Stand Up to Bullying

Perched on the edge of the George Washington Bridge, 212 feet above the Hudson River, Tyler Clementi, a newly enrolled freshman at Rutgers University, peered into the abyss that had been his life - and jumped. Though he never self-identified as gay, his roommate, Dharun Ravi, believed him to be. Using his computer, Ravi videotaped a sexual encounter between Tyler and a male lover. He then posted it online, subjecting Tyler to public scrutiny. On that fateful night, September 22, 2010, Tyler jumped to his death, after posting on Facebook that he was sorry he would be committing suicide.



When Dharun Ravi was sentenced—to 30 days in prison—I was hoping to get relief from my obsession with the sad, sad case of the Rutgers freshman who spied on his roommate. But I am still haunted as I read the stories and then the comments, which bleed with hatred and vitriol. Hatred for Dharun. Hatred for Tyler. Hatred for the families. Every aspect of this case and how we are approaching this feels wrong, wrong, wrong.

I have no immediate knowledge of any of the parties involved. But I did know a teenager who committed suicide. Emily went to my high school and my college. Every time I read about Dharun and Tyler, I think about my last conversation with Emily. And every time I think about that conversation, I wish I could press the reset button and say the right things, instead of what were most certainly, the wrong things. I think regrets like this may be one of our collective obsessions with time travel, which plays such a big role in so many works of fiction and film, from Star Trek to Men in Black 3. If we could go back and change something in the past, would the future turn out differently?

Emily was not the victim of any hate crime (as far as I know). She was not bullied (as far as I know). Here’s what I do know. Her parents were Holocaust survivors. She was smart in a quiet, contemplative, not show-offy way. She one of the nicest people I ever knew. She sailed through our competitive high school, the Bronx High School of Science, without seeming to compete at all.

I didn’t know Emily before high school, and we didn’t hang out a lot together even then, but I have a few distinct memories. I remember riding the subway with her. I remember having lost or not being able to obtain a book I needed for social studies. She gave me hers and wouldn’t let me refuse or return it.

I remember talking to her about what we wanted to do when we were older. I wanted to be a writer—always, I said. She wanted to write, too—but more specifically to adapt classics or mythology at a level that people with mental challenges could read. She volunteered with people who were mentally challenged and it bothered her that they would give them childish books that didn’t inspire them. She wanted them to be able to read something wonderful and stimulating at a reading level they could process.

I was always a little humbled in her presence.

When we both got into the same college, I was excited about this new door that was about to open and asked her if she was, too. She said she wasn’t. I was puzzled. And when I looked into her eyes I couldn’t help thinking, She looks trapped. That was my big insight that flitted in my head and flitted away, not to return until after her death. She feels trapped because she can’t justify turning this down. It was an offer she couldn’t’ refuse. But if high school was competitive, this was going to be high school on steroids.

I didn’t see much of Emily at school. It was a big school and I spent a lot of time with my books and my own personal dramas. But this is what I remember. We were approaching finals and she reached out to ask me to join her for lunch in her house dining room (we belonged to different houses). She seemed stressed out about finals. She started telling me she was struggling. And I cut her off to complain about how heartless everyone was and no one cared about anyone and on and on and on. She got quiet and I eventually noticed and tapered off.

I got through my finals of course. I always did. I complained a lot (I always did), but they were fine as usual. Back in school in the fall, almost as an afterthought, I asked about Emily, thinking I would ask her to lunch this time. You haven’t heard? Heard what?, I asked. Emily went under her desk and wouldn’t come out for finals. She wouldn’t take them.They expelled her. Emily ended up in a mental facility. She came home on a weekend pass and she killed herself.
I was in a state of shock. Decades later, I still am.

In the immediate aftermath, my grief overwhelmed me. I tried to find out everything I could about her. This annoyed one girl who had grown up with her. You hardly even knew Emily, she said. Certainly not as well as I did. Which was true. Which also added to my guilt and my grief. Why didn’t I take the time to know her better? Why did I talk so much at that lunch? Why didn’t I listen? Maybe I could have picked up on something that was going so horribly wrong inside her. Maybe I could have shifted the trajectory. Maybe with the right words, or by alerting the right people I could have helped her avert tragedy.

One of the elements of Tyler’s story that pulls at my heart was that he had very few friends. When things hurt—and when you are 18, they hurt a lot—having a friend to throw you a life preserver can make all the difference. Did Dharun’s tweets and the brief use of his webcam over a two-week period push Tyler off the bridge? Even the prosecution didn’t accuse him of causing the suicide. What Tyler’s family seemed most upset by, actually, was that Dharun didn’t take the time to know Tyler or to become his friend. That’s a failure that lies on more than one set of shoulders, although each and every failure adds up.

Which brings me back to my last conversation with Emily. For longer than I care to admit, I blamed myself for complaining so much about school that day, because it may have poured gasoline on the fire. I blamed myself for saying the wrong things instead of the right things. Today, as I replay the scene again, more than anything else, I blame myself for not listening.

In our national discussion about the tragedy of teen suicide, I think collectively too many of us are making the mistake of not listening. We cast blame, we exact punishments and we don’t look in the mirror. It’s Dharun’s fault. It’s the parents’ fault. It’s the school’s fault. Recently, I went back and reread an O’Henry story called “The Guilty Party.” Brilliantly, he contrasted who we give the blame to in our human courts and who really bears responsibility in the celestial scheme of things. Although really, the truth of it is, whenever someone takes his or her life, it’s everyone’s fault.

It is hard to be a teen. It always has been. It always will be. You are not a child. You are not an adult. You are under enormous pressure as you leave home for the first time. You do selfish and stupid things along with the good ones as you try to sort out the complicated business of trying to forge new friendships. You are 18—your frontal lobes are not fully developed, which means you make impulsive, rash decisions. You worry that you will never find people who care for you because of who you really are, you worry that if people know who you really are, they won’t care for you. You worry that you don’t belong, that you will never belong because you’re too fat, or because of the color of your skin, or your religion, your nationality, your sexual orientation.

I don’t have answers about Dharun or Tyler. I am just deeply troubled and disturbed with the answers dripping with hate and blame. Where is the love? Where is the forgiveness? When are we going to start listening and reaching out to everyone’s children?

I wish I could tell Emily that because of her I have become a different kind of writer than I dreamed of back when we talked on that subway train so many years ago. I write about kids a lot. I interview kids a lot. And when I interview them, I listen. I listen as hard as I can. I listen with everything I have in me for what they are saying between their words. I listen for Emily. 







 

Teachers Who Bully

 

Bullying committed by adults 



Bullying has become a national issue. It often brings to mind school bullying between children, but bullying can involve adults, even bullying teachers. Teachers can sometimes be the bully.

 

Bullying is the act of one person using strength or status to infringe on another person, whether with insults, threats, physical harm, ostracism, or infringing on their boundaries in any way that is not sexually charged. (To clarify, some see sexual harassment as a subset of bullying, but others see them as separate categories.) Although much bullying is peer-to-peer, bullying can be inflicted by an older person on a younger person or vice versa. Although school bullying is commonly taken to refer to students bullying each other, teachers can also be party to school bullying. 

Teachers can be involved in bullying in three ways: as observers, as perpetrators, and as victims. As observers, teachers can help prevent or stop bullying or perpetuate it. This article will deal with bullying in which teachers take part themselves, on one side or the other. 

Bullying Teachers

 

Is this what we really want to teach our kids?

 

The dunce cap, standing in the corner, having one hand whacked with a ruler, having one poor grade announced to the class—all these methods that at one time were a common occurrence in educational settings might now fall under the category of bullying teachers. Bullying teachers can act by using degrading words and treatment, as well as physical punishments. Other school employees besides teachers can bully students, including coaches, custodians, security personnel, and the front office staff—even the principal. 

Bullying is starting to get national attention and be taken more seriously than in days past. But the focus is decidedly on kid-on-kid abuse. While the mean girls, the taunters and tormentors, the physical abusers, and the excluders are very real threats, so too are educators who abuse their power over the very kids they are supposed to protect.
But when teachers verbally and even physically abuse kids, the abuse is often blatant and rarely called what it is—bullying—reinforcing the false notion that only kids, not the grown-ups in charge, are bullies.

Amid mounting data that bullying is on the rise, there’s a glaring absence of statistics on adult school bullies. In part, perhaps, because bullying by a teacher or principal is far more complex to identify, address, and rectify. It’s difficult to know what to make of a teacher who crosses the line from basic discipline to regularly berating, intimidating, humiliating (and even physically abusing) a student—so much so that a child's afraid to be in school.

 

What do you do if the school bully is your child's teacher?

 

First thing you have to do is document, document, document. Write down the date, the time, and exactly what happened. Despite the obvious pain you’re feeling as a parent, it’s crucial to be as reasonable and objective as possible.

If the situation isn't too egregious, meet with the teacher to see if you can find a resolution. If that doesn't work, learn what you can from everyone at school—your child, other kids, parents in the class. Volunteer at school, drive the carpool, keep your ear to the ground, all the while documenting everything you learn. During this fact-finding period, start building a support network of parents—after all, one parent's complaints can easily be waved off, while a group of concerned parents has more chance of being heard.

Parents shouldn't storm the principal’s office right away. Follow the chain of command—starting with a senior teacher or the head of that teacher’s department, then the vice principal, principal, principal’s supervisor, and superintendent. This approach works in your favor for two reasons: One, the closer someone is to the problem, the more likely they’ll be able to take swift, effective action; and two, when you go to the top, one of the first questions will be, 'Who have you talked to about this, and what did they say?' If you can’t answer effectively, you’re likely to be directed back to those you’ve skipped. And always document every bullying incident. If you have documentation for a couple of months, they can’t ignore that. Also, if they try to, I’d say 'I’m going to the newspaper.'

A battle kids can’t fight

When it comes to protecting kids from bully teachers, sadly kids are in a vulnerable position—and ill-equipped to fight the battle on their own and there’s no real silver lining—but there are different routes parents can take. Following certain protocol—like documenting every incident, building a support system, and working up the chain of command—can protect kids from continued trauma at the hands of a bully teacher and save them from the ordeal of leaving a school altogether. But the fight to protect your child from a bully teacher may not (and usually won’t) be easy.
 

 

 

 

 

 

How to Deal With Adult Emotional Bullies

We're all grown up now, aren't we?

The word "bullying" conjures up images of the big kid pushing around the little kid on the playground and taking his lunch. Unfortunately, adults bully too. Although adult bullying also may be physical, it often appears in the more insidious form of emotional bullying. An emotional bully psychologically attacks you through actions including threatening, mocking, embarrassing and ignoring you. There are multiple steps that you can take to disarm an adult emotional bully.

• Ignore the bully. Bullies are trying to dominate and gain power. By choosing not to engage with their emotional abuse, you take away the opportunity for them to gain more power. You may either pretend you did not hear them or choose to leave the room. Because you are not rewarding your bully with a reaction, you may even find more positive behavior coming from the bully. Ignoring someone who is purposefully trying to invoke anger, rage and tears can be very emotionally difficult, so you may need to take more drastic measures.
• Use humor to deflect the situation. Many times adult emotional bullies use tactics such as sarcasm, name-calling or incessant teasing to put you down. If you are skilled at thinking on your feet, consider a sarcastic or witty comeback. Using self-deprecating humor or putting yourself down before the bully can come up with an insult also takes away his power.
• Directly confront your bully. Be assertive and confidently speak to your bully while looking her in the eye and firmly telling her, "Stop teasing me or mocking me." You also may share your feelings with your bully at this time by using "I" statements. For example, "I want you to quit mocking me" or "I feel disrespected when you ignore me." It is important to remember that bullies bully because of their own anger and insecurity issues. You may not get a response but do not take it personally. She most likely interacts this way with many others.
• Enlist outside help. If you have tried all other angles, it is necessary to ask someone to help you with the bully. If you are being emotionally abused at the workplace, talk to your supervisor or another authority figure. If you are being bullied by an acquaintance, ask your friends to support you. Make social plans that exclude the bully or force him to engage in a positive manner.

Tips:

If you must report adult emotional bullying in the workplace, be sure to keep a journal before going to your supervisor or boss. Record the dates, times and specifics of each bullying incident so you are armed with solid facts with which your bully cannot argue. If you choose to verbally engage with your bully, be careful of erratic behavior that may turn dangerous.