Pushing Back at
Bullying
BY GERRI HIRSHEY,
NYTimes on the Web, January 28, 2007
GREENWICH, Conn. -- THIS past
November, the Greenwich High School principal, Alan J. Capasso, greeted an early
morning assembly of more than 800 freshmen about to begin a mandatory anti-bias,
anti-bullying program called “Names Can Really Hurt Us.” He told them,
“This is the most important day of your school year.”
In Greenwich, where diverse doesn’t begin to describe the pan-cultural buzz
animating the school’s hangar-size cafeteria, “Names,” as the program is known,
is cool — as in “Hey, you doing ‘Names’ this year? It rocks.” After
five years, “Names” day is assured a place on the school calendar, along with
homecoming, SAT prep and the prom.
Farther north at New Milford High School, Jonathan Henion, a senior, stood
before a “Names” assembly of sophomores to share a story he insisted was no big
deal, except that it suggested how one small action could make a difference:
“I was standing in the rotunda with friends of mine, about 30 kids. I
noticed this small girl walking by. She had on a big backpack filled with
heavy books, and she fell. I just stood there watching and thought to
myself, ‘What a loser.’ She just lay there trying to get up. The
girl’s face kept getting redder and redder listening to the relentless taunting
by my friends. Something clicked. I walked over and lifted her up,
picked up her books and brushed the dirt off her arms.”
Jonathan’s little moment was greeted with huge applause; he looked surprised.
New Milford’s principal, Greg P. Shugrue, sharing pizza with Jonathan and other
student panelists afterward, told them: “This is the best school
atmosphere I’ve ever worked in. And it’s because of the commitment to this
program.”
“Names,” which requires two months of preparation and training by students and
staff members, is not a program that any participant or observer can easily
forget. There is straight talk. There are tears, hugs, high-fives,
laughs, applause and some astonishing apologies.
“I went to observe it at Weston High School in 2000,” said Carol Sutton, a
social studies teacher and the catalyst for bringing “Names” to Greenwich.
“What I saw was astounding. I was impressed by the student panelists and
the kids who got up in the open-mike segment. I was amazed. I came
back and said, ‘Let’s get it done.’ ”
Over the last 11 years, some 65,600 Connecticut high school students have
participated in “Names,” which is sponsored and supervised by the Connecticut
Office of the Anti-Defamation League. Guided by teachers, trained student
volunteers and league facilitators, students talk with the unflinching candor of
children about topics most adults would prefer to avoid: gossip, rumor,
physical harassment, racism, homophobia, depression, eating disorders,
self-mutilation, drinking, drugs, suicide — the full range of bullying behavior
and its consequences.
Some students who spoke in small group and open-mike discussions are quoted
here, but to protect their privacy, neither they nor their schools are
identified.
Marji Lipshez-Shapiro, the Anti-Defamation League’s Connecticut regional
director of education, who created the program in 1995, said that she first
sensed the testimonial power of students’ voices when she was dean of
residential life at Connecticut College in the mid-1980s. Teenagers do
talk freely to this engaging educator who moves easily among them. As one
boy, a senior, put it, “Marji’s da bomb.”
Ms. Lipshez-Shapiro said: “Kids are the ones who really know what’s going
on. When I walk through a cafeteria and I watch the social interaction, I
realize what it takes to survive that, before you even get to academics.
“A lot of kids hurt,” she said. “In a forum like this, they can hear their
own voices, they can make a difference. Like ‘Wow, my little story is
going to impact people.’ ”
In group discussions and in an open-mike session, the stories spool out.
Often, just speaking them aloud is an act of courage. Witness the
overweight girl reciting the names she has been called, the former stutterer who
rehearsed for a month to articulate her agonies, the boy rolling up his sleeves
to reveal arms crisscrossed with scars from self-inflicted cuts. A popular
teacher described the day he heard his gay son sobbing in his room, then found
his schoolbooks scrawled with vicious antigay slurs.
On “Names” day, nobody minces words:
“So, um, I’ve got A.D.H.D., I was finally diagnosed. At least I don’t
think I’m a freak anymore. I’m on medication now and working really hard.
People remember me the way I was, but I’m not like that anymore. I’m not.
I’m just asking — give me a second chance, O.K.? Just come up and say, Hi.
Please.”
And from another student:
“My sister is autistic. You see her in the hallway but you don’t know her.
She’s the sweetest, most wonderful person. But no one will talk to her to
find out. Why does she have to hear the words retard and spaz? Why
does she have to come home crying every day?”
In a darkened school auditorium, Ms. Lipshez-Shapiro’s eyes welled up when a boy
explained how he had to ask his best friends to stop calling him D.J.
“Some of them didn’t even get it, that D.J. was short for dirty Jew,” he said.
“They apologized. They really didn’t understand how it hurt.” It is
rare that anti-Semitism comes up in “Names,” but Ms. Lipshez-Shapiro explained
why an organization devoted to combating that ancient transgression got into the
bully business. “At A.D.L., we look at the consequences of being
different, at prejudices and stereotyping and discrimination,” she said.
“The main reason people are bullied is because they’re different or perceived to
be. Our programs are really anti-bias more than anti-bully. Our goal
is to teach empathy to perpetrators. A lot of times they have no idea of
the power of what they’re doing.”
Few educators would argue against the need for a positive form of intervention.
In 2001, the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development identified
school bullying as a growing public health problem. Its commissioned study
found that 29 percent of the nearly 16,000 American students surveyed said that
they had experienced bullying, either as a target, offender or both.
“Names” is one of many anti-bullying programs being deployed across the nation
by concerned PTAs, school boards, community theater groups and even by the Girl
Scouts of America. Twenty-nine states, including Connecticut and New
Jersey, have enacted legislation against bullying, intimidation or harassment
and 11 others are in the process, according to the National Conference of State
Legislatures. And New York has passed an education law that requires
school districts to devise strategies to deal with violence as part of a school
safety plan.
“Wherever we take the program, we’ve found that the issues raised are basically
the same,” said a league facilitator, Sandra Vonniessen-Applebee. Though
school bullies have been around longer than chalkboards, their playground and
their reach have expanded in the information age. Young, media-saturated
lives traverse an electronic landscape, peopled with elite “Survivor” and
“American Idol” winners and an ever-growing pool of reality show losers.
There are bully-centric teenage and kiddie flicks (“Mean Girls,” “Ant Bully”).
Teenage chick lit series (“Gossip Girl,” “The Clique”) are bristling with hissy,
sarcastic vipers wrapped in Juicy Couture. And there is Bully, a video
game that depicts the adolescent atrocities facing the new student in a
fictional boarding school.
“It is a pervasive media message that being mean is cool, with put-downs and the
like,” Ms. Lipshez-Shapiro, said, noting that cyber-bullying, which invokes
rumor and insults via the popular social-networking sites Facebook and MySpace,
has become a huge concern.
“I was online and I saw that someone posted something really lame about the
Spanish kids taking over the best tables in the cafeteria. It was a lot of
mean garbage about illegals. And I thought, well, the kids that did it are
just jerks. Then I thought no, you can’t just do nothing, that’s not
right. These things get bigger and out of control. So I showed it to
the guidance office, and they dealt with it.”
It was a “bingo!” moment for the Anti-Defamation League facilitators who heard
this comment at a meeting of student panelists.
“Yes! Now that’s becoming an ally,” said William H. Foster III, the
charismatic facilitator who emcees “Names” days with warmth, wit and a touch of
Bernie Mac. Ms. Lipshez-Shapiro added: “We want to empower the
targets so that they feel yes, I can develop tools to fight back and say stop.
And we want to teach bystanders to become allies. That’s the ultimate
goal.”
Can bully education work? A pioneering 1988 study done in Norway by Dan
Olweus, a social researcher, found that the incidence of bullying in Norwegian
schools fell by 50 percent or more in the two years after an anti-bullying
campaign; truancy, theft and vandalism also dropped markedly.
A follow-up survey of the “Names” program in San Diego in 2000 found that 60
percent of students said that after the session they would be less likely to
call someone a name; nearly half reported positive changes in other students’
behavior.
“You probably have seen me around, and you might think I’m just some weird
loner. I’m in foster care; this is like my fifth or sixth school, and when
you’re all going home to your parents, my sister and I are going to a group
home. It’s hard to keep starting over, so sometimes I don’t even dare to
try. But if you see somebody alone all the time, just remember, they’re
not necessarily freaky. There’s a story there — a life. And they
could probably use a friend.”
What price, such poignant social education? The scheduling logistics and
expense of a “Names” program can be daunting to already-stretched budgets.
The Anti-Defamation League pays $1,000 of an average $5,000 cost, which entails
everything from hiring substitutes for participating teachers to audio-visual
aids. But school systems across the tristate area are also mindful of a
rise in costly bully-related litigation.
In Toms River, a seven-year-old case reached the New Jersey Supreme Court last
November. Connecticut, which recently strengthened its anti-bullying law,
has seen a spate of suits in Greenwich, Berlin and Stonington.
“Maybe I do like emo music. And you can see by my long hair and my clothes
that I look kind of different than other guys. But I like the way me and
my friends look — some crazy, dark, baggy clothes and stuff but it’s us, it’s
harmless. Then I find this note in my locker: Emo bitch! Who
gets off on doing that sort of thing? Why?”
Trying to change the hearts and minds of bullies can be a risky business.
Not all schools opt for the open-mike segment of “Names,” when audience members
line up to speak their minds, though it is very popular with students.
League facilitators are at the speakers’ elbows, ready to intervene should
matters get too emotional. Guidance counselors are on hand for especially
fragile speakers.
But in the sessions witnessed by a reporter, it was fellow students, with
cheers, group hugs and tissues, who provided the most enveloping and accepting
reinforcement. Even those who apologized, among them teary, self-confessed
mean girls, were embraced.
“I’m still on the fence about the open-mike part,” said Mr. Shugrue, the New
Milford principal, recalling an incident at another school when a student used
the forum to mock the proceedings. League facilitators say they have never
encountered this and that owing to the strict confidentiality policies for
“Names,” there have been no complaints from parents.
“The first year, I got some calls from parents asking, ‘What is this race
program you’re doing?’ ” recalled Kris Kaczkak, health education chairwoman at
New Milford. “But now that parents know what it is, we get great support.
Our teachers volunteer anywhere from 6 to 50 hours each of their time. And
I have 150 student volunteers for 50 places.”
If forgiveness and grace are shining ideals of “Names,” both are met in Lorella
Praeli, a lively, chestnut-maned senior who delivered a bravura closing address
at New Milford’s “Names” day.
Afterward, in between accepting hugs and congratulations, she talked about her
experiences as a bullying target before “Names” helped her defuse the problems:
“I have a right prosthetic leg; I lost my leg in a car accident when I was 2½.
So all my life I’ve heard rude remarks about it. And I’m from Peru.
I moved here about six years ago. So I’ve faced racism. I’ve had the
words spoken to my face, behind my back and online. You know, PegLeg.
Spic. Border Hopper.”
Lorella, who has spoken at many other league-sponsored anti-bias events, plans a
career in advocacy, perhaps beginning with a law degree. Despite what she
has endured, she said she refused to describe herself as a victim, preferring to
focus on her conversion from a bystander.
“I wasn’t the person who stopped someone from using a word that they shouldn’t
have,” she said. “I thought, oh, it’s O.K. After the program I began
to recognize that it wasn’t. I feel that this program has changed the
school. It’s not the same as my sophomore year.”
Right after her speech, one student asked her how she expected “Names” to change
a whole class, 400 students. Lorella answered: “I told her you don’t
need to change the whole class. Go for one person first.”
Carrie Malcolm, now 24 and a reformed bully, said that “Names” changed the
course of her life, though too late for her victim. As a middle school
honor student, leader and volunteer, Ms. Malcolm had a secret life as the
tormenter, along with six friends, of a quiet girl named Erin. “She was an
outcast,” Ms. Malcolm said, “and I was the ringleader of making her life
miserable.
“I remember chasing Erin down the hallway and into a classroom, singing some
awful song that I had made up about her. She was cornered against the
blackboard, crying. And I wouldn’t stop screaming this song. Then I
just walked away and enjoyed the rest of my afternoon.”
Hoping to get away from the group, Erin chose to go to a different area high
school. In 1997, she was killed in a car accident on the way to class.
“We made the last few years of her short life utter hell,” said Ms. Malcolm,
who, with Ms. Lipshez-Shapiro’s encouragement and guidance, told her story on
“Names” day as a sophomore at her regional high school in Durham, a year after
Erin’s death. At Ms. Malcolm’s invitation, Erin’s mother and grandmother
were in the audience. Hers was a powerful, self-lacerating speech.
And she says she cannot let the matter rest.
She has chosen a career in public service, tutoring underserved urban students
in New Haven as the executive director of the nonprofit Center for Teaching,
Learning and Child Development. And she has spoken at more than 25
Anti-Defamation League-sponsored bullying programs for students, teachers and
parents. “I really want to get to parents,” she said. “My story
exemplifies what middle school bullying is like, that nobody really feels they
need to do anything about it. Parents seem to ignore it and think it was a
regular part of growing up. I stress that it doesn’t have to be that way.
And I’ll do it over and over in front of parents, administrators and teachers,
people that have the power to change it.”
Another “Names” open-mike session was coming to a close. The final
speaker, a rangy boy in a hoodie sweatshirt, had been pacing nervously.
“Ah ... yo. I just want to say I’m up here talking for me and my friends.
You all know us, right? Yeah. I’ve probably picked on most of you.
And if any of us made fun of you, I’m here to tell you we’re sorry. It
wasn’t cool. We’re really sorry. Peace.”
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