Bullying

Bullying

            On my first day at my clinical placement my host teacher had to run some quick errands during the lunch hour, leaving my fellow teacher candidate and I to debrief in the teacher’s lounge and compare notes. While in the lounge we were asked a variety of questions about our teacher education program, our plans for the future, etc. After the small talk wore off the other faculty slipped into their everyday conversation, and I was shocked at some of what we heard. Certain faculty members exchanged comments on students that were far from productive and were mostly negative in nature. It seemed like the adult equivalent to the high school gossip that when engaged in by students we refer to as bullying. This made me wonder, how gossip and bullying is dealt with when even some of the faculty participates in negative gossip about both students and colleagues?

            I brought the conversations I had overheard up to my host teacher, and she informed me that that is why she usually eats lunch in her room or with other teachers that she trusts and that speak positively about students and each other. She remarked that the “boys club” in her department can be a toxic environment to surround yourself with. I was relieved that not all of the faculty engage in that sort of activity, and really appreciated my host teacher allowing me to make my own decisions about that group of people. Not only does my host teacher not tolerate gossip from her colleagues, but she does not tolerate it in the classroom as well.

            My clinical placement has a “no tolerance” policy against bullying, but from my own experiences those policies are hard to enforce when bullying can take on many different forms. My clinical placement is a prime example of this. I never witnessed a fight in the halls, or even a loud argument between students, which upon first glance led me to wonder if miraculously this school didn’t have a bullying problem. I asked my host teacher about the lack of outright bullying that I had seen, and she informed me that it takes on a much less direct approach in the school. Students have taken to cyber-bullying, using Twitter and other outlets such as Ask.fm, a site where students create a profile for people to ask anonymous questions, opening the door for rude comments and rumors to be said without having to account for your actions. I did a quick search for my clinical placement by name on Twitter, and sure enough found dozens of tweets that were about classmates or faculty members at the school.

            From my own experiences and discussions with students I have found that cyber-bullying is easily the most emotionally damaging form of bullying because students are unable to escape from it. Every time a student checks their cell phone or social media accounts they are exposed to this form of harassment, which undoubtedly causes disruptions in the classroom. One student in my host teacher’s classroom faces a high amount of Internet harassment from one particular individual. This led to the two students being placed into separate classes by administration, but due to the public nature of the bullying the student still faces the repercussions of being “ganged up on.” This student is particularly unwilling to open up in class discussion or work in groups and seems unsure of whom she can trust and who will turn against her.

            This type of undercover bullying places added emphasis on knowing one’s students and the struggles they are facing. If my host teacher did not have a relationship of trust with her students this particular student likely would not have opened up about her struggles with her peers, causing her to be labeled a “problem student,” or one that just simply wouldn’t cooperate. The Internet has created new and extremely dangerous outlets for bullying that seem to have contributed to the rise in teen suicide, especially considering that many of the news stories cite bullying as the primary cause for the students depression. I believe that it is imperative that students not be taught that “Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me.” It simply is not true. Words can hurt far longer than physical pain and students need to be made aware and accountable for the consequences of “harmless gossip.”