bullies

[Rawedge Rim]

www.telegram.com/article/20100415/NEWS/4150681/1101

Bully list called over the top
School chief: Topic mishandled



By Kim Ring TELEGRAM & GAZETTE STAFF



SPENCER — The mother of an 11-year-old student at Wire Village School said an effort to target bullying there has her feeling her son is being bullied by school officials.

Danielle L. Gebo said she was surprised to hear from the school principal Monday that her son, Thomas J. Gebo, a sixth-grader, ranked in the top six students known for bullying classmates, and that he would be punished because other students had voted for him in a bullying survey conducted in his grade.

“I was told that on Tuesday he would have to report to the cafeteria with the others who met the criteria,” she said. Thomas was kept inside at recess and closely monitored until his mother contacted School Superintendent Ralph E. Hicks, who was unaware of the situation and went to the school, which serves students in Grades 4, 5 and 6, to put an end to the punishment.

“This was mishandled,” Mr. Hicks said last night, adding that the situation was being addressed.

“I talked with Mrs. (Linda) Crewe (the principal). Ultimately the principal is the master of his or her own building and needs to deal with this, but I feel badly that it happened,” he said.

Thomas said he was bothered by the incident and said that when he was asked to list the names of school bullies, he was honest.

“I had picked on a few kids, so I wrote that I bullied some kids and I signed my name,” he said.

Mrs. Gebo said she was surprised that he was bullying classmates and sat him down to talk about it. However, she said she was not surprised he admitted to the bullying. Her son, she said, the middle of three children, is “an honest George.”

A counselor met with Thomas yesterday to go over strategies he can use when he’s being bullied or when he feels like picking on someone else. But the end result of that session didn’t sit well with his mother either, because Thomas told her the counselor suggested that he doesn’t need to share everything that happens at school with her.

“Parents should be poking and prodding their kids about what goes on at school,” Mrs. Gebo said. “We trust these school officials with out kids for six hours a day.”

School Committee Chairman Peter D. Rock said the incident has him concerned and it could be a topic at the committee’s next meeting in May. He said it seems that the suicide of South Hadley High School student Phoebe Prince, after what the district attorney there termed as “unrelenting” bullying, has raised awareness to a level that may have some people overreacting.

“Given what happened in South Hadley, I think people are being very cautious and sensitive,” Mr. Rock said. “Unfortunately, sometimes people act in haste and make mistakes.”

Mr. Rock said the bully lists may not have produced factual information, and it would be wrong to “take a direct action from a survey like this.”

Mrs. Gebo said her son was not the only one singled out and treated differently after being labeled a bully.

She said she is disappointed that other parents aren’t speaking out on behalf of their children. She said an anti-bullying program was held at the school earlier this year and that should have been sufficient, because students were provided with information about what to do if they feel they’re being bullied.

She also wondered if more aggressive bullies, who target just one student and got a single vote, may have been overlooked.

Despite the situation, Thomas said he isn’t worried about going to school today, and hopes the whole incident is behind him.

“I know how it feels now (to be bullied), and we shouldn’t be bullying people,” he said. “Now maybe the teachers will stop talking about it and I can get back to learning things.”

Efforts to reach Mrs. Crewe last night were unsuccessful. A man who answered the telephone at her home said she was attending a church meeting.

On television the other day, the mother wanted the teacher fired for this.

Her son is picked as one of the top bullies and she's worried about how the teachers are treating her poor misunderstood child.

Frankly I think they should keep the list, and actually spend more time watching these kids who have been identified by thier peers as bullies.

Any discussion out there on this?

[Avatar]

I don't think they should take the claims of other kids as indisputable truth, but it should certainly be enough to warrant some extra vigilance where the accused are concerned.

--A

[finn]

The subject of bullying goes everywhere, in schools, at play, right up to the workplace or social and club activities or the crowd in the pub. I hate bullying with a passion partly because of my own shame in having been a bully when a small kid. I went from being bullied in one school of big kids to be able to be the bully in another school of smaller kids. I didn't beat up on other kids, but was happy to be a part of a group that picked on people. I still feel terrible when I think of what I did, but I knew no better then and did not see or understand the harm to the other person, just the fun had at their expense.

I was like that for a couple of years and even when confronted I didn't see it as any big deal. I grew out of it at about 11, but had times (and still have times) where people want to seek dominance and try to bully me or people I know. As a result I stand my ground and will not accept bullying and I will not stand by idle when I see it elsewhere. But what do you do with kids? I was not born that way nor were any other people who have made fun of other kids. How often do we hear the expression "kids are cruel". Was my bullying a result of being bullied or is it just a flexing of size or influence or intellect, the way a young bird flaps its wings before leaving the nest?

Bullying is a part of school life, part of the rough and tumble in the playground it always has been and probabaly always will be, its no different in the workplace where hazing and challenge and conquest or submission dictate your place in the heirachy. Is the boss who bullies a person to work the weekend a bully or a manager getting the most out of his workforce. Is bullying a natural part of the human psyche, one we certainly need to control in ourselves, but one which kids do not have the maturity to manage?

In this case one might ask if the method of determining the bullies was of itself a form of bullying?

I do not see myself as having been an evil child and have no insights even now as to why I behaved the way I did, though I cringe at the memories of those people who I hurt. Equally I still seeth at the memory of a couple of kids who bullied me and I'd like to meet them today and seriously slap them around as payback. But it all gone and part of the past and not something I can change. As such I abhor bullies now but I do not think they are unnatural or evil as such, just kids who know no better till they are told or grow out of it and its up to adults to identify and steer that course with them. Teachers will see this in the playground setting far better than parents will and are more likely to be experienced in dealing with this.

[Cagliostro]

I got bullied and I did a bit of bullying. Some of my friends that participated in the bullying feel guilty. I feel a bit bad, but I don't think we were too cruel, mainly because the ones we bullied we just always around us; we never actively pursued them - they pursued us. We were never violent, to my memory. And I paid my karmic penance a few years later, threefold. I learned and would not do that these days. I was a dumb kid, and don't hold grudges toward anyone except some guy in high school that hadn't outgrown it all, and should have been old enough to know better. Then again, I've worked with some bullies as well.

As for the Bully List, I wholeheartedly agree with this. With it all being anonymous, it seems like a good way to work out who the jerks are. I don't know if publically singling them out in the school is the right answer. Shame can sometimes make a jerk meaner. And shifting the responsibility to the parent seems a bit dubious as well since sometimes the parents can be bullies as well. Maybe stick them with the school counselor - that'll punish the little ruffians! The times I ever had to deal with school counselors was nothing I ever wanted to do.

[High Lord Tolkien]

the counselor suggested that he doesn’t need to share everything that happens at school with her [mother].

If the above happened to my kids I'd want everyone in the school fired I'd be so pissed.

It was a good idea but handled horribly.[/url]

[SerScot]

HLT,

Agreed. I'd be profounded disturbed if a school official suggested my child should hide things from me.

[aliantha]

I was bullied a lot when I was a kid. I don't recall ever bullying anyone else.

I find it fascinating that the first thing this kid's mom did when she heard about it was to call the superintendent. And RR says the mom is also telling the TV people that the teacher ought to be fired. Where do you suppose the kid learned intimidation tactics from?

[Rawedge Rim]

The subject of bullying goes everywhere, in schools, at play, right up to the workplace or social and club activities or the crowd in the pub. I hate bullying with a passion partly because of my own shame in having been a bully when a small kid. I went from being bullied in one school of big kids to be able to be the bully in another school of smaller kids. I didn't beat up on other kids, but was happy to be a part of a group that picked on people. I still feel terrible when I think of what I did, but I knew no better then and did not see or understand the harm to the other person, just the fun had at their expense.

I was like that for a couple of years and even when confronted I didn't see it as any big deal. I grew out of it at about 11, but had times (and still have times) where people want to seek dominance and try to bully me or people I know. As a result I stand my ground and will not accept bullying and I will not stand by idle when I see it elsewhere. But what do you do with kids? I was not born that way nor were any other people who have made fun of other kids. How often do we hear the expression "kids are cruel". Was my bullying a result of being bullied or is it just a flexing of size or influence or intellect, the way a young bird flaps its wings before leaving the nest?

Bullying is a part of school life, part of the rough and tumble in the playground it always has been and probabaly always will be, its no different in the workplace where hazing and challenge and conquest or submission dictate your place in the heirachy. Is the boss who bullies a person to work the weekend a bully or a manager getting the most out of his workforce. Is bullying a natural part of the human psyche, one we certainly need to control in ourselves, but one which kids do not have the maturity to manage?

In this case one might ask if the method of determining the bullies was of itself a form of bullying?

I do not see myself as having been an evil child and have no insights even now as to why I behaved the way I did, though I cringe at the memories of those people who I hurt. Equally I still seeth at the memory of a couple of kids who bullied me and I'd like to meet them today and seriously slap them around as payback. But it all gone and part of the past and not something I can change. As such I abhor bullies now but I do not think they are unnatural or evil as such, just kids who know no better till they are told or grow out of it and its up to adults to identify and steer that course with them. Teachers will see this in the playground setting far better than parents will and are more likely to be experienced in dealing with this.

While I agree that there will always be bullying in school, and certainly people, including children, should learn some coping machinisms and grow a thicker skin, I don't believe that this behavior should be tolerated or ignored.

What galled me was that the kid admitted to bullying, yet the mother's response was to whitewash this detail, and instead attack the teacher who helped "out" her son, rather than deal with the fact that she had a asshole of a kid that she needs to disciple.

[Vraith]

I was bullied a lot when I was a kid. I don't recall ever bullying anyone else.

I find it fascinating that the first thing this kid's mom did when she heard about it was to call the superintendent. And RR says the mom is also telling the TV people that the teacher ought to be fired. Where do you suppose the kid learned intimidation tactics from?

I was a one-trick pony in one of my education classes on this: Just like most molesters were molested [and often it's multi-generational and familial], most bullies were bullied [ditto].

[SerScot]

RR,

While I agree that there will always be bullying in school, and certainly people, including children, should learn some coping machinisms and grow a thicker skin, I don't believe that this behavior should be tolerated or ignored.

The case from New Jersey bothers me a lot for a couple of reasons. First because the girls are accused of battering the girl who commited suicide. That's a crime. It shouldn't have been swept under the rug nor should that behavior have been tolerated. The girls who attacked the victim should have been expelled and prosecuted to the full extent of the law.

Second, the idea that a new law making "bullying" illegal is absurd. There are laws on the books, as I illustrate above, that deal with the serious bullying. While I don't think bullying should be ignored I think any attempt to outlaw bullying at law will fail miserably either by being too narrow or overly broad. We should stick to existing laws that protect people from harrassement and physical attack. If those laws are properly enforced bullying, other than the minor playground variety, should be preventable.

[Blackhawk]

I only had one Bully that really messed with me on a fairly consistent basis, one day I had enough, the guy came up behind me and got me in a headlock.. I elbowed him in the gut and he let go of me... you can imagine what followed, I said LEave me alone you F***ing A**hole.. so he wanted to fight after school in the sandlot that was undeveloped land across the street from school.(Cliche huh?) everyone knew about it so of course..everyone showed up..I was Nervous as hell.. especially with the 70+ crowd of kids, a couple Other bullies were there too talking with the Main Bully laughing like it was a joke and no contest for him to fight me..

well....sadly for him I beat the Living sh*t out of him.. eventually his younger brother jumped in and was crying telling me to stop... of course once i realized how bad it was i did stop. I would have stopped sooner but this guy did not want to let it end until his brother tried to break it up.

in retrospect, On one hand i feel bad for beating the guy so badly, but on the other hand i felt pretty good, because that guy never picked on one single kid from that point on..(from what i was told) so I guess i made life easier for quite a few kids that day.. some of the kids who rode the bus with him, told me that he doesnt pick on them anymore either. what surprised me was that i didnt get into any trouble over this. I know teachers had to know about it...but no one said anything to me.

(I guess they knew he eventually had it coming - was the only reason that i can think now why I never got called to the office or suspended)

I never did like fighting.. mostly because i dont like hurting people physical or mental, and I think that kid having been beaten so badly in front of so many hurt his reputation and pride more than the physical part of the fight did.. maybe ..i dont know for sure..

guess i might as well tell you the rest of the story that followed a few years later... about 4 years or so.

Years later someone came into my hometown hangout.. (The Canyon) and wrote all kinds of messed up stuff about me in Large blue strokes of Ink..then i found a big magic marker that someone pulled the ink sponge inside it out to write with.... and after some research I found out it was his younger brother, how did I find this out??? well.. the job he did was pretty messy so I just looked for people that had blue ink staining their fingers at school..(I was in Highschool by this time).. and yep.. I found him and his hands were all Blue.. He and one of his friends told me he dies carnations and thats why his hands are blue..not likely cuz i knew and asked other kids who also worked at a nursery and they said you dont get your hands blue from dying carnations because you dont put your hands in the ink.. anyway, i didnt give him any more than a warning, I just told him to clean up the mess he made at my hangout and dont ever pull something like that again. I knew why he did it, his brother was who he looked up to.


I am an only child so never got bullied by an older sibling so I never had the feeling that i needed to take out my frustration on someone smaller than me... could this be one of the reasons that bullies exist?? I know older brothers and sisters usually pick on thier younger brother/sister, does that possibly create a next generation of bully? I guess there could be MANY reasons why a kid feels the need to pick on the smaller more vulnerable kids, I just dont see it. but someone being picked on by an older sibling sounds like a pretty good reason to me.

does it mention if this kid has siblings? i couldnt find it anywhere in the article.

[aliantha]

What galled me was that the kid admitted to bullying, yet the mother's response was to whitewash this detail, and instead attack the teacher who helped "out" her son, rather than deal with the fact that she had a asshole of a kid that she needs to disciple.

My point exactly. Mom reacted to a charge of bullying against her son by...bullying.

And yeah, Vraith, you're right, apples don't fall far from the tree, whether we're talking about molesters or bullies.

I was the youngest in my family. Pretty sure I haven't bullied anybody, tho I was targeted a fair amount, as I said. But I dunno, maybe I'm the exception that proves the rule.

[finn]

RR,

Firstly, I posted (earlier) when I was in a bit of a hurry, so points I was trying to make were still unformed properly and not thought through; my apologies.

What I was trying to say was that this is a much bigger topic than I think many have yet yet seen (or we'd be 5 pages deep by now). Bullying is a part of life and not the best part, most people are exposed to it daily and it shapes lives to a far greater extent (imo) than many of the so called "important" issues we discuss. As such if we take this thread anywhere we probably need to identify bullying in its various incarnations. For me, bullying up to say 10-11years old, is not the work of an evil child or an arsehole of a kid, but may indeed be laid at the door of the parents, tho' not necessarily exclusively.

Bullying by teenagers is far nastier and potentially more brutal and kids of this age probably have become small monsters. Then we have the workplace and social environmentys where the small monsters become either bigger monsters or more subtle or devious machiavellian types. Bullying is prevalent in most personal relationships to a greater or lesser extent and certainly in the political world where it is a central tool of party politics right up to Statecraft. How much bigotry walks hand in hand with bullying.

Dealing with bullying at this level, I have to agree that the mother's reaction was one of denial of both the kids' actions and her own culpability as the parent...... apples/fall/trees etc. The mothers reaction was about defending herself as much as her kid by turning the blame onto teachers. This brings me to the defending of the "rights" of parents to have control of the conditions of their kids environments and the idea that trained professionals who look after kids of all shapes and sizes are less able to deal with their kids than they 'as parents' are. There are of course occasions when schools/teachers go outside the norms, we see them as they always get airtime, but seldom are they put in context or identified as one incident out of millions of good calls and good judgement and care provided every day. I'm not saying they are perfect, but they are the people designated to teach the kids and they are also on the sharp end of the parents deficiencies as acted out by the kids.

I also think there is a certain rough and tumble in all walks of life, but toughening up and developing life's callouses should be by way of constant exposure rather than the trauma of bullying.

Rawedge Rim wrote:
What galled me was that the kid admitted to bullying, yet the mother's response was to whitewash this detail, and instead attack the teacher who helped "out" her son, rather than deal with the fact that she had a asshole of a kid that she needs to disciple.

I'm afraid, I tend more towards the kid having an arsehole of a parent................

[Avatar]

I don't think a law against bullying would do any good myself. As SerScot pointed out, there are laws against crimes like personal injury and intimidation.

I'm of two minds really...I have a lot of sympathy for RR's comment that people need to learn to cope, grow thicker skins, and stand up for themselves too.

But that's not the same as saying bullying is acceptable either.

--A

[Rawedge Rim]

I'm for getting parents more involved with this bullying thing, as far as handing out sanctions. If a parent has been informed that thier child is participating in bullying, and the child persists, perhaps we can look at finding some kind of sanctions against the family, such as fines or something. That shoud get the attention of some of these parents, and of course, we need to convince some of these parents that "YES, LITTLE JOHNNY\JANE CAN AND DOES ACT LIKE THAT"

[aliantha]

I'm for getting parents more involved with this bullying thing, as far as handing out sanctions. If a parent has been informed that thier child is participating in bullying, and the child persists, perhaps we can look at finding some kind of sanctions against the family, such as fines or something. That shoud get the attention of some of these parents, and of course, we need to convince some of these parents that "YES, LITTLE JOHNNY\JANE CAN AND DOES ACT LIKE THAT"

I would be onboard with that.

[Avatar]

Yeah, me too.

--A