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Our blind spots on bullying

When people are forced to think about the issue of bullying -- either because of a high-profile tragedy or because some form of the practice has hit close to…

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Perhaps it's a protective mechanism so as to not overwhelm the student,
parent or school administrator who is forced to deal with a topic most of us
wish never to confront -- or worse, have to confront again.

    
For instance, at a recent Chicago mayoral debate in which the audience
was composed of students from the city's public schools, the issue of bullying
came up. Of the four candidates on stage -- all of whom had attended a
neighborhood public school -- three admitted to having been bullied. But it was
former White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel who shocked viewers watching the
debate on TV with his experiences.

    
Emanuel, the slight former ballet dancer who is considered by many who
have dealt with him to be a take-no-prisoners bully, recalled that while
attending New Trier Township High School he had been harassed with racially
insensitive remarks because of his vacation-tanned skin. He also said he'd been
beaten up and had his bike stolen.

    
Located in a tony north shore suburb, New Trier is an academic and arts
powerhouse consistently ranked among the best high schools in America --
exactly the kind of place where bullies thrive.

    
Does this shock you? It probably does, because that's one of the many
blind spots we have to bullying.

    
In its list of the top 10 bullying myths, the U.S. Department of Health
and Human Services places the belief that bullying is mostly a problem in urban
or poor schools right up there with other common misperceptions such as
"most bullying is physical," "children and youth who bully are
mostly loners with few social skills," and the old saw that bullying is
just a matter of "kids being kids."

    
"Bullying is predatory behavior, it's a power struggle involving
physically, socially, or emotionally harming somebody who is perceived to be
weak and that happens at every socioeconomic level," said Katherine Cowan,
director of communications for the National Association of School Psychologists,
a group representing the professionals that frequently address bullying issues.
She chuckled when I told her that I'd heard people, including high-profile
local commentators, express doubt that Emanuel would have encountered bullies
in such an affluent environment. "It just so happens I went to New
Trier," she said. "Believe me, there were bullies there."

    
According to a 2010 Josephson Institute of Ethics study, "The
Ethics of American Youth," half of 43,321 students surveyed in public and
private high schools across the country admitted they had bullied someone in
the past year. And 47 percent said they were bullied, teased or taunted in a
way that seriously upset them. Thirty-three percent of these students said that
violence is a big problem at their school, and 24 percent said they don't feel
very safe on campus. 

    
"A kid can target another and use their greater power to harm the
victim anywhere, in any school," Cowan told me. "I don't think that
because your child goes to an affluent school you should think they're at lower
risk for being bullied."

    
Justin Lu, an assistant director at the Josephson Institute, said that
in the 20 years since the organization started doing the survey, general
awareness of the prevalence of bullying has grown significantly. Nationally
recognized incidents in which students have committed suicide after being
unable to cope with relentless intimidation have affirmed that bullying can no
longer be regarded as a minor childhood trauma best left to kids to sort out on
their own. There are now 45 states with laws designed to combat bullying in
schools, and several have recently toughened them or proposed to do so.
Countless universities and school districts are re-evaluating their policies as
well.

    
But to really get our hands around this problem, we must first get our
heads around it. Only honest assessments of the behaviors that our home,
community or school environments reinforce in bullies will make the most
impact. And for starters, we need to get past the blind spots to see that no
school -- urban, suburban, rural, private or public -- and no income level
offers students a respite from bullying.

    

    
Esther Cepeda's e-mail address is estherjcepeda(at)washpost.com.

    

© 2011, Washington Post Writers Group

    

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