Culture

Bullying: What Can You Do?

by laurenatc | May 26, 2009 at 06:58 am

247 views | 26 Recommendations | 6 comments

A couple weeks ago, I attended Anti-Defamation League’s Cyberbullying Symposium along with 200+ students, educators and school leaders. The keynote speaker was John Halligan, a name many of you remember from the influx of TV interviews, news articles and speaking engagements surrounding the suicide of his 13-year old son Ryan Halligan. This happened in 2003 and it’s still happening, most recently with Carl Walker-Hoover and Jaheem Herrera.

Recently the mothers of Carl and Jaheem were on Oprah speaking their son’s stories and talking about why school bullying is more than just “kids just being kids”. In lieu of the episode, Oprah.com has pulled together the parents’ stories plus some information about bullying: how you can help, signs of depression, dealing with bullies and the bullied, and so on. There’s also Remembering Ryan Halligan, a 3+ minute video featuring John and Kelly Halligan speaking about what happened to Ryan.

At this point, most educators, parents and students understand that bullying is indeed a real problem and are wondering what to do. An important first step is to learn more about bullying, realize that it’s not harmless or fixable by simple conflict resolution, that it’s an exploitation of power that needs to be addressed with both the bully and the bullied. Realize that, as an educator, parent or student, standing by or doing nothing makes you a passive bystander who indirectly permits bullying and often fuels the fire.

To learn more, I recommend starting at these 4 places:

Read Ryan’s Story at John Halligan’s site
View Addressing Bullying in Schools, a great PowerPoint presentation about bullying (may take a second to load)
If you’re a parent, read The Matter of Bullying and Creating a Safe and Caring Home
Learn more about bullying in general at Bullying at School and Online

Then what? You can also take John Halligan’s route, and focus on changing the legislation in your home, school or state. John changed the legislation in Vermont, but there are still countless states without anti-bullying laws in place (New York included). To learn more about our children’s rights, check out:

BullyPolice.org – How States are “Graded” on their Anti-Bullying Laws

Like the Anti-Defamation League, you too can get a group together (big, small, formal, informal) and talk about the appearance and impact of bullying. In addition to John’s site above, here are two more great resources to get the conversation going with kids:

The Importance of Not Being a Bystander (PBS)

Stop Bullying Now – Games, Webisodes and Information

Please also get involved in Bully Bust 2009, a bullying awareness campaign slated to start at the end of the May. We’ll be filling Bully Bust with practical directives on what you can do, including downloadable tools for kids, educators and parents, an actionable pledge and comprehensive information on bullying in general and “upstander” behavior in particular. Come fall 2009, schools will also be able to participate in a project that empowers students to stand up and be upstanders to bullying and harassment in a way that is administratively easy and rewarding to the whole school community. (To join the community-led concerted effort, click “Join our Cause” and enter your email address at http://www.bullybust.org or join our FB group here.)

It’s important not to let the conversation stop. Please share more resources – favorite websites, words of support, stories – in the comments below.

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Beaulieu

at 13:42 on May 26th, 2009

Thanks for bringing this important subject. As an anti-bullying campaigner myself, this is a very important issue and it won't ever go away unless people stand up to the bullies, whether at school or the workplace. I recommend to anyone who has been bullied to keep a diary of all 'events' with witnesses and encourage teachers to 'keep a file' on all incidents too, also to keep the police informed. The victim could lose their education or commit suicide unless something is done to protect them.

I notice that school buses do not have adult teachers or parents on them, which leaves kids wide open to bullying.

laurenatc

at 05:21 on May 27th, 2009

Thanks for your comment. It's true, kids constantly talk about buses and bathrooms about being prime areas of bullying. It's upsetting to see such a pattern.

It's great you're campaigning. What are some things that you see taking hold and making change?

Rhonda J Mangus

at 16:38 on May 26th, 2009

laurenatc, thank you very much for this story and links. There are several factors at play here, however. Primary, the fact that "school officials" are turning a blind eye to the harassment and bullying of students (often perceiving the bullied student as the problem), and under-reporting violent incidents (I reference here, particularly, NYS).

Thanks again!

laurenatc

at 05:22 on May 27th, 2009

You're right, this is definitely something we see happening in schools, too. It's so upsetting. How do you get through to these folks? How is the policy work going?

My post arose from starting at the ground level with educators and looking at the sites that have been impacting them and their kids. But I would love to learn more about how we can corrall our efforts to make a larger change.