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When will schools take bullying seriously? Children who suffer severe, long-lasting injuries at the hands of school bullies have little or no hope of recovery for the harm done. A new theory could remove the shield of immunity.

Article Excerpt
When I was a high school teacher, we had a saying: Put out matches, not forest fires. One child making fun of another was a lighted match. A student throwing a punch in the hallway was a forest fire. We worried about the little acts that led to larger acts, and we responded early, while we could still prevent a child from getting hurt.

The approach served us well for a couple of reasons. First, there are always some children who will test the limits to see which rules the adults are serious about enforcing. Second, the testing rarely begins at the extremes; before child/'en risk lighting fires, they light matches--little insults, slightly malicious teasing, mild threats--to see if the adults are paying attention and if they will respond. Mildly aggressive behavior nearly always precedes serious aggression.

Unfortunately, too many school officials behave as if little acts of aggression deserve little attention. Compounding the problem, they of ten underestimate the seriousness of patterns of aggression--bullying--that do real and long-lasting harm to children. Victims are left with three unhealthy options: to continue to suffer, to stay away from school, or to retaliate.

Bullying can destroy victims' desire to learn--and even to live--and can leave them debilitated well into adulthood. The magnitude of the problem and the seriousness of its effects have been thoroughly documented. There is no longer any real debate that bullying is one of the most pervasive and damaging threats that exist in the schools.

Passive approaches to bullying guarantee its continued vitality and reinforce denial and blame-shifting by school officials. (1) Nevertheless, current law offers few real incentives for education al change. A substantial disconnect currently exists between how courts define "reasonable supervision" and what we know about bullying, its effects, and its prevention. Similarly current state statutes do not require the processes that we know will effectively reduce bullying and reshape schools' cultures. It is time to rethink our legal response to schools that allow bullies to torment other children.

Definition, effects, and prevention

First, let's be clear about what educational researchers mean by "bullying." It is not the occasional encounter with a blowhard or even the genuine tough guy. It is not the occasional insult of short-lived teasing that everyone encounters in life. It is not simply exclusion from this or that clique.

Bullying, as it is usually defined in the studies conducted over the past decade, means persistent, pervasive harassment targeting a specific individual. (2) Typically conducted behind teachers' backs, (3) it may include threats and physical assaults. It may consist of daily cruelties designed to make a child appear weak and vulnerable in front of his or her peers. (4) Bullying may be a systematic isolation that strips a child of friends and leaves him or her shunned by everyone in the class. (5) It often involves the acquiescence and even participation of the larger group. (6) It is an ongoing type of abuse that usually requires a seemingly insurmountable imbalance of power. (7)

Research has demonstrated that bullying harms not only the victim but the bully and bystanders as well. Victims of ten succumb to emotional breakdown, depression, and suicide. (8) Many bystanders experience intense feelings of vulnerability and, in some cases, suffer the same emotional problems as the targets. (9)

Other bystanders frequently join in the bullying and begin to view the victims as somehow deserving of the treatment. (10) The bullies themselves have a remarkably high probability of a criminal conviction by the time they reach their early 20s. (11)

Research also has identified proven strategies for dramatically reducing bullying in schools, regardless of the setting. Bullying, it tunas out, is not a function of location but a function of school climate, (12) and school climate can be transformed if administrators and teachers are willing to lead the way. (13)

Schools that have adopted a proactive approach to changing...

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