Bullying: How should new laws & policies define bullying?

Dr. Wayne Baker, creator of OurValues.org, is away this week. He has invited Joe Grimm, a nationally known journalist and author to write a guest series on an emerging problem nationwide: Bullying.
Educators and government officials coast to coast are drafting anti-bullying policies. Grimm teaches at the Michigan State University School of Journalism and leads a major new project in which students are reporting on this emerging problem through an MSU student-run website. (Images at right are from the MSU project, which is called The New Bullying. Click on the images to read more.)
This is Joe Grimm’s 1st of five columns …

Bullying is headline news these days—starting with the challenge of simply defining the problem. This is crucial in the process of drafting new laws, developing new programs and organizing anti-bullying events. Anti-bullying games, songs and poems proliferate on the Internet and anti-bullying posters decorate our schools, staking out bully-free zones.

Tell us how you define bullying.

How do you recognize bullying?

Consider some questions we face …

Is it the same as hazing? The term hazing is at the center of some high-profile cases.

“Social exclusion”? This often is described as a harmful, almost secret kind of bullying.

Is it mainly a problem for kids? Bullying apparently isn’t just for children anymore. U.S. Nuclear Regulatory commissioners have accused their chairman before members of Congress of bullying staff. The co-CEO of Archie Comics started an anti-bullying essay-writing program after accusations that she has bullied employees. Newt Gingrich has been accused of bullying the media—and the media are accused of bullying just about everyone.

Are bullying facts overblown? That’s one of the issues a group of my students are looking at as they research and build this project that we’re calling The New Bullying. One teacher has told us that bullying has been around since Cain and Abel. She feels helpless in the face of online aggression, where one cyberbullying fact of life is that it happens long after the students have left the school.

Is our focus on bullying just a fad? One retired school administrator told me that bullying is trendy, “the flavor of the month.”

This week, we will dicsuss some of the facts about bullying, a recent trove of cyberbullying statistics and new types of bullying. You can make a real difference by the comments you add, this week.

What do you think about bullying?

Help us define these issues, so we can help officials define possible solutions.

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Originally published at www.OurValues.org, an online experiment in civil dialogue.

Comments

[davefossil]

Bullying has always been here! I was bullied as a kid repeatedly by boys and girls. Yes, Girls pick on smaller kids and abuse them but no one takes this into account. It is all about same sex bullying. I transferred between schools often due to alcoholic family dynamics and was an outsider everywhere so I turned inward and wasn't too social. It wasn't until the Columbine massacre that "Bullying" entered the lexicon as it is now. A way to try and explain the actions of psychopathic kids (again our denial systems say children couldn't be psychopaths, yet we know some are born this way and not made!) Hazing, on the other hand, is organized abuse through an organization, team, Fraternity/Sorority, etc. and entails a cult of silence so action is taken against the whole institution when discovered. The desire for power and control over another or others has been and always will be with us at all levels; Governments (Syria) to individuals(spousal abuse that leads to murder often) to child abuse. The current situation is a "fad" to my mind wasting resources better used, but that stance outrages Parents who don't know how to deal with their child's dilemma so they want "Society" to do it for them. It is a tough problem to help your kid, but suck it up and deal with it! Society can't make this go away.

[Emily R.]

Bullying definitely isn't a fad, but the media sure makes it seem that way. It seems like every so often, an extreme bullying case will cause a child to commit suicide, and then suddenly everyone remembers bullying is still prevalent in schools and even in some workplaces. I believe bullying comes in all shapes and forms, and sometimes people feel it's easier to just turn their heads and look the other way, like "Oh, they're just being kids. They'll work it out." Unfortunately, that's not the case for all.

[peone]

Comment originally posted on ireport.CNN.com

I recently attended a class on bullying. The most important thing I took away from the class was that our children are not internally motivated any longer but derive their self worth from external motivation. What is dangerous about that is when I grew up, I pretty much was only exposed to people at my same socioeconomic level. As it turns out, we were pretty poor, but I really didn't feel poor growing up since the people that lived near me and attended my school had about the same socioeconomic status as me. We had little television when I grew up and the shows that we watched had characters that reflected the working class lifestyle verses the extravagant lives of the rich and famous. Fast forward to today and you have the poorest kids seeing all the things that they do not have, all the ways that they are deprived. This makes that shift from internal motivation to external motivation problematic since if you base your value and self worth on what you have, then knowing you don't have as much as the people on TV or your friends on facebook create a serious problem. That problem has become evident in the number of children that are now diagnosed with depression, anxiety and narcissism.

When we have no internal self worth and we lack empathy, we are not nice people. People that are not nice bully. At school, I see the kids that are bullied turn right around and bully those they find weaker than themselves.


Something needs to be done. The class suggests that we need to build better community within our schools so that these kids can build self worth within a structured community, the school so that emphasis is taken off the virtual worlds of facebook and television.

[David Crumm]

Comment originally posted on AnnArbor.com

Comment:"In grade school, middle school and high school: I was nicknamed "Big Jack" because: I consistently beat the crap out of bullies (even when outnumbered 5 to 1 or when the bully was bigger than I was). So my definition of bullying is: those hostile victimizing actions which will get your butt kicked when the good guys show up. Granting: female bullies are different and do require different handling. They can be "highlighted" and ostracized - and reported to school authorities if their bullying endangers any of their victims.

No: focusing on bullies is GOOD, NOT a fad: there's never been a time when bullies were accepted and passing laws MAY help to facilitate their undoing. My own experience has been: that it's often parents who encourage (or even cause) bullying by their children.

Cyberbullying: now that's a recent phenomenon. Just a suggestion: in a rational society, such a thing would not exist. The use of computers to provide anonymity is just another way to dodge accountability. Teenage use of computers should be more closely monitored and controlled. These are MINORS who do not yet have the ability to think about personal accountability and their self-restraint is lower than (most) adults. We control their access to firearms, motor vehicles, alcohol and cigarettes. This is just a neglected area that needs to be sewn up."

Comment made by:"Tru2Blu76 "