Are Our Schools Condoning Bullying?
This week has brought us a story of a 68 year old bus monitor who was taunted and ridiculed by the 12 and 13 year old children on the bus she was monitoring. There is a video of the abuse, which I won’t link to here. If you want to find it, I’m sure you can do a quick Google search.
The question my mother and I had (my mother is in her early 70’s) was: why on earth did the bus monitor put up with any of this?
It was obvious to me that this bullying had been occurring for some time. This was not the first incident; it was simply one in a long line of dreadful days for this woman. If some kid had not taped it and put it on youtube, we might still not know about what happened. From what is on the news reports, the woman never said a word, never put the children in their place verbally or physically, and she did not report their behavior to anyone.
That she did not stand up for herself bothers me a great deal. I am a firm believe in the saying that no one can take advantage of you without your permission. Bullying is someone taking advantage of you, and this woman was being bullied. She was an adult, these were children. Why didn’t she just be a mom, be an adult, and take the appropriate steps to end the bullying? I know I would not have just sat there. Those kids, all kids, need to know who’s boss, and when adults cower in front of children, it certainly sends the wrong message.
In talking with some of my other friends about this incident, some of whom are teachers, it turns out that oftentimes, teachers and school staff are told to “not react” and “not punish” when things like this happen. Schools are afraid of being sued, or of having to deal with an angry parent and the potential for a news camera to be pointed at them. So, the way to avoid this is to tell the teachers, the bus drivers, the bus monitors, not to react, to just “take it” and let it happen.
Really? I thought schools were supposed to be taking a hard line on bullying. I send my daughter to a public school, and believe me, if I thought this was happening at my child’s school, I would be standing in front of the school board during open comments, and I can guarantee I would not be using my inside voice. In my mind, if we are not going to stand up to bullies, of any age and kind, and in fact are going to, from the top down, decide that the best way to deal with a bully is to condone their behavior through tacit approval and non-action because we are scared of them, we are doing no better than condoning bullying directly.
Bullying is a serious matter. I was bullied as a teen, and it was no fun. I have found that ignoring a bully does not work. Only fighting back strips a bully of their power. It takes maturity and guts to stand up for yourself. But you should be doing so. And our schools should not be condoning bullying by telling teachers and staff that they cannot stand up to a bully. This just encourages bullying. And it’s worse because they are encouraging bullying at the administrative level.
I am disgusted to think Tater’s teachers and other school staff may have been told that they cannot take bullies to task, put them in their place, and make the entire classroom a safer place for all children. I am disgusted to think this happens all over the country. This is not how an American acts, if I may be so bold and patriotic to say so. This is not how a human being should act. All of us should be treated with dignity and respect, at all levels.
I hope some parents at the school where this particular incident took place are asking some hard and pointed questions. And if they aren’t getting answers, I hope they keep asking, and using their outside voices if necessary, to make the changes that need to be made.
