“Children remind me of chickens that seek out the weak and injured and peck them to death. They have found out that my nine-year-old son, who is autistic, is bothered by loud noises, and they scream and whistle in his ear until he cries.” —the mother of a fourth-grader
The most powerful moral influence of a school is how people treat each other. In many schools, adults make a conscientious effort to treat students with love and respect. But in those same schools, children are often devastatingly cruel to one another.
The cruelty of schoolmates deprives students of what every young person needs: the experience of being accepted and valued by their classmates. The threatening atmosphere created by bullying also affects school learning.
Students who bully others not only hurt their victims, they also deform their own character. One study found that 60 percent of boys who engaged in severe bullying behavior between the ages of 10 and 14 had at least one criminal conviction by age 24; 40 percent of these bullies had three or more convictions.
A survey of more than 200,000 students in grades 1-12 found that bullying is most common in elementary school. Among third- and fourth-grade students, 22 percent of students report being bullied “two to three times a month or more.”.” In the seventh grade, 15 percent of students report having been bullied to this extent. In the 12th grade, the figure is 8 percent. A quarter of the bullied students said they had been bullied for several years or longer.
The damage caused by bullying
A 2015 longitudinal study by Duke University School of Medicine and England’s University of Warwick found that the long-term psychological damage caused by chronic bullying – anxiety, depression and the like – is, on average, even worse than the damage caused by abusive parents.
For students who are regularly verbally abused by their peers, school becomes a horrific experience. One teenager describes what he went through:
“For reasons I never understood, four kids from the soccer team decided to bully me. One time, after practice, they pushed me into the swamp behind the school. When I tried to get out, they kept pushing me back.
“One day, outside of school, I was talking to a girl I liked and they came up behind me and pulled down my pants. As they walked away, they said, ‘There’s nothing you can do about it.’ They did this all through high school. I was constantly afraid of being humiliated. I thought about what I would like to do to them, but I didn’t have the courage to do it.”
Some victims of bullying do seek revenge. A 2002 US Secret Service study of school shooters found that 71 percent of them had been followed, bullied, threatened, attacked or injured by their peers.
Other children who suffer persecution or exclusion from their peers become depressed and even suicidal. One mother says:
“My sweet, pretty seventh grader has no friends. She eats alone in the cafeteria and walks the halls alone. She says she feels like a ghost. She doesn’t know what she did wrong. Needless to say, she’s depressed. Last night she said she wanted to kill herself.”
Persecution and exclusion by peers are symptomatic of a larger problem: a negative peer culture in school. In a 10-year national study of 70,000 middle and high school students, only 37 percent agreed with the statement, “The students at my school show respect for one another.”
I argue that schools have no greater moral obligation to students and their parents than to do everything in their power to prevent peer cruelty and create a culture of kindness and respect.
Bullying prevention programs
Published programs can help. A research review of 44 studies in 16 countries found that the K-12 Olweus Bullying Prevention Program “worked best” when it came to reducing bullying behavior, but by no means eliminating it.
The Olweus program includes eight components:
- a school committee for bullying prevention
- Training for all school staff
- Raising awareness and involving parents
- Clear, consistently enforced school rules on bullying
- Weekly class meetings on dealing with bullying as a victim or bystander
- Supervision of all school areas during lunch and break times
- Individual discussions with bullying victims, perpetrators and their parents
- Assessment that measures progress in reducing bullying
In an analysis of more than 400 U.S. schools using Olweus, the number of students admitting to bullying fell by 27 percent in elementary schools, 35 percent in middle schools and 31 percent in high schools.
The Steps to Respect curriculum is designed for elementary schools and focuses on friendship. It teaches children how to join a group, discover common interests, deal with hurt feelings, resolve disagreements, and resist pressure to exclude others. Studies have found that students who have at least one friend are less likely to be bullied and less likely to develop emotional problems as a result of bullying.
In our own center’s study of 24 award-winning high schools, we found that several had taught their students to act as “peer allies” to victims of bullying, offering companionship and emotional support (“They made sure I was OK,” “They took me to a counselor”).
Why school-wide character education is necessary
A limitation of bullying prevention programs is that they tend to focus on reducing negative behavior – bullying – rather than proactively encouraging positive behavior. In contrast, school-wide character education takes proactive, systematic steps – through every stage of school life – to model, teach, expect, and maintain respect and kindness as desired behavior.
For example, at Winkelman Elementary School on Chicago’s North Shore – where more than 40 languages are spoken by students’ families – insults and fights were commonplace. Students also frequently behaved disrespectfully toward teachers and other adults in the building.
The principal and teachers decided to start the new school year with their own character building program called “Let’s be polite and caring.”
When I entered Winkelman’s lobby, the first thing I noticed was a huge display board that defined politeness and caring based on observable behaviors in the school. Politeness was defined as: (1) Please, thank you, you’re welcome, and sorry; (2) Being a good listener; (3) Waiting your turn; (4) Being polite everywhere; and (5) Discussing problems. Caring was defined as: (1) Sharing; (2) Respecting the feelings of others; (3) Following rules; (4) Working cooperatively; and (5) Being a good friend.
Winkelman’s teachers all worked to create a classroom culture where these behaviors were taught and reinforced. They asked their students, “What rules do we need to help us show courtesy and caring?”
When a student broke a rule, the teacher would take him aside and ask him quietly, “Was this behavior polite?” “Was it caring?” At parent-teacher meetings, teachers would say, “At school, we emphasize politeness and caring, but at home, we need your help.” At weekly assemblies, students performed skits on the theme of politeness or caring and invited speakers from the community to speak on those topics.
Finally, every Winkelman student was asked to do some kind of community service, such as helping the elderly. Students learned to care for others by caring for them.
Student behavior steadily improved. Parents said fights were less frequent. Students I interviewed said they liked Winkelman because the kids were “nice” and “didn’t pick on you.”
Three years after founding Let’s Be Courteous, Let’s Be Caring, Winkelman was recognized for outstanding academic achievement and character at a national competition in Chicago.
Ask your children about their experiences and observations of bullying in their school. Write a respectful letter to the principal (you can also attach this post) asking what the school is already doing to prevent peer cruelty and promote respect and kindness. Suggest looking into school-wide character education if the school is not currently using this valuable resource.
If you or someone you love is having suicidal thoughts, seek help immediately. Dial 988, the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline, 24 hours a day, or contact the Crisis Text Line by texting TALK to 741741. To find a therapist in your area, visit the Psychology Today Therapy Directory.
