Changing the Focus

How to Stop Bullying

By Robert Ringer

I warned readers early on that The Cho Factor promised to be a long, and often uncomfortable, journey, and that there were sure to be some sharp turns in the road ahead. So I thought this would be a good time to let you know that, from where I'm sitting, I see a significant number of those sharp turns coming up, starting with today's article.

Thus, I feel morally obliged to give you fair warning that a lot of things I'm going to be writing about may go against the entrenched belief systems of many of my readers - maybe you. If that's the case, rest assured that I fully understand if you should decide to turn back.

Having said this, my next proposal for shutting down the Cho assembly line is to change every school's top priority. It's a proposal that flies in the face of U.S. hysteria over our students not being academically competitive with those of other countries. That hysteria is based on the unchallenged assumption that academic achievement should be the number-one goal of all schools. I strenuously challenge that assumption.

Don't get me wrong. I believe that becoming proficient in mathematics, English composition, science, foreign languages, etc., is extremely important. But I believe that developing good character is even more important. If you want to know how to stop bullying, cultivate virtue.

I believe that it should be made clear to every educator that his/her most important task is to teach goodness - kindness, compassion, and consideration. In fact, I believe goodness should be a mandatory course taught in every school - every day, every quarter, every semester, and every track of every year - from kindergarten through grade twelve. No exceptions.

The ideal would be for goodness to become so ingrained in students' minds that they would fear being ostracized if they were caught being unkind, uncompassionate, or inconsiderate to any classmate. Being labeled a bully, rather than a victim, would be every child's greatest fear. Why should bullying victims - who have done no wrong - be the ones to live in fear? The students who should suffer are the ones who engage in acts of aggression against others.

As things now stand, a majority of educators, consciously or unconsciously, teach students, from the day they first set foot in a classroom, that those who are learning-challenged, emotionally fragile, weak, or different in any way are outcasts. Through everything from ambivalence to malevolence, too many teachers make it clear to their students that such "oddballs" are fair game for taunting, teasing, and both mental and physical bullying.

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My contribution to this debate is that we need to teach everyone as soon as they are old enough to comprehend that they have a responsibility not to cause physical or emotional pain to any living creature.

The message must be that we are all connected to each other and to all living creatures. We have to instill the belief that deliberately hurting living/feeling creatures is wrong, and that if we cause pain, we end up hurting ourselves.

We must teach everyone from the start of their lives that the people who seem strange, foolish or different to us are still our brothers and sisters and that they should be valued. All people feel pain, and that to hurt or harm them either physically or emotionally is the same as hurting ourselves.

Somehow we must teach people that bullying or making fun of anyone is wrong and actually makes the person who does it the smaller/lesser person. We must show the successful, the popular and the pretty that they have been blessed and that they have a responsibility to treat everyone else with respect because, otherwise, they will not be worthy of their good fortune/gifts. - Kel

(RJR comment: Be careful not to misread Kel's words. He/she is not suggesting that it would be desirable for "society" to strive to make people equal, nor that gifted or otherwise blessed children should be brought down to a lower, common denominator. It seems clear to me that Kel is suggesting only that children should be taught the importance of practicing kindness and compassion to those not as fortunate as they are.)

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In the 1970s, a young lady by the name of Janis Ian wrote a heart-wrenching song titled "At Seventeen." The lyrics to that song include the following:

To those of us who knew the pain
Of valentines that never came,
And those whose names were never called
When choosing sides for basketball.
It was long ago, and far away,
The world was younger than today,
And dreams were all they gave for free
To ugly duckling girls like me.

Every word of this classic is meaningful to any person who has felt the sting of ostracization, as well as to anyone who is a genuinely compassionate individual. But the words of this song that have stuck with me the longest are: "And those whose names were never called when choosing sides for basketball." In the next installment of The Cho Factor, I'll explain why.

I completely agree that teachers are often the victimizers. When I was student teaching, I taught under a teacher (coach who didn't love anyone on the team) who took a solid "B" student and turned him into a failure. It was awful. He taunted that kid every day - taking a bobby pin and pinning up his hair because it was too long, etc.

When I looked up this boy's history and found that he had done well until that year, I had a talk with him. I told him I knew he could get good grades, and he told me he didn't bother because "no one cared." I told him I cared - and he got an "A" on the next test. But I knew from my own days in school that some teachers shouldn't be allowed near kids. I wore a pony tail, and every day when I walked into Algebra class, the teacher would say, "Here comes the horse's a___." Didn't bother me - I knew my horse was smarter than him. But it would have destroyed a lot of girls. - M.C.

Previous - Cho IX, Eliminating the Two-Headed Snake of the American Education System

Next - Cho XI, Preparing the Playing Field: Playground Games

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