Bullying
Terese Peterson
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Schools address bullying issuePrograms aim to stem violence before it eruptsBy SCOTT WILLIAMS
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 Photo/Ronald M. Overdahl Guidance counselor Kathy Ziminski works with third-grader Alec Austin on a problem of asserting yourself in the face of a bully during a class at Wales Elementary School. Ziminski presented a problem and Austin applied one of several skills to resolve to the issue. |
Ziminski, a counselor at Wales Elementary School, knew instantly she had hit on a relevant topic.
School officials throughout Waukesha County are likewise finding students eager to confront bullying, after outbreaks of deadly violence across the country at schools where students have engaged in harassing or teasing one another.
"Bullying happens," Ziminski said. "If we close our minds to the fact, we're not being very realistic."
The issue hit home recently when an eighth-grader at Pilgrim Park Middle School in Elm Grove was accused of taking a gun and 100 rounds of ammunition to school.
According to Waukesha County juvenile court records, the 14-year-old boy had struggled for acceptance at school while being taunted by classmates who called him "four eyes" because he wears glasses.
Such name-calling, and the occasional scuffle that results, is as old as playgrounds themselves.
But mass shootings at Columbine High School in Colorado and elsewhere have shown that students bullied by classmates sometimes strike back with deadly consequences.
Despite having facilities outfitted with high-tech security to guard against intruders from the outside, school administrators now find they must work to calm the threat of instability from within.
"All the video cameras and metal detectors can only go so far," said Erin Gauthier, safety manager for the Palmyra-Eagle School District. "We have to get to the root cause."
For a growing number of schools, that means expanded programming to teach students as early as kindergarten the importance of tolerating differences, airing grievances and resolving conflicts.
Doug Meske, an Elm Grove psychotherapist, said school must be a place where students work together to understand a culture that bombards them with daily messages of violence through television, music and the news media.
Meske has counseled teachers and school administrators on preventing violence through what he calls "rage management" - giving students an outlet to vent frustration about being taunted or teased.
Often, he said, the classroom can provide an appropriate forum.
"Otherwise, where does that kid go with the pain? Before you know it, a child feels like it's hopeless."
Many schools in Waukesha County provide students with anti-bullying instruction, often part of a broader curriculum sometimes called "character education." But in light of the perceived threat of common schoolyard conflicts erupting into serious violence, some administrators are trying new approaches.
In Mukwonago, elementary school students receive training through Second Step, one of several programs marketed to schools by private companies in packages of videos, pamphlets and other materials. The prices range from about $100 to more than $500 a classroom.
Maxine Towles, director of pupil services for the Mukwonago School District, said officials also are expanding into the high school a "peer listener" program, which teaches students to report any threat of conflict or violence that they overhear.
"I don't think any student should have to face teasing," Towles said. "We take it very seriously."
Mukwonago High School has formed a Respect Committee to emphasize the importance of students tolerating differences in cultural backgrounds, personal appearances and other issues that could become fodder for bullies.
A group of students at the high school recently prepared a video intended to warn students about the risks of violence on campus.
Mukwonago High School counselor Jay Christiansen said the peaceful atmosphere inside a school can change quickly if students and teachers are not trained to recognize and combat signs of bullying.
"All of a sudden you have a big pack of bullies creating a different environment," he said. "It's happened in other nice schools."
The Elmbrook School District, which includes the school where the recent gun scare occurred, also offers Second Step training in its elementary schools, as well as other programs in middle and high schools.
Two years ago, a traveling theatrical troupe performed skits at one Elmbrook high school to dramatize ways of avoiding student-on-student harassment.
Elmbrook Superintendent Matt Gibson said officials investigating the March 7 gun incident at Pilgrim Park Middle School have not found a connection to any previous teasing or taunting of the eighth-grade boy.
Gibson added that although the Brookfield-based school district gets its share of student bullies, its efforts at discouraging harassment seem to be having an effect.
"It's been a big deal in all of the schools," he said. "We've made progress."
In Oconomowoc, counselors refer students as early as third grade for peer mediation, allowing classmates to help resolve disputes between bullies and their victims. The school district also has begun a program called Caring Teens, which brings students together once a month to discuss issues related to tolerance.
Oconomowoc school psychologist Kris Seikert said she credits administrators in many area school districts with aggressively attacking the problem of bullying.
Seikert serves on a crisis response team that has provided counseling at the scene of school shootings in Pennsylvania and Oregon within the past couple of years.
Seikert said entire communities have to rally to discourage the sort of teasing and taunting the can lead to violence in schools.
"It really has to be parents and schools working together and saying, 'No, this is unacceptable,' " she said.
In the Kettle-Moraine School District, the anti-bullying program started at Wales Elementary School has been expanded to all four elementary schools.
Kathy Johnson, who has two children, applauds the school district's efforts.
Johnson, co-chairman of the Wales Elementary PTA, said one of them was bullied last year.
The situation was resolved quickly after a meeting with the principal, and Johnson is comforted knowing that the schools are actively working to defuse or avoid other such conflicts.
"They just can't start early enough. It makes for a better all-around school community."
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Kathy Ziminski, | | |
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Bullying happens. If we close our minds to the fact, we're not being very realistic.
Not everyone agrees that area schools are responding well to the issue.
Michael Brown, a psychologist who participated in a Brookfield public forum on the subject two years ago, said schools could be doing much more to promote tolerance.
Brown said students with behavioral disorders should be moved into mainstream classrooms rather than segregated in "special education" settings. Brown said segregation encourages labeling of those students and invites teasing by others.
"We now isolate kids. We send them to nurse's station at noon to take their meds."
Brown questioned whether recent attention to playground bullying is no more than lip service.
"We're talking about it more, but I really haven't seen any good programs."
Detective Steve Pederson of the Waukesha County Sheriff's Department said he has been impressed by school response to bullying as a potential cause of violence.
Pederson noted that the DARE anti-drug abuse curriculum teaches kids to avoid bullying when the program addresses issues related to peer pressure. He credited schools with developing other programs to confront the issue.
But he acknowledged that efforts to reduce problems like bullying and drug abuse are difficult to track and document.
"You can't measure the successes," Pederson said, "because you might not hear anything."
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[email protected]
> I've been wondering if bullying is any less common in schools inany other
> cultures. Is this a worldwide thing that we see with compulsoryschool?
> Or, in cultures that are less enthusiastic about violence (guns)are the
> school kids any more gentle with each other?*I think it's a world-wide problem. In Japan, where guns are
illegal, kids use knives. Bullying is supposed to be hush-hush, and
the victim is blamed, not the bully. After two years of teaching
over there, I quit. But everyday in the paper, there would be one or
two school murder stories. (and they think the US is the only place
where violence is a problem...)
Melanie in Indiana - grateful to be back
Betsy Hill
>While it great that schools have finallyI've been wondering if bullying is any less common in schools in any other
>decided that bullying should not be tolerated, I think there is no way
>it can be stopped or even monitored in a large group setting.
cultures. Is this a worldwide thing that we see with compulsory school?
Or, in cultures that are less enthusiastic about violence (guns) are the
school kids any more gentle with each other?
Betsy
Tracy Oldfield
schools (the ones
you pay to attend) have been horrible. I recall
Wellington saying that
the battle of Waterloo had been won long ago on the
playing fields of
Eton. At least in that time period, it wasn't a very
safe place to be.
Many contemporary works of fiction also portray those
schools as being
places where one must conform at all costs. Maybe some
of our UK members
can speak to the reality though!
I can only speak to the reality of the day-school I
went to from 11 to 16yo. It was an all-girls school,
and the bullying I experienced was basically of the
'snob' variety... previously to that I'd experienced
emotional and physical bullying from the age of 6 when
I moved schools, I was 'different' and played with a
girl who had already been ostracised and I became
tarred with the same brush.
My perceptions of schools are that it doesn't really
matter what kind of school it is, they are all
coercive, some in different ways to others. Even
Summerhill which has got to be the least coercive of
them all still has an 'ethos' which someone would find
coercive.
It's endemic, and basically what schools are for, IMO.
Tracy
Eileen M.
homeschool, primarily for this reason. I feel like
kicking *myself* for not seeing homeschooling as an
option until now (he'll be in 6th grade next year).
What amazes me is that my parents still mouth the
'have to learn to deal with the real world' stuff to
me, when they watched my sister being tortured and
watched me go through a 'nervous breakdown' in middle
school for exactly those reasons.
I don't think there is any way to adequately keep
track of 30 or more kids at a time, either...
especially the older ones, who *know* through
experience how to escape the view of adults while
doing something that they know would get them in
trouble if caught. The school officials (teachers,
principal, etc) ask the offender and the victim to
explain the problem, they both tell different stories,
and even though the offender is a child who is
*repeatedly* a problem with multiple victims the
officials shrug and say 'he said-he said problem, how
can we be expected to know what the real story is?'...
and my child comes home with scrapes and destroyed
clothes and (much worse) damaged psyche. When I cite
this as a reason for pulling him out, everyone squeaks
about socialization. Why would my child benefit from
*that* sort of 'socialization'? I've actually been
told that it is my responsibility to keep my child in
school in order to help the other kids learn how to be
kinder and more thoughtful towards others who are
'different'. Since when was it my child's duty to
allow himself to be tortured for the good of society,
when 'society' obviously values him so little?
--- Terese Peterson <tpeterson@...>
wrote:
> Bullying is one of the main reasons I homeschool. I__________________________________________________
> can't see tossing
> my precious children into situations where they have
> to fend for
> themselves and being unable to protect them. "They
> have to learn to
> deal with it" is a ludicrous statement to make!
Do You Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Auctions - buy the things you want at great prices
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Diana Tashjian
----- Original Message -----From: Tracy OldfieldEven
Summerhill which has got to be the least coercive of
them all still has an 'ethos' which someone would find
coercive.
Tracy Oldfield
schools in any other
cultures. Is this a worldwide thing that we see with
compulsory school?
Or, in cultures that are less enthusiastic about
violence (guns) are the
school kids any more gentle with each other?
Betsy
Physical violence may be less, but emotional bullying
can be just as if not more damaging in the long term.
I believe I'm still recovering, and I left school 11
years ago. The sad part of this is the effect on my
daughters, who are really bearing the brunt of my
'rudderlessness' which I believe is a direct result of
'schooling.'
Tracy
Tracy Oldfield
> Hi Tracy,I'm no expert on this, but from what I've read in the past, it seems
>
> I'm fascinated with the Sudbury schools - could you please elaborate
> on what you said below?
>
> Thanks,
> Diana Tashjian
that Summerhill works by democratic process. Now the problem
here is that unless every vote was unanimous (which it ain't gonna
be) someone's opinion is going to be discarded. This isn't
therefore, non-coercive common preference...
Tracy
Diana Tashjian
----- Original Message -----From: Tracy OldfieldSent: Monday, April 23, 2001 5:04 PMSubject: Re: [Unschooling-dotcom] Bullying> Hi Tracy,
>
> I'm fascinated with the Sudbury schools - could you please elaborate
> on what you said below?
>
> Thanks,
> Diana Tashjian
I'm no expert on this, but from what I've read in the past, it seems
that Summerhill works by democratic process. Now the problem
here is that unless every vote was unanimous (which it ain't gonna
be) someone's opinion is going to be discarded. This isn't
therefore, non-coercive common preference...
Tracy
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Johanna
Life is the ultimate learning experience!
----- Original Message -----From: Cindy FergusonSent: Monday, April 23, 2001 4:43 PMSubject: Re: [Unschooling-dotcom] Bullying
Betsy Hill wrote:
>
> >While it great that schools have finally
> >decided that bullying should not be tolerated, I think there is no way
> >it can be stopped or even monitored in a large group setting.
>
> I've been wondering if bullying is any less common in schools in any other
> cultures. Is this a worldwide thing that we see with compulsory school?
> Or, in cultures that are less enthusiastic about violence (guns) are the
> school kids any more gentle with each other?
>
I think some areas are worse. I think British public schools (the ones
you pay to attend) have been horrible. I recall Wellington saying that
the battle of Waterloo had been won long ago on the playing fields of
Eton. At least in that time period, it wasn't a very safe place to be.
Many contemporary works of fiction also portray those schools as being
places where one must conform at all costs. Maybe some of our UK members
can speak to the reality though!
--
Cindy Ferguson
crma@...
Message boards, timely articles, a free newsletter and more!
Check it all out at: http://www.unschooling.com
To unsubscribe, set preferences, or read archives:
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Another great list sponsored by Home Education Magazine!
http://www.home-ed-magazine.com
Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to the Yahoo! Terms of Service.
Johanna
Life is the ultimate learning experience!
----- Original Message -----From: Eileen M.Sent: Monday, April 23, 2001 5:57 PMSubject: Re: [Unschooling-dotcom] BullyingI am FINALLY pulling my child out of school to
homeschool, primarily for this reason. I feel like
kicking *myself* for not seeing homeschooling as an
option until now (he'll be in 6th grade next year).
What amazes me is that my parents still mouth the
'have to learn to deal with the real world' stuff to
me, when they watched my sister being tortured and
watched me go through a 'nervous breakdown' in middle
school for exactly those reasons.
I don't think there is any way to adequately keep
track of 30 or more kids at a time, either...
especially the older ones, who *know* through
experience how to escape the view of adults while
doing something that they know would get them in
trouble if caught. The school officials (teachers,
principal, etc) ask the offender and the victim to
explain the problem, they both tell different stories,
and even though the offender is a child who is
*repeatedly* a problem with multiple victims the
officials shrug and say 'he said-he said problem, how
can we be expected to know what the real story is?'...
and my child comes home with scrapes and destroyed
clothes and (much worse) damaged psyche. When I cite
this as a reason for pulling him out, everyone squeaks
about socialization. Why would my child benefit from
*that* sort of 'socialization'? I've actually been
told that it is my responsibility to keep my child in
school in order to help the other kids learn how to be
kinder and more thoughtful towards others who are
'different'. Since when was it my child's duty to
allow himself to be tortured for the good of society,
when 'society' obviously values him so little?
--- Terese Peterson <tpeterson@...>
wrote:
> Bullying is one of the main reasons I homeschool. I
> can't see tossing
> my precious children into situations where they have
> to fend for
> themselves and being unable to protect them. "They
> have to learn to
> deal with it" is a ludicrous statement to make!
__________________________________________________
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Another great list sponsored by Home Education Magazine!
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Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to the Yahoo! Terms of Service.
[email protected]
<tracy.oldfield@n...> wrote:
> I think some areas are worse. I think British publicLOL....... *Billy Bunter* comes to mind. Now *I* really am giving my
> schools (the ones
> you pay to attend) have been horrible.
age away. I bet there aren't many on this board that have heard of
Billy Bunter!!!!
I'm trying to be anonamous!!!(sp)
Johanna
Life is the ultimate learning experience!
----- Original Message -----From: tonitoni@...Sent: Monday, April 23, 2001 11:39 PMSubject: [Unschooling-dotcom] Re: Bullying--- In Unschooling-dotcom@y..., "Tracy Oldfield"
<tracy.oldfield@n...> wrote:
> I think some areas are worse. I think British public
> schools (the ones
> you pay to attend) have been horrible.
LOL....... *Billy Bunter* comes to mind. Now *I* really am giving my
age away. I bet there aren't many on this board that have heard of
Billy Bunter!!!!
I'm trying to be anonamous!!!(sp)
Message boards, timely articles, a free newsletter and more!
Check it all out at: http://www.unschooling.com
To unsubscribe, set preferences, or read archives:
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Another great list sponsored by Home Education Magazine!
http://www.home-ed-magazine.com
Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to the Yahoo! Terms of Service.
[email protected]
> right Marianne! like we don't know it's you. Now I am going to havto find out who Billy Bunter is.
>Spoil sport!!!!!!
marianne
[email protected]
<< I am FINALLY pulling my child out of school ....(he'll be in 6th grade
next year). >>
Not if you pull him out of school!!! <bwg>
Start now undoing school-life, school-thinking, school-"years" etc.
Sandra
Eileen M.
MAT-7s at school... the fourth achievement test this
year, for gawd's sake. We agreed that although we
have to do one test a year when homeschooling, he
*didn't* want to know how they come out, even if he
does really well (his scores are usually between upper
70s and beyond the testing range). Our first baby
step in shedding the tyranny of schooledness!
Eileen
--- SandraDodd@... wrote:
>__________________________________________________
> In a message dated 4/23/01 5:08:57 PM,
> ravensegg@... writes:
>
> << I am FINALLY pulling my child out of school
> ....(he'll be in 6th grade
> next year). >>
>
>
> Not if you pull him out of school!!! <bwg>
>
> Start now undoing school-life, school-thinking,
> school-"years" etc.
>
> Sandra
>
>
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