Dear Swami, We are shocked and dismayed – dismayed I tell you – that a 14-year-old girl brought knives to class in Gurnee to defend herself against bullying. What’s your take on this event, wise one? Signed: Gasping in Gurnee
Dear Gasping,
What amazes Swami is that professional educators are amazed and surprised that bullying exists in their midst, and they seem equally surprised that they are supposed to do something about it.
In the case of the Wadsworth girl who attends Viking Middle School in Gurnee, we don’t know if any of the alleged bullying is true, but let’s say it is, just for the sake of the discussion. After all, there was some element of her school day that prompted her to take up arms.
A significant percentage of murders and violence inside schools occur because one group is bullying another. It’s so commonly accepted a reality that programs to fight the rise of teen bullying (now made even worse by cyber bullying with cell phones and text messaging) are proliferating everywhere.
Here's what the National Center for Education Statistics says: In 2005, about 28 percent of 12- to 18-year-old students reported having been bullied at school during the last 6 months. Both bullying and being bullied at school are associated with key violence-related behaviors, including carrying weapons, fighting, and sustaining injuries from fighting (Nansel et al. 2003). In the 2005 School Crime Supplement19 to the National Crime Victimization Survey, students ages 12–18 were asked if they had been bullied at school during the previous 6 months.
In 2005, about 28 percent of students reported having been bullied at school during the last 6 months.
Nineteen percent of students said that they had experienced bullying that consisted of being made fun of; 15 percent reported being the subject of rumors; and 9 percent said that they were pushed, shoved, tripped, or spit on. Of those students who had been bullied, 79 percent said that they were bullied inside the school, and 28 percent said that they were bullied outside on school grounds.
Of the students in 2005 who reported being bullied during the previous 6 months, 53 percent said that they had been bullied once or twice during that period, 25 percent had experienced bullying once or twice a month, 11 percent reported being bullied once or twice a week, and 8 percent said that they had been bullied almost daily.
White and Black students (30 and 29 percent) were more likely than Hispanic students to report being bullied in 2005 (22 percent; table 11.1). White students were also more likely than students of Other racial/ethnic groups to report being bullied (30 vs. 25 percent), and to report that they were the subject of rumors than were Hispanic students and students of Other racial/ethnic groups (16 vs. 12 percent).
Of those students who reported bullying incidents that involved being pushed, shoved, tripped, or spit on (9 percent), 24 percent reported that they had sustained an injury as a result. While no measurable differences were found by sex in students’ likelihood of reporting a bullying incident in 2005, among students who reported being bullied, males were more likely than females to report being injured during such an incident (31 vs. 18 percent).
The Wadsworth girl is now under arrest. We don't know if anything is being done about the bullies who pushed her to consider violence.
If the girl at Viking didn’t think she was going to be taken seriously by teachers or administrators, she may have thought that defending herself with steak knifes was the only way. And while Swami is no fan of violence (well, sort of a fan), you should certainly understand why a kid might to turn to violence to protect herself.
Or perhaps out of frustration that no one would take her anxiety and fear seriously.
How could it be that teachers and administrators there aren’t on the lookout for such things? This isn’t 1958, you know.
Gurnee Elementary District 56 Superintendent John Hutton declined to talk about the incident or the girl to reporters but said this to one reporter: The arrest has spurred him and the school board to develop an anti-bullying program for District 56 that could be implemented for the 2008-09 school year.
"Bullying is something that all schools are dealing with," he is quoted as telling a reporter. "One (incident) is too many."
You're looking for shock and dismay? Well, here it is, Pumpkin.
A middle school superintendent is just now considering an anti-bullying program. Has he been in a cave for the last decade? Hello? Does Columbine ring a bell with anyone in Gurnee?
As for his assertion that schools are dealing with bullying, that might be true many places but it does not seem to be true in Gurnee. The super says he COULD get around to a program on this topic eventually.
Was he waiting for murder to occur before implementing a program? Is this is an emergency situation that needs professional response, or not?
And here’s the capper.
The risk to children in Gurnee is so profound, he says they’ll get around to a program sometime in the 2008 school year.
Well, there’s your standard call to emergency action. Can’t get too worked up about this. It’s just kids being kids.
We’ll do something NEXT YEAR!
There was an excellent "anti-bullying" program in place when I was in school a hundred years ago. It was called DISCIPLINE, and it started at the kindergarten level. Unfortunately, it has since been replaced by touchy-feely "counseling" of the offenders and "zero tolerance" punishment of those who attempt to defend themselves.
And the kid who suffers the cuts and bruises can't even bring an aspirin to school to ease her pain.