I always found it really frustrating that a "zero tolerance" policy to bullying seemed to disproportionately affect people who eventually fight back.
I would guess it's a combination of "nobody sees the first hit" (since your attention is elsewhere, of course) and that bullies get quite good at testing boundaries and thus know how to avoid detection.
But, really, it's truly frustrating that as I child I was bullied relentlessly, and when I finally took my parents advice and stood my ground, I was expelled from school (due to zero tolerance). Those bullies continued to torment some other kids, of course.
This is far from an uncommon situation, over the years I've heard many more scenarios like this.
I was also expelled for fighting back. This was how I learned that documentation is important in life.
When I got the paperwork saying I was out, my parents sent back all the correspondence with the school, the dates the bully bothered me, and the responses (or lack thereof) from the school. I was reinstated and the bully went to another district.
Bullying in my day was at least bearable because it was confined to times when I was physically near the bully. Kids today have it so much worse with social media. It's genuinely terrifying. I don't wonder why many teens are anxious. Everything they do is documented.
Defending yourself is always the right move. When one of my sons was being bullied in elementary school, I taught him how to fight and encouraged him to do so. The bullying ended, but he was suspended. I confronted his principal and got her to admit that she would defend herself if someone was pummeling her. She didn't like this, and subsequently expelled my son, who later won honors awards after transferring to a different school.
This perpetuates the myth that "real" bullying is physical and that psychological abuse is not bullying. Most of the bullying i've seen was psychological and partially material (usually taking things from the target or damaging them).
The only instances where i've seen physical bullying were in low grades where the children had not yet developed the mental capacity for creative verbal abuse or in higher grades where bullying was left unchecked for so long that the aggressors felt confident they could get away with it.
I've come to think zero tolerance policies are universally bad.
Some tolerance and considering circumstances is actually the sensible way to handle most anything. But that sounds like being "soft on crime", and the PR side is usually more important than the actual problem.
Many years ago, one of the popular news shows (Dateline or 20/20, I can never remember which) did a special on bullying.
They showed one elementary school where the entire organization (teachers, students, staff etc) implemented some kind of holistic approach to bullying that actually worked. They even interviewed a group of kids where they said "Oh yeah, Tom used to be the bully and we were all afraid of him but now we're all best friends".
I don't remember the exact plan implemented but it struck me as both simple and common sense with excellent outcomes.
Despite much searching on IMDB, Twitter, Google and even using LLMs, I have yet to find the exact episode. Now that I have kids of my own, I'm even more interested in finding it. Any suggestions from the HN crowd?
Kids becoming friends with someone who used to bully them isn't all that uncommon. It can happen especially if the bullied kid fights back and earns the respect of the bully.
Maybe "Bullies to Buddies"? https://www.izzykalman.com/
""We will never win the war against bullying by trying to convince people to stop being bullies. We need to teach people how not to be victims!
(Izzy Kalman, Nationally Certified School Psychologist)"
Also from there: "What does the research show? The most highly revered and intensive anti-bullying programs rarely produce more than a minor reduction in bullying and often lead to an increase. A large-scale study conducted by the University of Texas at Arlington found that kids who attend schools with anti-bullying programs are more likely to be bullied than kids who attend schools without such programs. Why? And how can schools determine what is more likely to be effective? ..."
And: "Bullies to Buddies teaches how to understand the Golden Rule as a scientific, psychological formula and how to apply it in real life. It provides materials and training to students, school staff, mental health professionals, and parents. Because the lessons are simple yet counterintuitive and taught largely via entertaining role-plays, they enable people to quickly understand their mistakes and how to rectify them. Rather than teaching students that they need to rely on others to protect them from each other, Bullies to Buddies teaches them how to solve their social problems on their own.
What students learn:
* The “optical illusion” that causes bullying
* How to use the Golden Rule to stop being bullied without anyone’s help, including dealing with:
* Verbal attacks
* Rumors
* Physical aggression and threats
* Social exclusion
* Cyberbullying
As a result, kids grow in happiness, resilience, independence, and emotional maturity. These techniques will unleash their sense of humor and make them more popular with their peers. And they will get along better with their parents, teachers, and siblings."
To be clear, Izzy Kalman also outlines situations where the approach works (e.g. teasing, name calling, rumors, shoving) and where it doesn't (e.g. serious physical violence). And he also points out that while the approach may greatly reduce issues it may not resolve all issues. There is a certain low-level of social negativity people have to learn to live with (as contrasted with "zero tolerance" policies where people can learn to game the system to use it to bully others).
There is a videos section on the site with a a couple dozen of videos. Example showing in general the distinction between most programs (modify the entire social environment) and what Izzy Kalman suggests (train the person suffering in skills of resilience and social interaction):
"The Golden Rule System - Simple Solution to Bullying"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TVVAx_kGM7w
Example showing to learn to deal with (mild) physical aggression:
"Magic Response for Physical Aggression" - Bullying Prevention for Educators"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lRPusaSSqqE
> we were all afraid of him but now we're all best friends
All without addressing the underlying problem that made people afraid of Tom in the first place?
> with excellent outcomes.
Apparently excellent short term outcomes. The real question is does this actually solve the long term problem and is it possible that the strategies used to create this outcome actually aggravate long term outcomes?
1984 (1948), a book written by an author who hadn't had the happiest* boarding school experience, can be read as a story in which we skip the fast-forward (part I) to get to the story-within-a-story (part II) which asks a cliffhanger question:
> deeper than this lies the original motive, the never-questioned instinct that first led to the seizure of power and brought doublethink, the Thought Police, continuous warfare, and all the other necessary paraphernalia into existence afterwards. This motive really consists...
which is answered by O'Brien (in part III):
> ...How does a man assert his power over another, Winston?"
Winston thought. "By making him suffer," he said.
I believe the keyword here is "assert". As people have free will, you can either motivate/entice/lead them or you can demotivate/punish/control them or a combination of the two.
"Assert" implies O'Brien has already chosen the punitive route. In other words, O'Brien is not revealing some deep secret of human power dynamics. Instead, O'Brien is giving a self congratulatory self justifying explanation for his wrong doing.
Love the book but I always thought this needed a little bit more explanation. It seems in our world people seek power for many reasons and only a small minority seek it simply to make people suffer. For example, people seek power to increase their own safety and pleasure. The suffering of others is incidental to their goals. In addition, since suffering is universal and requires no human actor to inflict. It seems rather like a huge waste of effort. I think it's better to read O'Brien's statement as something more specific to the world of 1984 and Big brother rather than something general that applies to all power seeking. We don't really learn that much about the workings of the inner party and the kind of propaganda that they are subjected to or subject each other to, and this might be evidence of what that looks like.
In my experience, when schools are graded on bullying incidents, administrators avoid reporting at all costs. This program isn’t enough if there are disincentives to reporting at higher levels.
I was never bullied and was the popular kid, and honestly, I don’t like the concept that all these ‘nerds’ you see nowadays were bullied back in school and it’s why they became nerds, in fact, I never heard of school bullying outside of the US schools, or generally North Americans ones. Maybe movies contributed to that, or reinforced such a phenomenon?
2. People here like to act like it didn’t happen to them. If you didn’t see it, it still happened. Nerds are hated in America because life imitates the shitty art of John Hughes et al.
> The results from the UK trial of 13% reduction in bullying are less compelling than those from earlier studies in other European countries. However, the U.K. trial took place during the COVID-19 pandemic, which involved major classroom disruption for pupils and considerably higher levels of absenteeism, and researchers believe this may have affected the results.
I think the bigger question, since it apparently involves reported bullying incidents rather than teacher-observed ones, is whether the change in policy results in underreporting or overreporting of bullying. Plausibly it could be a lot more than a 13% fall if kids feel much more incentivised to report it, or a negligible effect if there's a 13% chance of it not being reported because bullied kids don't want to get their bystander classmates into trouble...
School really is the problem. In its current form, it can not be sustained without radical reform.
If you look at the suicide rate of children under 14 month-to-month, they only stop killing themselves when they're not forced to go to school (Summer and Winter vacation).
Probably the only place in your entire life that you'll be subject to physical and emotional violence.
Calls to "abolish the department of education" are going to get louder and louder.
Can anyone comment on the current prevalence of bullying in schools in the UK vs the USA? We have been considering moving from the Us to the UK but perceived higher likelihood of bullying for our mixed race kids is one concern holding us back. It's hard to know if we are exaggerating that concern or if it is warranted, it would seem hard to know the level of hostility of a school environment prior to moving there.
I don't know if it answers your question, because I never studied in the USA, but I want to share my experience regardless.
20y ago I did a high school semester in the UK (Worthing) and it was a very good environment with no bullying whatsoever. 3 factors contributed to this:
1) low stress environment as a whole (beautiful campus, calm teachers and staff, etc)
2) the students had a high degree of liberty in choosing what classes they would attend, so they were presumably interested and not rebellious
3) the student divided themselves into strict groups, and these groups barely interacted with each other.. so after class the 'goths' would hang with the goths, the 'sports-people' with the sports-people, etc. I didn't quite like this at the time because I'm very sociable so it struck me as weird. However, it did work in the sense that there were hardly any social problems among the students.
I think it's likely that the average difference between schools, sometimes even in the same city, is much greater than the difference between the averages for each of the two countries.
I'd guess that the racial and economic demographics of the particular schools in question are much more relevant.
I happened to work in kindergarden/school were KiVa program was actively used. In my opinion it helped to reduce bullying in early ages, but did a lot of damage for older kids. Early intervention helped bullies to develop better bullying skills and deprived victims from skills to fight back.
I’m sometimes confused why “evilizing” bullies is ok. The way they get identified seems dehumanizing. “They are the bad kid.” Maybe they are! But it seems like lots of good kids bully — ie it is normal human nature. Teasing, etc.
Obviously “normal” teasing or “lite” bullying aren’t the reason bullying can be so psychologically traumatic. But I feel any approach can’t be quite right if it fights bullying by dehumanizing bullies. Especially since “hurt people hurt people” and kids are kids.
Not that anyone needs to stand up for bullies, but you know, I’m curious if someone has an opinion about this.
This coming from a professor don't surprise me at all. Your profession is the first one to ignore or treat like it's not a big deal. "dehumanizing bullies", that's a new one
I’ve been thinking a little about this subject lately. It seems like bullying is a thing that serves the function of exacting the repressed violent desires of the social body. Who is selected for bullying is determined not primarily by the bully, but by the social group as a whole. To me this helps explain why it’s such a ubiquitous behavior; it’s a mechanism for a social group to act outside of its norms in the enforcement of its norms. To be clear, I think it’s terrible, just interesting to think about this way.
> Rather than the traditional response of blame and punishment for the bully
Well, that's bullshit. Often the "traditional response" (at least in my day) was to blame the person being bullied, sometimes along with the bully as well.
[+] [-] dijit|1 year ago|reply
I would guess it's a combination of "nobody sees the first hit" (since your attention is elsewhere, of course) and that bullies get quite good at testing boundaries and thus know how to avoid detection.
But, really, it's truly frustrating that as I child I was bullied relentlessly, and when I finally took my parents advice and stood my ground, I was expelled from school (due to zero tolerance). Those bullies continued to torment some other kids, of course.
This is far from an uncommon situation, over the years I've heard many more scenarios like this.
[+] [-] Loughla|1 year ago|reply
When I got the paperwork saying I was out, my parents sent back all the correspondence with the school, the dates the bully bothered me, and the responses (or lack thereof) from the school. I was reinstated and the bully went to another district.
Bullying in my day was at least bearable because it was confined to times when I was physically near the bully. Kids today have it so much worse with social media. It's genuinely terrifying. I don't wonder why many teens are anxious. Everything they do is documented.
[+] [-] anonymousiam|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] martin-t|1 year ago|reply
This perpetuates the myth that "real" bullying is physical and that psychological abuse is not bullying. Most of the bullying i've seen was psychological and partially material (usually taking things from the target or damaging them).
The only instances where i've seen physical bullying were in low grades where the children had not yet developed the mental capacity for creative verbal abuse or in higher grades where bullying was left unchecked for so long that the aggressors felt confident they could get away with it.
[+] [-] BurningFrog|1 year ago|reply
Some tolerance and considering circumstances is actually the sensible way to handle most anything. But that sounds like being "soft on crime", and the PR side is usually more important than the actual problem.
[+] [-] pupppet|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] declan_roberts|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] CalRobert|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] strken|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] alexpotato|1 year ago|reply
They showed one elementary school where the entire organization (teachers, students, staff etc) implemented some kind of holistic approach to bullying that actually worked. They even interviewed a group of kids where they said "Oh yeah, Tom used to be the bully and we were all afraid of him but now we're all best friends".
I don't remember the exact plan implemented but it struck me as both simple and common sense with excellent outcomes.
Despite much searching on IMDB, Twitter, Google and even using LLMs, I have yet to find the exact episode. Now that I have kids of my own, I'm even more interested in finding it. Any suggestions from the HN crowd?
[+] [-] SoftTalker|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] Freak_NL|1 year ago|reply
https://www.kivaprogram.net/
[+] [-] pdfernhout|1 year ago|reply
Also from there: "What does the research show? The most highly revered and intensive anti-bullying programs rarely produce more than a minor reduction in bullying and often lead to an increase. A large-scale study conducted by the University of Texas at Arlington found that kids who attend schools with anti-bullying programs are more likely to be bullied than kids who attend schools without such programs. Why? And how can schools determine what is more likely to be effective? ..."
And: "Bullies to Buddies teaches how to understand the Golden Rule as a scientific, psychological formula and how to apply it in real life. It provides materials and training to students, school staff, mental health professionals, and parents. Because the lessons are simple yet counterintuitive and taught largely via entertaining role-plays, they enable people to quickly understand their mistakes and how to rectify them. Rather than teaching students that they need to rely on others to protect them from each other, Bullies to Buddies teaches them how to solve their social problems on their own.
What students learn:
* The “optical illusion” that causes bullying
* How to use the Golden Rule to stop being bullied without anyone’s help, including dealing with:
* Verbal attacks
* Rumors
* Physical aggression and threats
* Social exclusion
* Cyberbullying
As a result, kids grow in happiness, resilience, independence, and emotional maturity. These techniques will unleash their sense of humor and make them more popular with their peers. And they will get along better with their parents, teachers, and siblings."
To be clear, Izzy Kalman also outlines situations where the approach works (e.g. teasing, name calling, rumors, shoving) and where it doesn't (e.g. serious physical violence). And he also points out that while the approach may greatly reduce issues it may not resolve all issues. There is a certain low-level of social negativity people have to learn to live with (as contrasted with "zero tolerance" policies where people can learn to game the system to use it to bully others).
There is a videos section on the site with a a couple dozen of videos. Example showing in general the distinction between most programs (modify the entire social environment) and what Izzy Kalman suggests (train the person suffering in skills of resilience and social interaction): "The Golden Rule System - Simple Solution to Bullying" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TVVAx_kGM7w
Example showing to learn to deal with (mild) physical aggression: "Magic Response for Physical Aggression" - Bullying Prevention for Educators" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lRPusaSSqqE
Example of Izzy Kalman applying ideas to recent violent events: https://www.psychologytoday.com/intl/blog/resilience-to-bull...
[+] [-] akira2501|1 year ago|reply
All without addressing the underlying problem that made people afraid of Tom in the first place?
> with excellent outcomes.
Apparently excellent short term outcomes. The real question is does this actually solve the long term problem and is it possible that the strategies used to create this outcome actually aggravate long term outcomes?
[+] [-] unknown|1 year ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] timst4|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] 082349872349872|1 year ago|reply
> deeper than this lies the original motive, the never-questioned instinct that first led to the seizure of power and brought doublethink, the Thought Police, continuous warfare, and all the other necessary paraphernalia into existence afterwards. This motive really consists...
which is answered by O'Brien (in part III):
> ...How does a man assert his power over another, Winston?" Winston thought. "By making him suffer," he said.
* Such, Such Were the Joys (1952)
[+] [-] rawgabbit|1 year ago|reply
"Assert" implies O'Brien has already chosen the punitive route. In other words, O'Brien is not revealing some deep secret of human power dynamics. Instead, O'Brien is giving a self congratulatory self justifying explanation for his wrong doing.
[+] [-] javajosh|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] 77pt77|1 year ago|reply
Nietzsche had written extensively about this way before.
Nowadays we know that humans (and other animals) bully because they derive immense health benefits from being the aggressor.
Those benefits are trivial to detect many decades after the fact.
Until those benefits are offset by a hefty price to pay, nothing will change.
[+] [-] jowdones|1 year ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] djoldman|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] cluckindan|1 year ago|reply
The ”bullies” who beat me up in elementary school all went ahead to have careers in things like dealing kilos of meth and torturing people to death.
Not hyperbole, btw.
[+] [-] protocolture|1 year ago|reply
And of course the goal is to prevent bullying from being reported so this is an absolute win for educators.
[+] [-] barbazoo|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] bargle0|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] normanthreep|1 year ago|reply
it's never too late
[+] [-] tamimio|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] Der_Einzige|1 year ago|reply
2. People here like to act like it didn’t happen to them. If you didn’t see it, it still happened. Nerds are hated in America because life imitates the shitty art of John Hughes et al.
[+] [-] matt3210|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] Sakos|1 year ago|reply
1) 13% just doesn't seem like a lot to me
2) I wonder what those other studies showed.
[+] [-] notahacker|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] declan_roberts|1 year ago|reply
If you look at the suicide rate of children under 14 month-to-month, they only stop killing themselves when they're not forced to go to school (Summer and Winter vacation).
Probably the only place in your entire life that you'll be subject to physical and emotional violence.
Calls to "abolish the department of education" are going to get louder and louder.
[+] [-] toofy|1 year ago|reply
Hopefully i’m misunderstanding because that would be quite something.
[+] [-] Kozmik1|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] gverrilla|1 year ago|reply
20y ago I did a high school semester in the UK (Worthing) and it was a very good environment with no bullying whatsoever. 3 factors contributed to this:
1) low stress environment as a whole (beautiful campus, calm teachers and staff, etc)
2) the students had a high degree of liberty in choosing what classes they would attend, so they were presumably interested and not rebellious
3) the student divided themselves into strict groups, and these groups barely interacted with each other.. so after class the 'goths' would hang with the goths, the 'sports-people' with the sports-people, etc. I didn't quite like this at the time because I'm very sociable so it struck me as weird. However, it did work in the sense that there were hardly any social problems among the students.
[+] [-] rjrdi38dbbdb|1 year ago|reply
I'd guess that the racial and economic demographics of the particular schools in question are much more relevant.
[+] [-] golemiprague|1 year ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] obscurette|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] ninalanyon|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] polski-g|1 year ago|reply
The other student can't be within 500ft of your child, but they have to be at school, how would that work?
[+] [-] dr_dshiv|1 year ago|reply
Obviously “normal” teasing or “lite” bullying aren’t the reason bullying can be so psychologically traumatic. But I feel any approach can’t be quite right if it fights bullying by dehumanizing bullies. Especially since “hurt people hurt people” and kids are kids.
Not that anyone needs to stand up for bullies, but you know, I’m curious if someone has an opinion about this.
[+] [-] kattagarian|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] justinclift|1 year ago|reply
Your concept of what a "good kid" is seems a bit off?
If they're being a bully, then aren't they by definition not real good, regardless of how they're pretending towards others?
[+] [-] BriggyDwiggs42|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|1 year ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] justinclift|1 year ago|reply
Well, that's bullshit. Often the "traditional response" (at least in my day) was to blame the person being bullied, sometimes along with the bully as well.
[+] [-] rustcleaner|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] iwontberude|1 year ago|reply