet been charged, according to the New York Times. In that day’s article, prosecutor David P. Joyce insisted the case was not due to bullying or drugs, but the effect of “one lone gunman.”
In fact, in an article a day after the shooting, news reports quoted students who say Lane had not been bullied.
According to the February 29 article, Lane was described by a classmate as a middle school “’teen therapist,’” someone who would listen to his peers’ troubles — a practice that anti-bullying consultants promote in their workshops. Since at least the 1990s, teachers have been sliding away from adult-directed punishment towards such peer-counseling. Today, the kid who fights back against the bully is the one likely to receive punishment. Instead of learning how to work out their problems and fight back, kids are put into adult roles as “counselors,” and then forced to listen to blubbering adults like Blanco.
Is it any wonder that they have problems we have not seen in the past?
In fact, Tina Trent, who blogs at Crime Victims Media Report, wonders if anti-bullying programs are doing more harm than good. “I suspect,” she says, that “the anti-bullying industry, while creating fat paychecks for the adults involved, is driving some vulnerable children to harm themselves, encouraging them to dramatize their pain and social alienation and make that their permanent identity.”
Our school culture certainly elevates the victim. History is presented as a story of victims and victimizers. Literary works are chosen for their depictions of such victimization. Seeing oneself in the role of being bullied is tempting, especially for the child not in one of the pre-approved ethnic or gender victim groups. Kids are now encouraged to identify with bullying victims “on a visceral and deeply personal level,” to quote from Blanco’s own promotional material. Those already troubled might go to the next step and commit suicide. Others might take the other tack and kill. Either way they will gain attention as victims.
The only ones benefiting are those reaping large consulting fees.
I went to school in the 70′s and 80′s in the midwest. This sissy infection hadn’t hit there yet. I was bullied at school until one day, I knocked the bully on his butt. After that, my friends and I were no longer bullied. I fought back, and it stopped. The good sisters only admonishment was that I not become a bully. Good advice. The same situation repeated itself in High school. Bullied until I punched the bully. Bully’s smell weakness, and that’s what draws them. Show some spine, and most times they go away. Of course, that was a different time. We didn’t settle things with guns. We had a bit more respect for life.
Bullying cannot be solved by individuals when the bully has a gun or is vastly superior in strength to the bullied child. This article comes in the wake of the Chardon High School shootings, and no quack can come in and fix what is a widespread social problem of ignoring the negative emotions. I tried to write about it here: http://clarespark.com/2012/02/27/chardon-high-school-negativity-and-depth-psychology/.
BULLSHIT. Absolute liberal bullshit. Do us all a favor and stay the hell out of here. We know how to handle these little shitbags. And we know how to teach our kids to handle then too.
Hey Constitutionalist:
You need to be more direct. I’m not sure what youre saying, dont beat around the bush so much, youre way to vague.
(snakk off, awesome direct reply dude!)
Two paws up!!!
Oh, and by the way…an armed society is a POLITE society, where is nowhere to be found.
*facepalm*
Serves me right for trying to use my husband’s laptop. I’m a fast touch typist and I’m used to my own keyboard, but I’m waiting for a hardware repair at the moment.
In any event…I was trying to say that “an armed society is a polite society” – malevolent people know that they can’t push the envelope too far when it comes to disrespecting the rights of others, because the consequences to themselves could be deadly.
Yet we are seething with rage, jealousy, and longings for revenge—emotions that are part of our human equipment from birth.
Really. Seething? Yes, those emotions are part of our human equipment, but the vast majority of us don’t “seethe” with them. We, even the young among us, are, after all, rational beings with moral and ethical underpinnings. If psychiatry views us all as seethers, it makes it rather difficult for practitioners to separate those for whom emotional instability is a problem that could manifest itself in a variety of anti-social ways from those of us given only to the occasional emotional outburst.
Sorry, that was my comment. I do not mean to be any more “anonymous” than I already am.
I went to grade school during the ’60s.
I received a major share of Bullying not only from the Bullies but from the Staff as well.
When I’d report an incident I would always receive a series of Canned Responses.
“You let John worrry about John” Excuse me? I am worrying about John.
“Don’t you think you bring this on yourself?” No! They look for me and do this.
“Ignore them, they’ll grow tired of it.” No, they’ll intensify until you can no longer ignore them.
And then of course were the responses when I did something in return – Suddenly I was the bad guy.
“Two wrongs don’t make a right.” I’m not interested in being right I want to be left alone.
“It takes TWO to fight.” Garbage; One not fighting back will still get the Snot kicked out of him. (that got me a three day suspension for talking back – perhaps the fact that I didn’t say snot had something to do with that.)
Finally, during one Recess at Springtime in the Fifth grade I took a softball bat and actually injured three bullies. I was suspended for a week. I was forbidden from playing softball for the rest of the Fifth and entire Sixth grade.
I was also LEFT ALONE for the rest of Grade School and Junior High.
Lesson learned?
No one will care about you as much as you do, and sometimes you have to be responsible for your own safety.
You have just provided another good argument for homeschooling.
I work in a retail store that sells a lot of school supplies. Homeschool parents, and their kids, frequently shop there, and it’s noteworthy how well behaved they are. Their politeness and respectfulness comes from the heart.
My own experience also is that bullies remain bullies until it becomes….ahem…painful for them to continua attempting to bully.
I too grew up in the 70′s, and if someone laid hands on you then THEY were the ones in trouble and the kid who defended himself was allowed to go on about his business.
Imagine my surprise when some kids started bullying my own son at school and the councilor informed me that if my son punched back to defend himself then he too would be in trouble.
Told her that she was expecting more from a teenager than she would expect of herself if she were assaulted on the street and that I had told my son to defend himself. If she had a problem with it, that was a conversation I was happy to have with her.
My only admonishments to my son were:
1) Don’t throw the first punch. He could throw the last punch, but not the first. This gave me firm standing to argue self defense.
2) Ignore what the bully does until they lay hands on him. Words ain’t gonna kill him.
3) If he did end up in a fight, punch the sonofabitch in the nose as hard as he can and as often as he can, as bullies generally decide they have more pressing things to focus their attention on if their nose is bleeding or broken.
My understanding is he had one scrap – which was not caught by the teachers – and that settled the bullying problem.
Interesting, your close on settling with firearms being unheard of. When I went through school (earlier than you) you could buy a firearm through the mail and still at that time, school shootings did not occur. The nation has lost its moral bearing. And yes, there were a lot of us bullied, but indeed it is as you have said, stand up to a bully and they go away. Knuckle under and relief is never found. Nowadays though, if a kid gets in a fistfight defending himself or someone weaker they are at the very least to endure counseling by some sociopathic pinhead who thinks man is basically good.
This is so very strange to me. When I was growing up in the 1960s and 1970s, you never even thought about reporting bullying, let alone think about shooting someone over it. You usually settled it yourself with the bully. And, nine times out of ten, if you stood up to the bully they usually backed down, especially in front of other people. And on that tenth time when standing up wasn’t enough, you either ran away or fought it out. Primitive, sure, but it settled the matter. The “unwritten code” never allowed you to bring an adult into the matter. You settled it yourself and it got resolved.
Now, not only are we holding pity parties for the victims of bullying, we either are afraid that these kids are either going to jump off a bridge or come into school armed to the teeth ready to do multiple killings. And I believe the media is really responsible for a lot of this. The media either wants to hold pity parties for kids that have been bullied (such as on Oprah or one of the many other afternoon shows, not to mention news programs), or the media shows in movies and in TV programs that you can usually get revenge on anybody with a gun or a rifle. The gun, the great “equalizer,” right? And yet that same media never even suggests that the kid who has been bullied try to solve it on his or her own. Try to solve it by confronting the bully or bullies and fighting it out on their terms. I guarantee you that if you stood up to the bullies, they would not only respect you more, but they would also probably leave you alone after that, figuring it just wasn’t worth the effort to try and fight you all the time. Standing up for yourself builds confidence and independence. Always running away crying about your lot in life only builds cowards, either constantly complaining to other people or, worse yet, trying to settle a matter with a gun.
But no, today it’s either guns or Oprah. And this is progress? And before all you bleeding hearts out there say this is such a “cold” and “heartless” way to be, yes I was the “victim” of bullying. Big time. But I stood up for myself, fought back (using fists, not guns), and guess what? The bullies left me alone. There should be a lesson in that for some people.
In today’s academic environment of “zero tolerance” (which really means zero thinking), a kid that tries to defend himself is punished just as heavily as the attacker. Self-defense is one of the most fundamental of human rights but kids are all too often denied that option. However, the old saying is that “it’s better to be judged by 12 than carried by 6.” I’m going to teach my young grandchildren to avoid violence to the extent possible but if someone hits them to (in the words of Obama) “punch back twice as hard” and, I might add, twice as many times.
I agree; I guess I’m just a hard-nosed realist about bullying because I experienced my own fair share of it (and occasionally, I regret to say, inflicted it, but not without extreme self-loathing) when I was in school. There’s this unhealthy contemporary obsession with shielding children from all of life’s little hurts. My realist point of view is that children are naturally cruel and do require adult monitoring and supervision to make sure they don’t actualy physically injure or kill each other, and to establish basic rules about politeness and acceptable behaviour and language, but otherwise they should be left as much as possible to their own devices socially so they can learn from their social triumphs and errors. Cajoling children to “be nice” never makes them nice; it just makes them resentful of the dorky kids they REALLY don’t want to play with, and thus more inclined to be really mean to them, as opposed to just excluding them. The dorky kids, absent well-meaning adult intervention, eventually find each other and carve out their own social niche and no longer care what the cool kids think. And frankly, some bullied kids really do ask for it. The Columbine killers certainly did, by aggressively and visibly flouting the conventions of their high school. The Chinese (or is it the Japanese?) say “the nail that sticks out gets hammered down”; such a saying was never truer in high school. The uncool kids, the nerds, the socially awkward, the “late bloomers” who have a healthy sense of reality know that the best way to get through these years is to blend into the background. Their time may eventually come to shine, but it will not be when they are young. C’est la vie.
To add to my previous comment, I also agree that the best advice to give to the bullied is usually the politically-incorrect “fight back.” It’s true that this incurs a certain physical risk, but bullies are in fact cowards who don’t like pain and even if they end up hurting you more they are unlikely to ever bother you again.
I sometimes think I was born with an instinctual loathing of bullies. One of my strongest early childhood memories is being at a birthday party with my older sister. I couldn’t have been any older than four or five at the time. The children of the house, who were family friends, had a big loft-style bedroom/playroom on the third floor which was full of great things to play with, including two swings hanging from the rafters. When I was downstairs a little boy came down in tears, saying “a boy upstairs” had hit him. Other kids said the same thing had happened to them. The kids were just advised to “stay away from him” but somehow that just didn’t sit right with me, because a few minutes later I went upstairs myself. The little a**hole was all by himself in the playroom, having terrorized and driven out every other kid. As soon as I appeared he started verbally abusing and threatening me, but I obstinately ignored him and started to play on one of the swings. The little budding psychokiller noted the swing I was playing on and informed me proudly, “that’s what I hit him with!” Getting still no response from me, he proceeded to come at me with a huge toy fire truck almost as big as he was (they were made of metal in those days), hoisted over his shoulder like a club. A few feet-pounding, metal-crashing, body-thumping seconds later I had him pinned down on the hardwood floor and was sitting on his chest, my little teeth clenched in fury and the fire truck on the other side of the room. Like every bully who gets a taste of his own medicine, he immediately burst into whimpering sobs. I got up and left. I was a shy little kid who rarely even shouted at other kids, let alone hit them. I spent the rest of the party clinging anxiously to my older sister, certain that some terrible punishment was about to come my way, but none did. And it’s safe to say no other kid got hurt at that party. Thinking about that incident from the point of view as an adult I of course realize that there could have been any number of reasons for that little boy’s behaviour, but I still think there was a fundamental justice done, which perhaps (or so I like to think) taught him something of a lesson that no intervening adult could have done as well.
Bullying–or, more precisely, my school’s reaction to it–made me a conservative. I had been bullied in elementary school, where a group of former friends decided to pick on me mercilessly. I retaliated by catching them one at a time and beating the hell out of each of them. Problem solved.
When I moved to junior high, things changed. I was attacked by the school psychopath right in front of a teacher. When I responded, the teacher gave me a tongue-lashing because “he comes from a broken home!” Message received loud and clear, and another conservative joined the ranks.
And furthermore, the response to that is, “Then YOU need to apply the discipline he should be getting from his parents.”
For the past 30 years Progressive liberalism has taken over our school systems and steadily destroyed what was once a top notch educational system in the name of “Change” and progressive education. Test scores, school attendance, percentage of graduates have all declined dramatically … a steady spiral downward. Police are now paid to control the schools (how very incredible). We have gone from one of the best school systems in the world to one of the worse and we can blame it all on the liberals. Unfortunately, they have taken over our children’s education via mandates that by federal regulatons (not legislation) tell us what can and cannot be done in our own schools . In doing so, the Dept. of Education (thank you all) have forced the cost of local education to skyrocket; giving us much higher taxes and deficient schools. Until these issues are addressed and we take back our schools, all the money, workshops, and mandates in the world will not fix it.
Historically the “bully’s” were dealt with on a common sense basis. If you were behaving in a manner that consistently disrupted the classes, threatened other students and made it impossible to educate the majority that were there to learn, you were expelled. That doesn’t mean efforts were not made to help these kids learn to behave in a social manner, but some (acutally very few) were just not reachable.
Bullying is now an industry …. Consulting, coaching, and experts line up for winning the contract to fix the problem. The irony is that most of the blame belongs on groups like themselves who share the majority of blame for the behavior.
Great comment, but we can’t really blame it all on the liberals. Where were we when they were taking over our school boards, building and strengthening their odious unions, writing and mandating text books, etc etc?
Right on…70% blame on Libs the other 30% on my parents and now my generation…they all sit back and let it happen!! Just let the Libs walk in and take over. Even today, MOST parents send the little ones off to school and dont think about it, get involved or anything!
head i the sand folk,s thats where most Americans are from what i see. And the proof is that MOST kids go to public schools still and the unions/teachers/Libs keep gaining power!! If most of Americas lean to the right but most of the schools to the left that is because no one actually does anything about it!!!
Well, if not for a little bullying by big brothers, I would not be who I am today. While merciless bullying of those weaker than you is unacceptable a little peer pressure might go a long way to cut down on face tattoos, purple mohawks as well as young men leaving the house with bed head and such. When will the paragons of progressivism learn that much of human nature is hard wired and actually serves a purpose? They claim to believe passionately in evolution and then attempt to erase all evolutionary mechanics.
Another great comment. I’ve often argued that the progressive propensity to ignore human nature by trying to make us act in ways contrary to it is downright anti-Darwinist. And to think that for most of them, evolution is a holy grail.
In the 8th grade I was cornered into a fight by a bully and his gang who had been harrasing me on my way home from school. Having no choice I stood my ground. Got a few good punches in and gave him a bloody lip. He was much bigger and older than me so when he closed in I ended up on the ground and basically lost the fight.
Thing is they never bothered me after that.
When my son was getting picked on I remembered that fight. I advised him to stand tall get right up in his face and let him know that if he wants a fight you will give him one. He did that and the bully left him alone after that.
One dad I know has two sons. The younger one was getting picked on because he has learning disabilities. He was not athletic but his dad started taking his brother, who was a year older, to martial arts lessons and he got very good at it. He was very protective of his younger brother and once the word got out in school that he was some kind of black belt that was the end of it.
Bullies are cowards. They only go for easy targets. We should teach our kids to be more assertive. Running to the teacher just makes it worse.
My father gave me some sage advice for dealing with bullies. Don’t fight if you can avoid it — paraphrasing Col Jeff Cooper, the only fight you win is the one you don’t get into — but if you have to make sure you hurt the other guy because win or lose he won’t be coming back for more.
These anti-bullying ideologues are the reason we see more school shootings. Back in the day, kids settled things with their fists. That let off the steam. There were lots of guns around but nobody ever thought of bringing one to school for to take out their tormenters.
If you want to stop bullying bring back boxing. Put the two kids in the ring and let them have at it in controlled environment. Both bully and victim will end up learning something.
Also, there’s another dangerous message beneath those overly emotional, sappy, groupthink anti-bully messages kids are forced to listen to. Sometimes the kids who are being shunned and left out are left out for good reason. We’re killing off the natural “radar” human beings have for self-protection. Yes, there are bullies and thugs out there, but there are some really disturbed kids out there, too, and I wouldn’t want my kids hanging out with them either.
Clearly, Lane’s problems have little to do with bullying and everything to do with the seriously messed up adults who were his parents. Not that that’s an excuse for his actions, but to blow off his violent, abusive father and his less than stellar mother, who were not married to each other, never had been, and automatically jump to the bullying angle is ridiculous. Heck, the kid was already in a special school for troubled kids. This had zero to do with bullying and everything to do with background. But the supposed adults who are supposedly in charge can’t admit to themselves that THEY screwed up, so they blame his disturbed and criminal actions on other kids for not embracing him?
Funny how it “takes a village”, but when the grownups in that village mess up, they point their finger at the children and blame them. Nice lesson there.
Also, there’s another dangerous message beneath those overly emotional, sappy, groupthink anti-bully messages kids are forced to listen to. Sometimes the kids who are being shunned and left out are left out for good reason. We’re killing off the natural “radar” human beings have for self-protection. Yes, there are bullies and thugs out there, but there are some really disturbed kids out there, too, and I wouldn’t want my kids hanging out with them either.
An excellent point! And let me add something to the false idea that “being left out” constitutes “bullying.” It does not! It’s not the same thing, although, of course, it’s never fun to feel left out. But just because something makes me sad doesn’t mean that I’m the victim of “bullying.”
Here’s a scenario: Let’s say that there is a kid who comes down more on the nerdy side of the equation. He wants to be accepted by the “cool kids” because he doesn’t like being associated with his fellow nerds. The “cool kids” reject him. So according to the bogus definition being pushed by the anti-bullying entrepreurs, the kid is the victim of “bullying.” And yet, this same kid in only interested in being “cool” because he rejects other kids who he views as “nerdy.” In other words, the kid who has been rejected is “guilty” of rejecting others. So identifying the “bullies” and the “victims” in terms of omission (ignoring or avoiding rather than actively harassing) is extremely subjective. But of course the Left lives in the subjective world because it’s much easier to distort reality, exploit situations and evade consequences in that setting.
Nerds tend to do well in adult life…
gainful employment, advanced degrees and the like.
Bullies are A-holes who end up in jail.
Keep that goal, stay on target, support your “nerdy” kid with Karate Lessons to build character.
Life isnt highschool. Its comes after.
Two things can happen to a bully: they end up in Jail, or they become bosses. No kidding. Have you ever wondered where those idiot executives and asinine middle managers come from? Now you know.
Bullies who learn to respect the law are the successful ones. The ones who answer only to themselves are usually failures. Religious or military education often helps these people to learn to cope with the expectations of the rest of society.
So this balderdash about teaching to deal with bullies is useless. You deal with them by striking fear in to their hearts, by pushing back, or by giving them a life lesson they won’t forget. Believe me, you’ll be doing them a favor for doing it. Bullies are narcissists who get away with their behavior because nobody will step forward and show them what happens when they push people around.
However, in a society like ours, we can’t teach that. It’s too politically incorrect. There are anti-bully programs in my kids schools. They’re a waste of time. I have already told my kids what to do. New kids bother them. But they learn not to make a habit of it.
We’re finding more and more evidence that human sexuality is malleable by many factors, so it’s simply insane to continue down the path of teaching kids that if they have gay tendencies they should explore them rather than fight them. The gay, anti-bully groups that encourage kids down that route bear a lot of responsibility on their own end.
Back in the day…..unit cohesion was a big priority in the military.
I prevailed on my NCOs to be watchful of cliques which could morph into gangs….a structure beyond the chain of command….a form of mutiny.
I insisted they identify the ring leaders…..then match up the victims and the tormentors in hand to hand training…..then critique the methods/techniques employed by each. Then repeat….
I noticed the biggest offenders were replacements after that….who were promptly introduced to the REAL pecking order. Unit cohesion….
I won’t deny that Jodee Blanco may have been cruelly treated or ignored by her peers in high school but so what? Kids, even the so-called “good ones”, can be real jerks. I think that, under the guise of “making a positive change”, she has become a bully herself, browbeating school administrators into letting her make her tiresome presentations at their schools (while collecting hefty consulting fees). Earnest “crusaders” like her have become the new “Red Guard” in this society, hounding people to confess their “thought crimes” and accept everybody, no matter how creepy or unsettling their behavior may be.
I have been hearing on the radio some commercial about some “donation” website. One commercial has some goober saying something like, “if you knew a teacher who had a solution to bullying but needed a little money to implement it wouldn’t you want to donate money?” The other has to do with teachers not having a enough money to do whatever they think they need to do. I wonder who supports that website and where the money actually goes. I bet not to PJ Media.
“elite tormentors,” the mean members of the cool crowd . . . bullying involved “social rejection.”
Blanco should be careful here. This describes precisely the ‘playground writ large’ which is today’s politics. Challengers to the prevailing political establishment or who won’t accept progressive pieties are subjected withering scorn, ridicule, mockery torment and abuse by the ‘cool kids’ in the media-entertainment complex.
Amen! I doubt the liberals or “progressives” will ever understand the connection. They would have to face too many hard facts and that would put them in a position of “biting the hand that feeds you”!!
It bothers me when a tragedy happens, like a school tragedy, and grief counselors and other purported smoothers of turmoil instantly produce themselves on the scene.
Nobody has time to just sit there and absorb the travesty in their own way, at their own pace, before some grief counselor or some anti-bullying advocate starts preaching in their ear.
Another sign of the times, another sign of the false control we think we have with such self-anointed ex-spurts, who, as you say, may even be be exploiting the situation for personal financial gain.
If I’m ever confronted with those people, I will probably throw something.
The great irony of our “safe schools czar” Kevin Jennings is that he couldn’t show up within 500 miles of Penn St. during the recent molestation charges there because of the uncertainty about whether he was in fact an “unsafe schools czar.” When you have a Federal gov’t that far out of touch with reality it is time for massive change.
This is what cults subject victims to. So do many mainstream religions, unfortunately, particularly the biggest of them.
Superb article by the way.
Just a side note – I was raised in a Southern Baptist Church, which I think is pretty mainstream, but was never taught to think like this. Not that I wasn’t taught to turn the other cheek but, I was taught at home to stand up for myself when necessary.
I believe most of the problem is that society is so eager for every child to have the highest self-esteem that they’ve forgotten how that is actually achieved. You have to learn to win and lose. You have to learn to stand up for yourself and what you believe in. Kids just aren’t taught to believe in themselves anymore. And parents are just pushing them off on society at an earlier age.
In my opinion, it does not take a village to raise a child if they have honest, responsible parents. Spend TIME with your kids! Take those kids (and yourselves) to church, whip their butts when they need it, get them off the video games and social networks, keep score in sports so they’ll know how to win graciously AND how to lose graciously!
If the kids in these situations had an ounce of real self-esteem, we wouldn’t have anything to talk about!
Like many of the comment writers, I grew up in a different time. When I was in the sixth grade, I learned that my second-grade sister was being harassed by the sixth-grade bully (who was bigger than the rest of us). I walked into his home-room and told him to leave my sister alone. When he turned away to make a joke of it to another classmate, I sucker-punched him as hard as I could. The bully got a bloody nose, I got a few days “off” and the obligatory scolding from my mother (not my dad), and my sister got left alone. As one of the other comment writers wrote: “Problem solved.”
Anti-bully is part of the “violence never solves anything” mentality.
Violence has no morality in and of itself, violence derives its morality from the individual who wields it.
Violence in the hands of a bully, to intimidate fellow students is immoral. Violence in the hands of the victim of bully to stop bullying is moral.
The left’s purpose is to redefine violence, take it away from the individual.
The left wants everyone to be dependent on the State for protection from violence, anti-bully, gun laws stem from this philosophy.
The left does not want individuals providing for themselves, whether protecting themselves or deciding which toilets or light bulbs to use.
The left’s purpose is to redefine violence, take it away from the individual.
The left wants everyone to be dependent on the State for protection from violence, anti-bully, gun laws stem from this philosophy.
The left does not want individuals providing for themselves, whether protecting themselves or deciding which toilets or light bulbs to use.
I agree.
And I would add that the Left doesn’t even want individuals to have the right to pick and choose who they will allow into their lives. It’s very scary to think that a kid could be accused of “bullying” simply because he or she did not live up to an extremely subjective standard based on “all the nice things you never do.” Who decides what constitutes “nice?” Who determines the acceptable volume of “niceness” or the acceptable number of “nice things” that a person must do in order to avoid being labeled a “bully?”
It used to be (and still is, of course) fairly easy to figure out who the bullies were. A bigger or stronger kid picking on a smaller or weaker kid, would be the classic example. Or a “mean girl” going out of her way to harass some wallflower. Overt acts that were specifically designed to intimidate or traumatize somebody else. That type of thing.
But now we have hucksters exploiting the problem of bullying to make money by expanding the definition of bullying to include “exclusion.” Think about that. Again, it’s an unacceptably subjective criteria. Now, if I’m popular and minding my own business I can be accused of “shunning” others. If I have a party and only invite my close friends I can now be accused of being “exclusive” and, therefore, a “bully.”
So, what would the solution to this new style of “bullying” look like? Well, how about assigned seating in the cafeteria. Nobody gets to sit with their friends but must be forced to sit wherever the administration decides to put them. Or some kid thinks he or she “has a right” to belong to a clique of “cool kids” and demands to be accepted. And if that demand is ignored then a complaint of “shunning” or “exclusion” is lodged with the administration and punishment or some other “solution” is meted out. Where does it stop? There is no answer to that but you can bet that there’ll be professional anti-bullying huckster lurking nearby ready, willing and able to take advantage of the situation.
Kipling describes dealing with a pair of bullies during his own schooldays in “The Moral Reformers” from Stalky & Co.:
http://www.readbookonline.net/read/8697/21186/
Bullying stops when the bully is sent to reform school.Bullying is physical. Verbal insults need be punished, also; but are not bullying. Toleration of bullying is criminal and an adult who practices it should be fired and jailed.
Our problem is that, having abandoned Christianity, we have no fixed standard of good and evil. Toleration of evil is often hailed as virtuous, by cowards and the malicious. When the majority of voters install a certifiable sociopath as POTUS, as they did in 2008, the game is over. We are in Hell, and there is no way out.
My two children, a boy and a girl, were half Oriental. Their mother was of Chinese ethnicity. They were both bullied in elementary school. When he was in the fourth grade I taught him how to make a left jab, straight to the bully’s nose, to keep his eyes open and focused on the target (nose), like keeping your eye on the ball in golf and tennis. He did this the next time he was bullied, and sent the bullier crying to the school nurse with a very bloody nose. The school nurse agreed that my son had to protect himself but admonished: “You didn’t have to kill him.” My son was never bothered again. My daughter was bullied in the second grade by a big boy who bullied everyone. I taught her the same maneuver. Again the bully went crying to the school nurse with a very bloody nose. Again the school nurse used the same exact words to my daughter. That boy many years later was a big high-school football player. The main problem is that the teachers, especially the males, are too cowardly to intervene. Even if they did, the typical school principle is a time-serving careerist who would not back them up if parents complained. In junior-high my daughter was persecuted by a bunch of racist kids who called her a “chink.” I taught her all the slang words for ethnic groups, like wop, spic, dago, square-head, polack, kraut, paddy, swamp-yankee and many more. When she was called a chink again, she applied the appropriate epithet to the offender. Soon they let her alone. That was almost 50 years ago and we still get a kick out of looking back on it. The moral is that you don’t have to take it. Fight fire with a bonfire.
The boy who did this shooting was in an alternative school, his parents divorced when he was very young, dad did jail time for violating court order to stay away, grandpa was trying to raise him. It was infuriating to listen to the talking heads talk about bullying as if the kids who got shot and those who were traumatized were at fault. So sick of everyone playing the victim card.
Liberalism degrades almost every institution it touches. It’s the cause of all the rot in public education. As an Army brat, I moved frequently in the 1960s. New kids in school who don’t yet have any friends are often bullied, as I was. I learned to fight back, once even knocked another kid out in 7th grade in the boy’s restroom when he jumped me. I am so grateful I learned to stand up for myself because until I did, I was bullied. There is no substitute for learning to fight back.
You can add Ruby Payne to the list of people stealing money from education and tax payers. Had to sit through one of her lessons at school and for a whole year watch adminstrators try to push her liberal agenda.
Bullying is the deliberate ommission of compassion.
So says Jodee Blanco who claims to have been bullied relentlessly and shunned because she was “different.” What hurt most, she says, is all the “love and friendship I had to give that no one wanted.” I one would love to know how her “differentness” manifested itself. Kids normally don’t get pelted with spit balls and worse just because they write poetry and aren’t “interested in the things most girls are” (well, there’s kind of a clue right there–aren’t most friendships based on common interests?). At least they didn’t when I was growing up. Well, whatever. Congrats to you, Jodee, for turning your childhood torment into big money. Congrats for helping to muddy the waters in this multi-culti, PC world of ours where the real “victims” are those who will murder their classmates because they’re so full of love and friendship that no one wants.
Superb article and great comments. Thanks one and all.
I bet these schools will shape up real fast when they start getting sued because of the bullying. After all, a prohibition on self defense implies an obligation on the part of the authorities to protect you. If they fail, it’s because they’re derelict, and therefore need to be sued for negligence. They’ll change the policy when the lawyers make them admit it doesn’t work.
If you want your kids to stand up to a bully, you must give them license.
My daughter was bullied by a boy in her class from grade 5 through 7. My wife always told her, go to the teacher, stay away from him etc. One day we were talking about the situation with my daughter, and I said, what he needs is a good beating.
Two days later I got a call from the school requesting my presence. As walked into school, I saw this boy bathing his eye with a cold cloth. He had the mother of all black eyes. Apparently what had happened was the kids and principal had been playing flag football at recess. The boy had been punching her in the chest. She told the principal ,who said he hadn’t seen it. My wife had told her that if she was really upset, to phone, and my wife would pick her up. As she was going to phone, the boy got in her face. He was lucky the principal literally lifted her off him, as she pummeled him.
She got two days off. On the third day ,as she got on the bus, the bus driver stopped the bus, came back to where she was sitting, and said “I highly applaud what you did”! When she entered the school, she was treated as a hero, by the kids and staff. She had numerous adults in the community commend her. The black eye lasted for a month.
It was interesting her take on the incident. She said , I did something wrong, but the people who should have dealt with him, didn’t. The bullying stopped!
Bullying or what is called bullying has gone on for centuries. Reaction depends on the individual. The woman living below our apartment complained bitterly about my son (then 4) tying something on his stuffed animals and lowering them from our balcony. He did the same thing with his roommate’s stuffed animals when he was a freshman in college. I guess we should all be happy his roommate didn’t commit suicide. My son eventually found another roommate….without the animals…I think children have to learn to cope with strange people and happenings some times. The world operates that way. Unless it is a dangerous situation or an adult is involved with a child, I think the kids will resolve it themselves.
Yet another reason to get rid of public education as it has devolved and start over.
maybe ‘tri-teared’ was just a pun? If, only!