"And then he goes back to class" (A bully's tale)

January 23, 2004

This pathetic story begins one year ago, in a post from A Small Victory. Seems a bully had been having a grand old time terrorizing Michele's son, so she tried to take action:

Today I called the principal. He gave me a touchy-feely response about how we must take into consideration the bully's feelings. After all, Mr. Principal said, Big Bully's mother died.

Yes, I say. I am aware that Big Bully's mother died four years ago. For how long will he continue to get a sympathetic pat on the back every time he acts up?

I mean, what is the statute of limitations on using your mother's death as an excuse for atrocious behavior?

Well, Mr. Principal says, we have tried peer mediation and peer review with Big Bully. I sent home a pamphlet that will help his father and step-mother go over the proper way to express anger.

Ah yes. The infamous Four Ps of perpetual placation: Peer Mediation, Peer Review, Pamphlets and Proper Anger.

See, that's the thing, I say. He has no reason to be angry at my son or my son's friend. If he wants to express anger, I suggest that the classroom is not the appropriate place to do it.

Oh, says Mr. Principal. When he expresses anger in the classroom, he gets sent up here to me.

And then what happens?

He has to sit on the bench for a few minutes while he thinks about his behavior.

And then?

And then he goes back to class.

"And then he goes back to class."

That about sums up their discipline policy, doesn't it? Unfortunately, when she tried going up the chain of command to the district level, she got more of the same:

The school district, when made aware of the problems, asked me if I wanted to have [my son] speak to the social worker in order to "work out his issues." When reminded that my son was not the one who needed to deal with his issues, the kind woman told me "we have to tread lightly with people like Big Bully. They need to be encouraged, not discouraged. Sending him to counseling will only hurt his self esteem and make him behave worse."

Fast forward to today, and things have gotten much much worse, because the bully has now begun the psy-ops phase of his campaign. Michele writes:

You would think that after a year of complaints about this child, after all the trouble he has caused - and not just with my son - after all the times he has been sent to the main office to sit on the bench and sulk, they would stop with the touchy-feely, root cause, search inside yourself crap and realize what the true problem is: this kid is rotten to the core and he does not belong in a classroom with children who are there to learn, not to be bullied.

We happen to believe that children and adults make rational decisions based on their boundaries--perceived or otherwise. While this bully may or may not be a truly nasty individual, it seems he's surrounded by a phalanx of full-time enablers willing to bend over backwards to prevent him from ever experiencing the consequences of his actions. We believe that if they stopped enabling him, he'd probably change his behavior.

What should the school do? First they need to fire that incompetent rube they've got for a principal (we hear the U.N. is hiring). Next they need to start enacting meaningful consequences. Something like a "due process" ladder we've mentioned before.

Violate rule X, receive consequence Y. And the consequence cannot be "sitting on a bench" or any other ineffective measure, it must have teeth. For example, suspending the child when he resorts to violence, setting in motion the finite procedures for expulsion.(This part is important, since a lot of kids treat suspensions as a joke, which they are, if they can be issued interminably.)

They say that insanity is doing the same thing and expecting different results. How true. But what if each discipline infraction resulted in another step on the ladder, a ladder with a definite set of steps, like 5 or so, resulting in expulsion? This would give the kid plenty of time to get his act together (none of this zero tolerance nonsense suspending a kid for 25 days for bringing a nail file to school), yet would also not postpone indefinitely the time at which the school says enough is enough.

We believe children act within their boundaries.

The bully in the story clearly has no boundaries, for each time he resorts to violence, he has to sit on a bench--which may well be enjoyable, taking a break from class to spend time with Mr. Mollify, the principal. Unfortunately for the bully's classmates, one thing people do when confronted with vague or imaginary boundaries is to test them even more.

If this student knew that when he bullies another, there would be a real consequence, which may result in his being expelled from the school, we think that just maybe that kid would change (but that's the optimist in us speaking). And if he really is rotten to the core, the procedure still works, since he gets expelled before the heat-death of the universe.

It's up to the adults of the school to do kids a favor, and set firm boundaries, with unambiguous consequences which have real teeth. The vast majority of students will shape up.

Those that don't can be shipped out.

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Postscript: The comments section following Michele's post is full of practical advice for parents of bullied kids. As we're dealing with an ineffective school system, most involve legal action, media pressure, and martial arts. A worthy read, with many personal tales of everyday folks overcoming bullies.