“No matter what the studies say, bullying happens and it must be our goal to stop it,” says the visiting ‘expert on bullying’ who runs a ‘Stop the Bullying’ foundation, before going on to quote shallow (and debunked) ideas about video games and aggression.
A cynic might think that this is a person who is enjoying his paid Alaskan vacation– the fruits of his alarmist scare-mongering– just as he enjoys dozens and dozens of others each year to spots around the country, and that the last statement just planted the seeds for a return visit in the future. But I’m a realist, I suspect he means what he says and is merely ignorant.
In the meantime we have a very real weapons and school-terror drama happening at nearby North Pole Middle School, where six students have been arrested for plotting to kill peers and staff alike.
Does anyone really believe that the ministrations of the platitudinous bullying expert– if he’d just been heard earlier– would have prevented the North Pole incident? Maybe a few. Will we be hearing about how video games must be involved in this near tragedy? I’m sure. But both of these represent either outright ignorance or a willful desire not to face the fact that what we are seeing here is nothing new.
School violence hasn’t increased since 1990; in fact it has decreased. This may well be due– in part– to a focus on bullying and discipline. It also creates a chafing, hidebound system that encourages the festering of small-scale conflicts and social friction with no remaining outlets to escalate to tragic proportions.
Back in the late seventies and early eighties when I was a teen, we not only had violent video games, but actually played outside practicing very real violence on ourselves. We beat (literally) and shot at (literally) each other as cowboys and indians, GIs and gooks, and commies and Americans. My father had 22 slug buried in his leg from his days of playing war as a teenager.
The fact is, as poor Piggy discovered, children have an intrinsic tendency to violence and exclusion that is matched by a natural tendency to explore and embrace. It’s the paradox of the human animal, evolved (or not) as we are.
The solution– as usual– lies in the simple things. Parents need to stop looking for blame and start fully loving their children. This means paying attention, participating in their lives, providing firm but rational discipline. Stop paying for outside, fear-mongering experts to go on vacation and pay the good teachers who actually care about and provide innovative nurturing learning environments for students… and fire the rest.
[ruminate bullying violence education parenting]
