Bullying Redefined

Bullying: The act of being habitually cruel, especially to smaller or weaker people.
-The American Heritage Dictionary

I do not think anyone would disagree with the above definition of bullying. Nor would they approve of bullying. No one in MTA would intentionally harass a fellow student, even in a lower grade. Despite this, bullying is still prominent in MTA. Many bully unintentionally and unknowingly. This is because they have a misconceived notion of what constitutes bullying.
Bullying is no longer just the stereotypical situation of a physical prank that a jock pulls on a typical nerd. High school teens have created a more concealed and subtle way to behave ‘habitually cruel.’
The modern era has created an opening to the possibilities of more verbal abuse than ever before. Sarcasm is probably the most used form of speech. Speaking critically about someone can now simply be labeled as constructive. An opening phrase of ‘No offense but…’ allows the subsequent statement to automatically become acceptable.
However, also in this modern era, pediatricians and researchers in this country have been giving bullies and their victims the attention they have long deserved — and have long received in Europe. We’ve gotten past the “kids will be kids” notion that bullying is a normal part of childhood or the prelude to a successful life strategy. Research has described long-term risks — not just to victims, who may be more likely than their peers to experience depression and suicidal thoughts, but to the bullies themselves, who are less likely to finish school or hold down a job.
The New York Times reported that next month, the American Academy of Pediatrics will publish the new version of an official policy statement on the pediatrician’s role in preventing youth violence. For the first time, it will have a section on bullying — including a recommendation that schools adopt a prevention model developed by Dan Olweus, a research professor of psychology at the University of Bergen, Norway, who first began studying the phenomenon of school bullying in Scandinavia in the 1970s. The programs, he said, “work at the school level and the classroom level and at the individual level; they combine preventive programs and directly addressing children who are involved or identified as bullies or victims or both.”
Our esteemed Guidance Councilor, Mrs. Tamar Sheffey, pointed out that there are really three people involved in this type of harassment: the victim, the bully, and the bystander. Many times, the bystander can cause as much, if not more, damage than the intimidator if he does not stand up for the victim.
“The victim expects the harassment from the bully but he hopes that a bystander who is watching it all unfold will help him. When the bystander stays silent, it victimizes him all over again,” Mrs. Sheffey remarked. “Speaking up to a person who is hurting someone and making him aware that his actions and words are not okay is one simple way to make a difference,” she suggests.
“Olweus’s genius,” says Dr. Robert Sege, chief of ambulatory pediatrics at Boston Medical Center and a lead author of the new policy , is that Olweus’s approach focuses attention on the largest group of children, the bystanders, in “that he manages to turn the school situation around so the other kids realize that the bully is someone who has a problem managing his or her behavior, and the victim is someone they can protect.”
Dr. Rona Novic, a licensed clinical psychologist with a PhD from Rutgers University, a professor of child and adolescent psychology at Albert Einstein College of Medicine, and currently the Head of Doctoral Studies of Yeshiva University’s Azrieli School of Education, agrees. She heads a nationwide classroom-based program called Bully Reduction/ Anti-Violence Education and Social Leadership Development (BRAVE). The program’s name itself makes two interesting points right off the bat: one, the program readily admits to a more realistic and depressing goal. It gives up on the possibility of the end of bullying; all it seeks to accomplish is to reduce it. Is the fact that bullying has become a given in society not enough of a tragedy in itself to convince one to take up arms to combat it? Two, that just a reduction of bullying is not enough. To truly make a complete turn-around there must be a resurgence of social leadership. Bullying is no longer a physical action; it is a social force that must be reduced, if not stopped entirely.
Dr. Novic has said bullying and related problems such as taunting, name-calling, and social exclusion are more serious than most students are willing to acknowledge. I disagree with her on one point; bullying, taunting, name calling and social exclusion are all, in essence, one and the same.
She also has proposed the following question: “We teach the notion of bein adam l’chaveiro [treating one’s fellow man properly] as part of Torah values, but we still see children bullying and taunting their fellow students. If we’re teaching it, why aren’t students getting it?”
My answer, which was perhaps too optimistic, was that many people do not realize when they are bullying someone. Many off-hand sarcastic jokes that demoralize people have become routine.
For example, one can no longer resist pointing out when a student walks into class late. This leads to a situation where it seems than one can no longer walk into class late, a simple daily action, without receiving a form of verbal abuse. Although this action alone would never be considered cruel, the buildup of all these remarks, and what they amount to, can. Everyone desperately tries to fit in. To be ‘accepted’ is everyone’s goal.
Next time a joke is said in class I want you to look around. Pay close attention to where everyone’s eyes wander. The person making the joke and those laughing will all be looking around in search of the peer approval that determines which jokes are funny or not. Everyone will longingly look around to find acceptance; after all, laughing at a bad joke can result in another joke, except that one would be directed at you.
Acceptance is the modern obsession. People change their true selves to try to fit in. Teenagers can no longer be themselves. I personally have avoided entering a classroom late just to escape the comments and the piercing eyes as one make his way across the room. These comments have tortured people until they change who they are. Taunting, name calling, and social exclusion are habits which are inherently cruel. That is the true definition of bullying, and it has no place in MTA.