Thu Mar 17/05
Bully for you

As I see it, the fatal flaw in traditional approaches to childhood bullying is the commonly expressed idea that it's not a children-specific issue. "You'll have to deal with bullies your whole life," parents tell their children, though it's difficult to fathom to what end — I know you're upset, honey, but look at it this way: you'll be dealing with this shit for the rest of your life! It's true, in a sense, but adults have vastly superior coping mechanisms. Indeed, part of becoming an adult is arriving at a point in your life where you realize that you've ceased to care what people you dislike think and say about you. Those bullies whom you can't simply flip the bird and forget about — bosses, for instance — can be dealt with by slagging them mercilessly behind their backs. It's win-win.

The child bully's neatest trick is to keep a hold on his schoolyard kingdom even though his subjects hate his guts. He realizes innately the fluidity of power among his victims — anyone can turn against anyone else at a moment's notice — and he plays off the fact that kids simply don't trust other kids to back them up if they decide to take a stand. As such, I've never believed that a touchy-feely solution to bullying exists. Rather, we need somehow to teach children to exploit the psychological and physical power that lies in their majority.

Or, to put it another way, bullies should wear "LOSER" hockey helmets while their fellow students hurl as many insults as possible at them, all under a teacher's watchful eye. Criminy, what a great story that is. "I'm not saying my kid's a saint… but don't humiliate the kid in front of the rest of the students," said parent Anthony Strong. Why, because that's Tony Jr's job? Sorry, but humiliating the kid in front of the rest of the students is dead-on — not the normal dominion of a teacher, I'll admit, but again, it's difficult to get that particular band to play without a conductor.

On the other hand, this program does appear to be having some success, at least at the high school level. Monday's Post featured the (almost suspiciously) uplifting story of one Strathmore, Alberta teen's improving fortunes:

Patrick's classmates at Holy Cross Collegiate… participated in the program last fall. One by one, they took the microphone and apologized to a peer they had picked on. "I was scared that I was going to get bullied myself, so I started to bully you. I just hope you'll forgive me," a sobbing girl said to Patrick, followed by a warm hug and loud cheers from students. Today, Patrick is stunned at the turnaround by his peers. "It changed the whole school completely," he said.

When I read that the program was "created by an American husband-and-wife team" and that it was a Catholic school where it was implemented, I immediately feared for its wider prospects in Canada. Happily, though, there seems to be no religion at work here beyond the demon secular humanism (it's inspired by Gandhi's "words and actions"), so it should fit perfectly.

Don't get me wrong: though I'm sure the Mahatma would protest, I'm also not averse to a program that teaches children how to beat the living snot out of bullies. The point is that anti-bullying is one aspect of the politically correct revolution that we should all support, hockey helmets or no hockey helmets.