"There are several commonly accepted myths about the causes of bullying for which there is no supporting evidence. These include claims that bullying stems from large class or school sizes, competition for grades, or other school life pressures. Another common assumption is that bullies suffer from poor self-esteem and insecurity."
(Dr. Tracey C. Burns, OECD's Centre for Educational Research and Innovation, Directorate for Education and Skills in Paris)
I am often asked to explain what we mean by 'Peace Education'
at Eric Harvie School. I believe this is because Peace Education is not a
prescribed program and doesn't come with a 'how-to' book for establishing and
operating a school program. Peace Education is, instead, a philosophical
approach to engaging students in understanding human interactions within a
learning environment. In other words - building empathy and caring as fully
integrated aspects of learning to read, write, explore mathematics, social
studies, science and all of the Arts. There is no program because every school
and every classroom must have the latitude to find the best ways to embrace
this way of thinking as it pertains to them both collectively and
individually. In my opinion, this is why Peace Education has such a
profound impact – those involved are able to discover what matters most to them
and then put their energy into making a difference in their world.
I discovered the foundations of Peace Education 14 years ago
at the Gandhi Peace Institute held at the University of Alberta through the
summer of 2004. At the time, I was about to transition from Assistant Principal
to Principal of Douglas Harkness School, a beautiful little place with a highly
multi-cultural and economically diverse school population – and the inherent
challenges that accompany such an amazing school, including daily incidents of
meanness and occasional bullying across the grades, K - 6.
Discovering the interests, personal challenges, heroes and
dreams of the students in the school in order to develop an approach to
building empathy and caring practices made great sense to me – our students did
not share common cultural backgrounds or living experiences so how could they
appreciate the beauty in each other unless we offered them authentic
opportunities for discovery? We began the Harkness Peace Education journey with
literature, moved on to develop personal stories for sharing, got involved
with Roots of Empathy (an international program that is simply
outstanding in its simplicity and impact), developed leadership opportunities
for children that were grounded in student ideas and joyously celebrated as the
bullying behaviours slowly faded and caring began to be the way children lived
on the school landscape.
It was during these years that I discovered bullying is most
often a defensive mechanism utilized by children who are hurting inside and
have lost their trust in humanity and, often, themselves. Peace Education
practices help all children learn to trust themselves and each other as they
openly discuss and explore events, ideas and feelings when needed, not when
scheduled. Our students shared their experiences, ideas and dreams for the
future with each other in a multitude of contexts within and outside of school
– they trusted they would be listened to and valued because they were. And this
provided them with a bank of positive feelings that allowed them to begin to
trust the world a little more, and to offer the world a little more of
themselves, their time and energy to helping others. The Dalai Lama says peace
begins with kindness and I wholeheartedly agree.
It was also during these early years of working within a
Peace Education paradigm that I recognized not all instances of childhood
negative interactions were actually bullying - some were kids just being rude,
other times mean, and each kind of interaction required a different focus of
intervention and response from us, the adults in the school. A few
years later, in 2010, I had the great good fortune to open the new
Cranston K - 4 School, with a focus on Peace Education from the day the doors
opened. Our successes with the work we accomplished at this school continued to
pave the path for ensuring Peace Education is a key element of Eric Harvie
School as well, which opened in 2016 with me as principal and Peace Education
as a foundational focus for the school. Why? Because it works!
And here we are, in the first few weeks of Eric Harvie
School's third year of operation. We have students who
have already been involved in a variety of incidents and when this
happens each fall, it reminds me we need to keep talking about how to help our
children stay safe in schools - and to help themselves stay safe as well.
Let's begin the conversation with exploring the differences
between being rude, being mean and bullying - I recommend reading Signe
Whitson's full article about these differences at https://www.huffingtonpost.com/signe-whitson/bullying_b_2188819.html
Here's what Whitson says:
Being Rude = Inadvertently
saying or doing something that hurts someone else
"From kids, rudeness
might look more like burping in someone’s face, jumping ahead in line, bragging
about achieving the highest grade or even throwing a crushed up pile of leaves
in someone’s face. On their own, any of these behaviors could appear as
elements of bullying, but when looked at in context, incidents of rudeness
are usually spontaneous,
unplanned inconsideration, based on thoughtlessness, poor manners or
narcissism, but not meant to actually hurt someone." I think of being rude as a spontaneous
behaviour without a planned target - something a child (or an adult) says or
does impulsively without intending to harm another but unintentionally does.
There is usually remorse on the part of the 'doer/sayer' once they realize what
they have done and the consequence can be quite minimal if the remorse is
sincere because the injured party understands they were not targeted and are
unlikely to be hurt by this person again.
Being Mean = Purposefully
saying or doing something to hurt someone once (or maybe twice)
The main distinction
between 'rude' and 'mean' behaviour has to do with intention; while rudeness is
often unintentional, mean behaviour very much aims to hurt or depreciate
someone. Kids are mean to each other when they criticize clothing, appearance,
intelligence coolness or just about anything else they can find to denigrate.
Meanness also sounds like words spoken in anger - impulsive cruelty that is
often regretted in short order. Very often, mean behaviour in kids is motivated
by angry feelings and/or the misguided goal of propping themselves up in
comparison to the person they are putting down. Commonly, meanness in kids
sounds an awful lot like:
“Are you seriously wearing that sweater again? Didn’t you just wear it, like, last week? Get
a life.”
“You are so
fat/ugly/stupid/gay.”
“I hate you!"
Make no mistake; mean behaviours can wound deeply and adults can make a huge difference
in the lives of young people when they hold kids accountable for being mean.
Yet, menanness is still different from bullying in important ways that should
be understood and differentiated when it comes to intervention.
Bullying = Intentionally
aggressive behavior, repeated over time, that involves an imbalance of power
Experts agree that
bullying entails three key elements : an intent to
harm, a power imbalance and repeated acts or threats of aggressive
behavior. Kids who bully say or do something intentionally hurtful to
others and they keep doing it, with no sense of regret or remorse — even
when targets of bullying show or express their hurt or tell the aggressors
to stop.
Bullying may be physical,
verbal, relational or carried out via technology:
Physical aggression was once the gold standard of bullying—
the “sticks and stones” that made adults in charge stand up and take notice.
This kind of bullying includes repeated hitting, punching, kicking, spitting,
tripping, hair pulling, slamming a child into a locker and a range
of other behaviors that involve physical aggression.
Verbal aggression is what our parents used to advise us to “just ignore.” We now
know that despite the old adage,
words and threats can,
indeed, hurt and can even cause profound, lasting harm.
Relational aggression is a form of bullying in which kids use their friendship—or the
threat of taking their
friendship away—to hurt
someone. Social exclusion, shunning, hazing, and rumor spreading are all forms
of this
pervasive type of bullying
that can be especially beguiling and crushing to kids.
Cyberbullying is a specific form of bullying that involves technology. According
to Hinduja and Patchin of the CyberbullyingResearch Center, it is the
“willful and repeated harm inflicted through the use of computers, cell
phones,and other electronic devices.” Notably, the likelihood of repeated harm
is especially high with cyberbullying because electronic messages can be
accessed by multiple parties, resulting in repeated exposure and repeated harm.
So,why is it so important
to make the distinction between rude, mean and bullying?
Because gratuitous
references to bullying are creating a bit of a “little boy who cried wolf”
phenomena. In other words, if kids and parents improperly classify
rudeness and mean behavior as bullying — whether to simply make conversation or
to bring attention to their short-term discomfort — we all run the risk of
becoming so sick and tired of hearing the word that this actual life-and-death
issue among young people loses its urgency as quickly as it rose
to prominence.It is
important to distinguish between rude, mean and bullying so that teachers,
school administrators, police, youth workers, parents and kids all know
what to pay attention to and when to intervene. As we have heard too often
in the news, a child’s future may depend on a non-jaded adult’s ability to
discern between rudeness at the bus stop and life-altering bullying."
At Eric Harvie School, we
make use of progressive discipline approaches whereby we ascertain the kind of
incident that has occurred and then work with the students to help them
understand why this has happened and how to best respond so the actions change and
children are not left feeling like they are 'bad' or 'hopeless' or 'friendless'
- all reactions that research shows may lead to greater incidences of
inappropriate behaviour in children's future relationships. Our goal, through
Peace Education, is to promote kindness and caring attitudes and help all
children understand why and how negative incidents occur.
Lorraine Kinsman, Principal
No comments:
Post a Comment