"What kind of world do you want?
Think anything,
Let's start at the start,
Build a masterpiece.
Be careful what you wish for;
History starts now."
-Five For Fighting, "World"
This post is in response to this picture one of my friends posted on Facebook a few weeks ago:
As I thought about it, the more I was able to see the validity in the argument. In the past few years, I've seen a lot of stuff going around the internet about bullying and bullying prevention. My thoughts as I read these articles/blogs were "AMEN!" and "I wish this stuff was around when I was a kid." Being bullied is a terrible experience and it is not something I would wish on anyone. Also, being bullied as a child can lead to harsh, negative effects that can last a lifetime. It can make children feel useless and worthless, and I've heard it said that we can never really escape the things we learn in childhood. For these reasons I am a strong advocate of bullying prevention.
However, just like everything else, there is a flip side. Schools can create all of the anti-bullying rules they want, but if someone really wants to bully another person, rules will not stop him/her. We have laws against murder, theft, and rape, but laws themselves do not prevent people from doing them. We can pass whatever laws we want, enforce them however we want, and punish the perpetrators any way we want. But that will never stop anybody.
As I said before, we (theoretically) cannot escape what we learn in childhood. If children learn how to stand up for themselves and/or cope, then they will carry those lessons with them for life. The thing is that life is hard. (Shocking, I know.) We won't always have school rules to protect us, and we won't always have other people to rely on for support when life (or people) try to bring us down. As we help children stand up for themselves and cope, then we are preparing them for the real world, and they will be stronger and better off for it.
I fully understand that there are certain personality types that do not easily allow people to stand up for themselves or cope, but that is all the more reason to push for teaching strategies to help children take a stand and/or cope. Personalities are inconstant and malleable. If you think that personalities do not change, I'm willing to bet your personality is different from your 4-year-old, 12-year-old, 17-year-old, etc. selves. Furthermore, bullies target those who appear weak to them, such as kids who feel powerless to stand up for themselves or cope with the situation. And these are the people who most need to learn to take a stand and/or cope, and learning to cope and stand up for yourself are valuable life skills to learn.
I should know; I naturally have one of those personalities. Elementary and middle schools were hell on earth for me because of the bullying I experience. Although my school pushed anti-bullying campaigns, they had no effect. In my fifth grade year, my school incorporated a program called "Peacebuilders" aimed to prevent bullying, and I saw more fights break out that year than in any other school year. For the longest time, I considered myself a victim. I thought my experiences with bullying crippled me and made me less able to succeed. I never learned to cope as a kid and I was too afraid to stand up for myself (which is another thing anti-bullying rules indirectly teach: if you stand up for yourself you will suffer the same consequences as the bullies even though standing up for yourself and bullying are too completely different things). It took me twenty-six years to overcome some of those effects, and I'm not sure if I've fully overcome. As a child, I never learned to take a stand or cope. I learned how to sulk, which is different from coping. It may have taken m a long time to overcome, but overcome I did and I am much better off because of it. Had I learned this at a younger age, I could have been better off at a younger age.
Whether you're a parent or a teacher, let us not teach our children to be victims. Let us teach our children to be strong. Let us teach them the valuable life lessons of taking a stand and dealing with hardships.
