I was moved by the whole story but the thing that really got me was how it ended. She told us that she finally found the strength to leave Spider after a particularly bad beating he had given her son and then hesitated and almost under her breath said, "but it took me three more relationships with men just like Spider to finally break free of the cycle of violence".
I'm not blaming victims but I do worry about the development of a victim mentality and if we do enough to discourage it from developing in victims of bullying. I not blaming parents of victims but I believe we can do children harm by placing responsibility completely on the bully.
It reminds me of the story last week of the little boy who was being bullied for his choice of backpack and how the school was immediately vilified because someone had the nerve to tell the young man that his choices might be playing some role in what was happening. They didn't tell him he couldn't bring the bag, they explained to him that doing so might create negative attention.
We have to do everything we can to help educate the bullies that the choice of a backpack is not an excuse to hurt someone. But isn't it also our job to educate the young man that choices have consequences while still encouraging him to be an individual with the freedom to make that choice?
It's a basic tenant of human society that no one has the right to physically assault another human being for any reason other than to defend themselves. But looking at people differently based on how they dress or act is also a part of the human condition, especially for young people who's brains aren't even close to be fully cognizant.
Another thing the woman from the DV training told us was that Spider had tattoos all over his chest, arms and neck and it made it very difficult for him to get work. I wonder if anyone ever mentioned that to Spider. You have the right to get tattoos where ever you want, but people might look at you differently if you tattoo your face and neck.
There are more and more people feeling like they are the victim of something, whether it be the government, another race or one kind of "ism" or another and what concerns me is a growing lack of personal responsibility. In my mind the middle path is to teach tolerance and respect AND to teach young people that choices have consequences. It would be a lot harder for the Spider's of this world to exist if they didn't have so victims to chose from.
Wow Rusty...is this where we have come ion the bullying/target conversation. I know in my jurisdiction (Canada and Ontario to be more specific) no one...NO ONE has the right to bully/harm others...at least you got that right. At no point should we be suggesting to our bullied/marginalized students that the harm being inflicted upon them is a result of their choice BECAUSE IT IS NOT! Not sure how you can say that a person has the right to be who they are, backpack, tattoos, clothing...whatever but in the same breath say that their choices may in fact be responsible for the negative behaviours being inflicted on them. Woah...wait until the bullies get hold of that one! I can hear it now, "Sorry, not my fault. He was wearing a Barnie shirt and he knows how much I hate Barnie!"
ReplyDeleteAll for teaching prosocial behaviours to all including those who bully, those who are bullied and those who witness bullying. That is the way forward along with zero acceptance for bullying/harmful behaviour.
Steve
Rusty, your phrasing of the backpack story shows the difficulty of the situation very clearly and if the situation is understood only in the terms you present then true solutions are not at all evident. The individual bully is assumed to lack understanding about harm and the individual victim is assumed to lack understanding about the consequences of making choices. Neither of these assumptions are likely to be the case. Even if they were true then making them understand would still require that understanding to 1) be available to them under the circumstances of stressful situations and 2) be actively applied in some way to change the actions that first occur to them (as demonstrated by their previously observed behavior). Those limitations make it unlikely that anything would change even if the respective understandings are conveyed.
ReplyDeleteThe problem is not really with the moral knowledge of bullies and forecasting abilities of victims. It is with the hidden curriculum of the larger situation. In this view of the situation “victim mentality” is a situational result not a result of deficits in individual minds. In fact, if you would like to read up on how situations can bring about the worst in people I highly recommend Stanford Psychologist Phillip Zimbardo's book The Lucifer Effect. He brought out the worst in college students in a famous study in the 70's and then testified in court several decades later about how another situation brought about remarkably similar behaviors in US soldiers. The real challenge is in how the situation of the children's interactions are structured. (to be continued in my next comment)
My research into patterns of motivation in school settings was directed at schools that have fundamentally different ways of structuring children's interactions in school settings. In contrast to traditional schools where intrinsic motivation has shown declines in every study for over 30 years, there are now schools, including the two I studied, that have evidence to show they maintain intrinsic motivation. The schools operate in very different ways, but they all support self-directed learning.
DeleteOne of the models is known as democratic schools. In democratic schools which are often K-12 they usually have student-run justice boards with school-wide jurisdiction, including jurisdiction over staff (except for employment related issues). These justice systems give even the most timid kindergartner the ability to call anyone to account for behavior that the child is not comfortable with. The principal of the democratic school I studied told me how he had been brought before the justice board on occasion by students. The school also has explicit procedures for mediation to ensure that the justice board is not overwhelmed with trivial matters and that immediate informal resolution is a more likely outcome.
It is clear that the democratic schools still encounter bullies and bullying, but they do not have a bullying problem. Bullying is uncommon and swiftly dealt with in well established democratic schools. The question of what to do about bullying in traditional schools needs to be addressed in terms of how the school structures the situation between the students such that some children are unable to call others to account for their behavior. The bullies cannot maintain their ways in the absence of victims who are powerless to confront them. The truth is that traditional schools do not have a bully problem, they have a victim problem. There will always be bullies. The problem is when there are victims who will reinforce their bullying behaviors. Are there people in the school who are disempowered such that they will not be able to effectively call on the larger community to put the bully in line? A bully without victims will not have their bullying behaviors reinforced. But even if a few reinforcing incidents occur between individuals then there needs to such a negative consequence from the larger community in response to those instances that bullying does not pay off in the long term.
This could probably be interpreted as a call for punitive action by adult authorities, but it is not. The success of the democratic school justice systems is likely a combination of being run by students and being part of a larger school culture that actively recognizes children as having the same basic rights as adults. Those two elements give the consequences doled out by the justice board a moral authority that adults acting on mere formal authority do not. In my view democratic schools have carefully structured their communities so that caring for each other and learning together are central experiences that everyone in the school shares.
I do not believe that traditional schools should suddenly become democratic schools. That would be a disaster. But they can think about their problems differently if they seriously address the power structures that operate on a daily basis in situational terms. I am sure they can figure out how to ensure children have access to power in a way that matters and still do what they do best.