- For the past 2 weeks, the most popular movie in the United
States of America has been the high-school comedy Mean Girls, a film which
has won almost universal praise from critics and audiences alike. Words
like "brutally honest" and "wickedly funny" have been
used to describe Mean Girls, which is resonating with youngsters all across
the country.
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- The film tells the story of a 16-year old girl who has
lived a somewhat sheltered existence with her family in the jungles of
Africa. She and her folks re-locate to the United States, where the girl
is enrolled in a public school and discovers rudely that she knows nothing
of American teenage culture. She is ostracized and ridiculed by her "more
cool" classmates, until she learns to dress, speak, and behave in
a manner that will win her popularity.
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- Mean Girls has had an effect in American media similar
to the school shootings of the 1990's. Talking-head shows feature TV personalities
and self-described "experts" freely opining on the issue of school
bullying. Unfortunately, their comments frequently remind us of how numbingly
ignorant many people are on this issue.
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- Some say that bullying, while it should not be condoned,
may actually be a good thing because it teaches kids to "stand up
for themselves" and prepares them for life in the "real world."
As the protagonist of Mean Girls learns, the figurative jungle of a public
school can be even more hostile than the literal jungles of Africa.
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- I remember hearing these same arguments after every recent
school shooting. Many in the media have referred to the shooters as "fiends"
and "cowards" who should be dealt with mercilessly by the criminal
justice system. Try explaining to these people that every school shooter
in the history of our country was relentlessly humiliated and/or physically
beaten by his schoolmates, and the response one gets is, "So what?
Everyone has to deal with that in school. It's just part of growing up!"
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- I've come to recognize what I consider to be a number
of incredibly destructive myths associated with school bullying. I call
them myths because they are consistently and utterly refuted by empirical
data. Let's examine a few of them:
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- 1. Bullying "toughens kids up" and teaches
them to stand up for themselves.
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- I think this was the moral of an episode of The Brady
Bunch, where Peter gets beaten up by a classmate, and is subsequently taught
to box by Papa Brady and brother Greg. The sublime fantasy world of The
Brady Bunch featured Peter gaining revenge against his tormenter in a clean
and rather innocuous fist-fight. Of course, a more accurate scenario would
have shown Peter taking Papa Brady's gun to school, and gaining vengeance
through murder and mayhem.
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- Proponents of this myth seem to forget one key point:
kids who are bullied often do not live long enough to be "toughened
up." They commit suicide or suicide/homicide. According to findings
published by the Journal of the American Medical Association in 2001, homicide
perpetrators are more than twice as likely as homicide victims to have
been bullied by peers. This cannot be the kid of "toughening up"
we want for our children.
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- This myth also does not take into account the fact that
children, particularly boys, are often bullied by kids who are significantly
larger and a great deal meaner. "Toughness" is of no relevance.
If you were encountered by a 300 pound street thug in a dark alley, how
eager would you be to "stand up" for yourself?
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- 2. Bullying has existed since time immemorial, and most
people come through it just fine.
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- If you attended an American public school 30, 40, or
50 years, you probably absorbed your fair share of physical and verbal
abuse. But the quality, intensity, and frequency of bullying is worse now
than at ANY PREVIOUS TIME IN OUR COUNTRY'S HISTORY.
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- Some recent statistics which seem to validate this: (Source:
http://www.atriumsoc.org/pages/bullyingstatistics.html):
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- -1 out of 4 kids is Bullied. The American Justice Department
says that this month 1 out of every 4 kids will be abused by another youth.
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- -Surveys Show That 77% of students are bullied mentally,
verbally, & physically.
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- -In a recent study, 77% of the students said they had
been bullied. And 14% of those who were bullied said they experienced severe
(bad) reactions to the abuse.
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- -1 out of 5 kids admits to being a bully, or doing some
"Bullying."
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- -8% of students miss 1 day of class per month for fear
of Bullies.
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- -100,000 students carry a gun to school.
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- -A poll of teens ages 12-17 proved that they think violence
increased at their schools.
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- -282,000 students are physically attacked in secondary
schools each month.
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- -More youth violence occurs on school grounds as opposed
to on the way to school.
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- -Playground statistics - Every 7 minutes a child is bullied.
Adult intervention - 4%. Peer intervention - 11%. No intervention - 85%.
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- 3. Learning to "cope" with bullying builds
social skills and teaches kids how to interact with one another.
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- Where is the evidence that any child, anywhere, in the
history of the world, has experienced an improvement in social skills as
the result of bullying? On the contrary, kids who are bullied are much
more prone to a plethora of behavior disorders. According to the Office
of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (2001), bullying victims
are more likely to experience loneliness, poor grades in school, drug and
alcohol abuse, and a chronic inability to make friends. (Source: http://www.atriumsoc.org/pages/bullyingstatistics.html)
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- Opponents of homeschooling often utilize this myth, saying
that children should not be "deprived" of the "benefits"
of "bullying." But in reality, some studies have shown that children
who are home schooled are LESS likely to develop behavior problems. As
Isabel Lyman, PhD, author of The Homeschooling Revolution, writes: "In
1992, Larry Shyers of the University of Florida defended a doctoral dissertation
in which he challenged the notion that youngsters at home 'lag' in social
development. In his study, 8- to 10-year-old children were videotaped at
play. Their behavior was observed by trained counselors who did not know
which children attended conventional schools and which were homeschooled.
The study found no significant difference between the two groups of children
in self-concept or assertiveness, which was measured by social development
tests. But the videotapes showed that youngsters taught at home by their
parents had fewer behavior problems." (Source: http://www.mises.org/fullstory.asp?control=1167)
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- 4. Bullying does not leave any long-term emotional scars;
it's just something we all have to go through.
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- One person who probably disagrees with this is former
bullying victim Jodee Blanco, author of the NY Times bestseller "Please
Stop Laughing At Me." Blanco was systematically dehumanized by her
peers, until she attempted to end the abuse by taking a butcher knife to
school. Her mother stopped her in the nick of time and drove her to a hospital.
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- Blanco writes of her experience, "I remember being
so lonely in school that I would sometimes wake up in the morning wishing
myself to sickness so I wouldn't have to face the teasing and rejection
I knew was coming the moment I walked through the school doors. And the
harder I tried to fit in, the worse it always got. My parents tried everything
to help, but nothing ever did. I wish that there had been someone like
me now back then, who had endured the bullying and survived, who could
have given us real advice on how to get through it all. Not a psychiatrist
or academic, not a clergyman or counselor, but a real person who had been
there herself and could show us a way out." (Source: www.jodeeblanco.com)
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- Some people, including Jodee Blanco, are able to overcome
the travails of school bullying and become highly productive adults. But
again, DEATH - a common result of school bullying - renders such triumphs
impossible.
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- 5. Kids are safe in school because they are protected
by teachers, principals, and other school staff.
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- This is total, unmitigated nonsense. Statistics cited
above indicate that adult intervention halts or prevents only FOUR PERCENT
of school-yard bullying. Young children are forced to fend for themselves,
and since many of them are facing enormous physical disadvantages (height
and weight discrepancies, large numbers of bullies) they can only do this
by utilizing lethal weapons.
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- 6. If a child does not learn how to respond to bullies,
he or she will not be ready for the "real world."
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- On May 1, 2004, latimes.com featured a story on school-bullying
at Rosemont Middle School in Glendale, CA. Numerous parents and students
were interviewed who testified that bullying is rampant and virtually ignored
by the school's staff. But Anne Moser, president of the school's Parent
Teacher Association, responded to the allegations by saying: "Kids
will be kids. I'm not condoning it, but it's a learning process. It helps
prepare kids for the real world." (Link: http://www.latimes.com/news/local/glendale/news/la-gnp-bully01may01,
0,2161891.story?coll=la-tcn-glendale-news)
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- One might ask Mrs. Moser: If a student beat, raped, and
robbed her in the school parking lot, would she consider this an appropriate
initiation to the "real world"?
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- This is a myth because the "real world" of
adults is nothing like the "real world" children face in public
schools. An adult who physically assaults a co-worker will be summarily
fired and subject to criminal prosecution. Bullies who physically assault
smaller, weaker kids almost never face these penalties. Victims of bullying,
particularly young boys, feel emasculated and do not report the violence,
and even when they DO, it is extremely unlikely that the bully will face
any serious penalties. After all, even a bully is deserving of a good education...or
so proponents of this myth argue.
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- 7. Violence in media - movies, tv shows, video games,
"music" - does not contribute to school violence and bullying.
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- It is remarkable that anyone would subscribe to this
myth who lives in a culture where SADISM - taking pleasure in the suffering
of others- is the primary form of entertainment. Reality TV shows like
Fear Factor, Scare Tactics, and My Big Fat Obnoxious Fiancee exploit the
humiliation of often non-consenting and unwilling victims for the amusement
of viewers at home. It is difficult to believe that young people who have
been immersed in this culture their whole lives have not been effected
by it.
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- Some studies have shown that witnessing simulated violence
actually effects the brain on a cellular level. Dr. Vincent P. Mathews
of the University of Indiana Medical School in Indianapolis, conducted
a study in 2002 which showed that children who played violent video games
and/or observed violent movies experienced decreased blood flow to the
brain. (Source: http://www.rense.com/general32/brainc.htm) This is obviously
of enormous significance, as American children spend an estimated 5.5 unsupervised
hours a day with TVs, video games, and/or computers. (Source: www.parentcenter.com/refcap/fun/
entertainment/29864.html)
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- After the string of school shootings in the 90's, horror
author Stephen King removed from publication his early novella "Rage,"
which tells the story of a disturbed young man who takes a gun to school
and murders his algebra teacher. King himself has described his book as
"the ultimate blueprint" for school shootings. On February 2,
1996, Barry Loukaitis, 14, murdered two classmates and a math teacher,
then recited verbatim from King's text: "This sure beats algebra,
doesn't it?" (Source: http://nsweb.nursingspectrum.com/ce/ce192.htm)
Investigators into another school shooting in Paducah, Kentucky, in 1997,
found a copy of "Rage" in the shooter's locker. (Source: http://portlandme.about.com/library/weekly/aa042299.htm)
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- Nevertheless, many continue to assert that media violence
does not contribute to violence in the real world. It is understandable
why some make this argument as part of an anti-censorship campaign, but
how much more tangible evidence do we need that words and images have a
profound effect on us?
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- Hearing these myths repeated over and over by media talking
heads is an excruciating exercise for anyone with a working brain. At the
age of 28, I am not so far removed from the public school experience that
I can't appreciate the difficulties facing today's youngsters. I witnessed
and absorbed more than my fair share of physical and verbal assaults, so
you'll have to excuse my skepticism towards those who argue in favor of
the "benefits" of bullying.
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- So what is the answer for parents who want to protect
their kids while giving them the best possible education? As is so often
the case, the answer to one of life's "complex" problems is ridiculously
simple. It is clear that the only people who downplay school-bullying have
an agenda of supporting the federally funded public education system. An
entire generation is being sacrificed, all because some incorrigible ideologues
are unable to abdicate their love of big government. As Charlotte Iserbyt
outlined in her epic masterpiece "The Deliberate Dumbing Down of America,"
we have in our schools a tax-payer funded effort to change America from
a free republic to a socialist state. The only remaining course for right-minded
people is to abandon this sinking ship before it is too late.
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- Keep your kids home, and see how they flourish in a safe
and loving environment - something the government can never provide.
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