Comments

The goal isn’t to prevent children from being bullied. The goal is to prevent bullied children from becoming violent.

I wonder how effective that would be. I’m assuming there’s no real research on this program. But it doesn’t sound like it is going to change the school's social dynamic in any way. It’s just hoping those getting bullied feel better about it.

-- BenCalvin - 30 May 2006

That's what I was just thinking, at dinner.

Talk about a program that can't be measured.

First of all, what are the odds of a Columbine killing in Irvington?

They'd have to be infinitesimal, no?

So when you put this program in place.....how do you measure whether it's done anything?

When I was thinking it was purely an anti-bullying program, I was irritated that no one was doing anything to assess effectiveness.

How much bullying was there before No Putdowns?

How much bullying was there one year into the program?

But when you realize that it's really an 'anti-violence' program....there's no way on earth you can measure a "prevention" of mass killings at school.

-- CatherineJohnson - 30 May 2006

The other thing is, there's basically no bullying in Irvington.

I realize I've just told two bullying stories, so obviously, yes, there's some bullying.

But we were able to resolve Christopher's bullying problem in two weeks' time without involving any school personnel or even talking to the other kids' parents. It was easy.

The only reason it took two weeks was that I was so flummoxed by the whole thing that I had to do some research before I figured out what to tell Christopher. Once I figured out what he needed to do, it took a couple of days for him to end a bullying situation he'd been suffering through for over a year!

Same thing with the little boy getting called "Retard." Once his mom gave him a script, he used it, and the bulliers moved on.

This is not tough town.

Irvington kids are extremely nice children; they've been very well brought up.

The whole thing gripes me, seeing as how we're now paying for these programs via property taxes.

I'm not seeing a character problem or a violence problem here in Irvington.

I am seeing a math problem and a writing problem.

I would like the school to focus on academics.

-- CatherineJohnson - 31 May 2006

I wonder how KIPP handles bullying?

I'd be willing to bet a small amount of money there isn't any bullying at KIPP.....so I think it is possible for a school to squelch it.

I have a friend whose children go to one of the best private schools in the country.

That school STOMPS on bullying five seconds after they find out about it. They have a whole "intervention" sort of thing they do.

What they do not have is a school-wide program that treats everyone as a potential bully AND a potential victim.

-- CatherineJohnson - 31 May 2006

The astounding thing is that there is never any research EVER on any programs at all.

I don't know why this should continue to surprise me....

-- CatherineJohnson - 31 May 2006

We also have D.A.R.E. and there's some research showing it increases drug use....

Christian says the big thing at his high school was to smoke pot wearing your D.A.R.E. shirt.

-- CatherineJohnson - 31 May 2006

First of all, what are the odds of a Columbine killing in Irvington?

They'd have to be infinitesimal, no?

I hope you are figuring statistically, rather than by comparison with Columbine.

If I recall correctly, Littleton is an upper-middle-class, mostly white, better-educated-than-average bedroom community serving the largest city in its state.

Irvington is also an upper-middle-class, mostly white, better-educated-than-average bedroom community serving the largest city in its state.

In absolutes, Irvington has higher income and housing values than Littleton, but that may just reflect the East Coast (proximity to NYC) multiplier over the middle of the western US.

You can debate whether Littleton and Irvington are bedroom communities or suburbs, but that's merely a distraction.

Yes, the odds of a Columbine killing anywhere are infinitesimal, because there are so many schools and so few of these incidents. However, while my opinion may be suspect, since I've never been to either Littleton or Irvington, I haven't read anything about either that makes Irvington less likely than Littleton to have a bullying backlash blow up into something.

Hmm, now I see that you've added more commments.

there's basically no bullying in Irvington.

it took two weeks...it took a couple of days for him to end a bullying situation he'd been suffering through for over a year!

How long was he suffering through it before you found out he was being bullied? It sounds as though you were able to end it within a couple of weeks of finding out about it, which makes it sound as though he was being bullied for a year before you found out.

Is it that there's really no bullying, or that there's no bullying that the parents know about?

-- GoogleMaster - 31 May 2006

How long was he suffering through it before you found out he was being bullied? It sounds as though you were able to end it within a couple of weeks of finding out about it, which makes it sound as though he was being bullied for a year before you found out.

I think it was a year.....

This was first grade to second grade, and kids don't really get social until second.

So probably it was most of 2nd grade.

The other thing is that that was 2001, so he was a wreck. All the kids were a wreck, and all the parents, of course.

Anyway, somehow we managed not to know this was going on until sometime in the spring.

hmm....maybe it wasn't a year; maybe it was most of a school year.

-- CatherineJohnson - 31 May 2006

What I said about Irvington & the odds of mass murder doesn't have anything to do with income levels.

I'm talking about a tiny statistical likelihood of a mass murder taking place in any school, anywhere.

(I can't wait finally to learn statistics so I can actually put figures on these things.)

Having a formal anti-violence program in place at all grade levels whose purpose is to prevent mass murder at school is completely unjustifiable as far as I'm concerned.

AND REMEMBER: NO PUTDOWNS IS A GRADE SCHOOL PROGRAM!

Christopher had it in 5th grade.

Have there been any mass murders in 5th grade anywhere?

-- CatherineJohnson - 31 May 2006

As to how much bullying we actually have.....of course I don't know.

There's got to be bullying; it happens everywhere.

On the other hand, this is a tiny little town, and everyone knows everyone else. I really do know a huge number of the kids in Christopher's class.

They're good kids.

I also know their parents, and I've only heard 3 bullying stories so far. In all 3 cases the parents resolved the problem by coaching their kids.

I do think there's a fair amount of nastiness going on with the girls. I've heard that pretty often.

My guess is that when good kids engage in bullying, which they do, it doesn't have to be catastrophic.

In Christopher's case, it was obvious that the boys doing the bullying - there were FOUR of them! - were engaging in boys-will-be-boys behavior.

Christopher's one of the younger kids in his class, and I think the two-autistic-brothers situation makes him vulnerable on this particular front, both because he doesn't have normal siblings to fight with, AND he has to pull his punches.

I don't know about all this, but I suspect this might be the place where we see his particular challenges show up.

I do have one piece of evidence, though, which is that Andrew at age 7 was much more able to defend himself. (I have a great story about Andrew taking on another little autistic boy who had the audacity to touch his Barney - this was at the same time we were desperately trying to get Christopher out of his situation.)

Anyway, the reason it was so easy to resolve his situation, I think, is that we weren't dealing with bad kids. They were all good kids, whose parents we knew and liked.

The ringleader was and is a MAJOR handful, but his mom was dealing with it. She's a tough broad.

I didn't want to give her any grief, or involve the principal, because he's the kind of kid who's going to grow up to run Westchester County - he's going to be a Good Citizen. It's just going to take some doing getting him there.

-- CatherineJohnson - 31 May 2006

We're having lockdowns, too.

Seriously.

We're having practice lockdowns where, apparently, the kids have to go stand in the closet or something, because a crazed gunman has entered the building.

It's insane.

-- CatherineJohnson - 31 May 2006

Columbine myths

oh, swell

Supposedly Columbine had nothing to do with bullies & victims.

The U.S. now has an entire Character Education industry based on the belief that They Killed Because They Were Bullies.

it never ends

-- CatherineJohnson - 31 May 2006

The Dark Side of Zero Tolerance: Can Punishment Lead to Safe Schools?

Zero Tolerance history

-- CatherineJohnson - 31 May 2006

Visitor sign-in was reported in the 1996-97 school year for 96% of schools, closed campus for most students during lunch by 80% of schools, controlled access to the building was reported in 53% of schools.

Zero Tolerance, Zero Evidence

-- CatherineJohnson - 31 May 2006

Of even greater concern is the overrepresentation of minorities, especially African-American students, in the use of punitive school discipline. In one of the earliest statistical studies of minority overrepresentation in school discipline, the Children’s Defense Fund (1975), using Office for Civil Rights (OCR) data, found rates of suspension for black students that were between two and three times higher than suspension rates for white students at the elementary, middle, and high school levels. While 29 states suspended over 5 percent of their total black enrollment, only four states suspended over 5 percent of white students.

-- CatherineJohnson - 31 May 2006

I agree that a kid needs to “push back” a bully to get it to end. I was bullied for half of 6th grade by a boy in my GT group. I tried ignoring him, reasoning with him, and telling on him, but he was cute, smart,sneaky, and charmed the teachers.

Seven of us rode a bus 20 miles to another school once a week for GT class. On the way back, everyone was expected to sit at the back of the bus and clamor around Kelly, doing whatever he wanted (usually play poker, talk about Beavis and Butthead, and/or make obscene gestures out the window). One day, I decided to move up two seats and read. This didn’t suit Kelly. Though he had 5 other kids doing his bidding, he wanted my attention as well. He moved up behind me and pulled my hair, flicked my ears, tried to grab my book, etc. I told him to stop and moved up two seats. He followed me and got more intense. He snapped rubber bands against my head and pulled my ears. After moving and being followed again, I had had enough. I warned him that if he touched me again, he would regret it.

He yanked my hair, and I swung my backpack, which had all 6 of my textbooks in it, against his head. The force knocked him off the seat into the aisle. He got up red-faced amidst roaring laughter. My retaliation had the desired effect--he silently went to the back of the bus and never spoke to me again. After 6th grade, we went to separate schools. The only time I saw him again was 12th grade. As he passed me in the hall, he told his friend, “That girl is a b****!” I definitely made an impression on him!

-- AndyJoy - 31 May 2006

Supposedly Columbine had nothing to do with bullies & victims.

But the bully-victim culture is widespread. (Search results pointing to several posts/threads.)

A good start is this article, and don't skip the comments!

-- OldGrouch - 31 May 2006

Andy what a GREAT story!

I'm definitely getting that up front - it's SUCH a good thing for parents to read.

Parents basically lose their minds when their kids are being bullied.

I don't think it would have taken me two weeks to figure the situation out if it had been somebody else's kid.

I have a friend whose kid was being bullied - and the bully was put in the same class with him two years running.

She spent HOURS with the principal, with the school psychologist, with the other kid's parents (they didn't want it going on any more than my friend did).....NOTHING.

Finally his dad taught him to fight.

-- CatherineJohnson - 01 Jun 2006

Old Grouch

Thanks for the links!

I'll read.

-- CatherineJohnson - 01 Jun 2006

I think I could write a book (or at least a chapter) about verbal bullying. Both of my girls have been verbally bullied; with both of them, the worst of it occurred in third grade.

Kristy, my 17 year old, was a very sensitive "wears her heart on a sleeve" child and thus, very vulnerable to being bullied.

When she was in third grade, we tried and tried to get her to stand up for herself. We even practiced putdowns and comments--repeatedly--and she was just too afraid to defend herself.

Out of desperation, we finally got the teacher involved, who then got the school counselor involved. Both of them worked really hard with the bullies (and with Kristy) and actually made some progress.

I didn't view it as the school's fault that it was happening, but in this case they were the parties best equipped to handle it, since it was happening at school.

The whole experience hurt Kristy very deeply and very profoundly. She sometimes will say that she wishes she could go back to third grade and stand up for herself. She wrote a poem about it, I think. I'll have to find it--it's pretty good.

In her case, we wanted her to stand up for herself and she just couldn't. She was too scared. She wasn't afraid that they would physically hurt her, but that they would hurt her emotionally.

-- KarenA - 01 Jun 2006

Megan, on the other hand, has always been better at standing up for herself. She has always had a lot more self-confidence and is not quite as sensitive. If someone says or does something that hurts her, she won't let it show.

When she was in third grade, the verbal bully was also the teacher's pet. The girl was as sweet as can be in front of the teacher (who was young and naive), but not so nice on the playground. My girls tell me that this is pretty common--that the girls who suck up to the teachers in elementary school are sometimes the meanest ones when the teachers aren't around.

The message we preach (and hope that she follows) is that she can play defense, but she is not to go on the offense. She can respond when she is attacked verbally, but she is not to be the attacker.

-- KarenA - 01 Jun 2006

Here is the ending to the poem Kristy wrote several years ago. The first part of the poem describes what happened, and here is how she ends it:

"I sometimes wish I could go back

I wonder if, as a teenager, I would have the courage

To stand up to those little girls

Maybe. Maybe not.

After being beaten down,

I did not develop a thick skin.

I became even more vulnerable.

The way I am today."

-- KarenA - 01 Jun 2006

That which does not destroy me still hurts like heck and leaves me limping for a week.

There's a saying in sports: "Winning builds character; losing reveals it." Just surviving a bully doesn't make the next time easier. It's only when you win that it gets easier.

Schools try to keep you from winning and force you to just survive*. As your daughter noted, that just makes the victims more vulnerable.

* For good students, the club they use is the dreaded "permanent record". I wonder whether an account of being bullied, beating up the bully, and then being suspended unjustly would make a good college entrance essay. At the least, it would probably be novel.

-- DougSundseth - 01 Jun 2006

Megan, on the other hand, has always been better at standing up for herself. She has always had a lot more self-confidence and is not quite as sensitive. If someone says or does something that hurts her, she won't let it show.

wow

That's interesting.

Exact same thing with Andrew - he has some kind of seemingly natural toughness.

-- CatherineJohnson - 01 Jun 2006

Doug

that's a fantastic line (make you survive, not win)

absolutely

I hadn't thought about the competitive sport aspect of bullying, but that's what was involved with Christopher.

I couldn't take the bullying situation to the school or to the parents, because it wasn't "bad" - it wasn't "aggressive" somehow....

I didn't know what I meant by that.

You've just explained it to me.

The bullying Christopher was experiencing was brutal for him, but wasn't brutal at all for the 4 boys doing it.

It was sport - it was a competition they were winning IN A BLOWOUT!

(hey, maybe that No Blowouts rule should apply to kids on the playground)

I've always called bullies "cowards," which isn't exactly right, either.

Bullies are often kids who want to win in a blowout.

The instant you make that impossible, the instant you push back, they take their ball and go home.

-- CatherineJohnson - 01 Jun 2006

I read the article from SCIENCE NEWS, which covers a school violence program developed by psychiatrists who work on this issue.

In that program all kids are taught self-defense in a special P.E. program!

I'll post about it later.

-- CatherineJohnson - 01 Jun 2006

At age 12 I had problems with a boy who, amongst other things, would try to trip me up whenever I walked past his desk. This presented an intellectual problem in that if I hit him in class I'd get into trouble with the teacher.

After the first couple of times he tried to trip me, I kept my wits enough about me to time my steps, and lift my foot high enough, that I stood with my full weight on his ankle.

Then, in a voice dripping with sincerity, I apologised for standing on his foot, and accused myself of clumsiness in wandering around not watching where I was putting my feet. Which kept me out of trouble with the teacher.

To my not very great surprise, he not only stopped trying to trip me up, but stopped trying anything else.

Hitting back works.

The same principle worked for verbal bullying. If a girl started bullying me, I'd make up some story about her that sounded plausible, and ask her if it was true or not. In front of a number of other girls of course. It seemed to function like a warning shot across the bow.

-- TracyW - 01 Jun 2006

offschoolproperty

-- CatherineJohnson - 11 Jul 2006