There are bullies in all of our schools, and they, apart from a peculiar sadness they all seem to share, come in many guises. More or less easy to expose, depending on their particular style, they do share a common purpose, which put simply is that they make other people unhappy for their own vicarious pleasure. There are a myriad range of triggers for their unpleasantness, and some of them may be beyond their control, but they all leave misery in their wake.
Physical bullies are, of course, the easiest to spot, and often therefore, the easiest to deal with. They tend to leave evidence; these are the nippers, the tuggers, the hair pullers, the kickers, the spitters, the fight organisers. And then there are those who inflict mental torture in anything from the crudest to the most sophisticated ways you can imagine. Who was the famous torturer who said he learned everything he knew ‘in school’?
And of course, there’s your very best friend, who can make you reliant on them and
isolate you and carry tales, then offer to help….. Then there’s the ‘Bully Club’, that great fun game of ‘musical friends’, almost it seems, a national institution amongst girls…. Whose turn is it to be left out today and ‘cry home to mum, and won’t say who, made me feel so bad today...?’ And MSN and other sites which allow bullies to operate out of hours….no need to wait for another school day to compound the misery of their victims.
You’ll find very few apologists for bullies and bullying, apart from the odd desperate parent perhaps, and certainly not from the students themselves, because all agree…. BULLYING IS BAD. The persistently cruel and nasty bully indeed, will agree with this statement, and may do so honestly enough, because bullying is not what they do…they do something else, they call it something else; what they are doing is justified.
Bullies will assemble ‘evidence’ to support their actions, and this evidence is assembled to refute the charge that they fear most….that of being a bully. It’s not a desirable ‘label’, to carry amongst young people, nor ever has been. They may collect their evidence cerebrally, they may verbalise it so that a sycophantic or cowed audience concur, but it is all to one purpose; to avoid that invidious label. It is a label that no-one aspires to, and because of that the WORD is your most powerful ally, when it’s your duty to go to the rescue of a suffering child.
A school bully can gain kudos and apparent popularity on the back of acts of gratuitous cruelty, but the reverse is true if that behaviour is exposed for what it is…This does not necessarily mean public exposure, but the behaviour must be laid bare to the protagonist in a way that forces their acknowledgement that they have been bullying. Communication, therefore, is the key. This is demonstrated in the case study below.
CASE STUDY – INTERVIEW WITH A BULLYEmily is a looked after child, new to the area if not the region. She’s been unhappy for weeks, and after a bright start, succumbed to peer-inflicted misery. Her plight has not been ignored. Systems to prevent and deal with bullying issues have been practised, parents and carers interviewed, home liaison unleashed, you name it, and the outcome is an unhappy fudge.
There’s no “real evidence of bullying”, despite exhaustive procedures and ‘leadership team intervention’. Funny thing is, everybody knows that Emily is being bullied, and the same people know who’s doing it. The school has ‘responded vigorously to the situation’. And isn’t Emily a ‘little vulnerable’ anyway’? Mrs. …, the Year Head, asks if I can have a try.
EMILY
I meet Emily, and tell her I understand she’s been unhappy, and that Miss …….. has asked me to help. I tell her that I don’t take this sort of job on lightly, and that I am going to sort her out, come what may. I’m making eye contact at this point, and making my determination as tangible as I can. (If you can’t keep this promise, then it should go without saying, you shouldn’t make it).
I tell her that I am good at this sort of thing and that, ‘I am not going to do anything until we have agreed that it is a good idea’, i.e. I’m not going to stick my big foot in and make anything worse. (Do you think a well meaning teacher never made a bullying scenario ten times more painful?)
I ask her to tell me all about it, and I listen carefully. I interrupt for clarification only.
(At this stage note…no names have been mentioned. I’m not basing this interview on any extraneous or accumulated evidence).
Emily is as fiercely intelligent as she is fed up, and she tells me all about it. The synopsis is simple….new school, she tried to make friends, she hit it off with one girl who was also friends with…..and then we get the unsolicited name….Becky.
She was physically attacked by B, had a tuft of hair removed….but B ‘had to apologise’, and ‘she got a day’s isolation, and the Deputy Head shouted at her, and she got grounded.’ But now no-one talks to me, and if they do and she sees, they stop, and she gives me hackies (dirty looks), and they say things , words loudly, like ‘grass’, and slut and scruff and nomer (no friends),and that somebody’s Mum’s dead, and I know they mean me , but the teachers don’t, and I get jostled on the stairs, and there’s chewing gum in my hair, and the bigger kids, I don’t even know them, they’re starting to call me….” Emily stops, bites her top lip and manages a brave smile.
I tell her that this is going to stop, and that we can make it stop, and that there are a lot of strategies we can use to sort this out. I suggest that I talk to B…... and that we see what happens next. She agrees. I tell her that this is just one way, that there are others we can try, if this doesn’t work. I tell her this usually works, because it does.
We agree to meet in a week, same time, same place, and talk again. (Miss …..), from the inclusion team, and necessarily present at both interviews, notes this down with just the right amount of gravitas). Emily agrees to let Miss …. know if anything gets worse, as an unlikely result of my forthcoming interview with B. Emily also agrees that when we meet next week, she will give me a full and unabridged account of her week, threats notwithstanding. I tell her that this is an oath that must normally be sworn with blood but that the L.E.A. would take a dim view of it, and she gets the joke, and my meaning.
BECKY
I arrange to meet Becky, determined on a few pre – planned strategies, which are as follows.
1. At no stage will I confront her with the ‘bullying allegation’, during this interview. In fact, I’m confident that this won’t be necessary.
2. We’re going to have a conversation about bullies and bullying, but there is NO WAY I will mention the ‘B’ word first. Becky has to do that.
3. I’m going to be friendly, non – confrontational and brutally honest.
4. I’m going to get Becky to sort out this problem.
Becky is pretty. She looks hard. She’s well turned out. She’s got a fairly good idea what THIS is going to be about. She looks like she might easily get bored. I introduce myself... she knows Miss… I tell her this is an informal meeting, and Miss….isn’t writing anything down…today. I then proceed to be brutally honest.
I tell her that there is a child in her year group who is suffering badly, and that I have taken an interest, because Mrs……asked me to. I tell her that I’m going to put an end to that suffering, whatever that may take. I tell her who the child is. I tell her that we’re meeting because I believe she can help. I tell her that I’ve read all the statements, heard all the stories, and that I am jumping to no conclusions, that I DON’T KNOW, what’s been happening, because I haven’t started yet. I tell her I hope that I won’t have to get into all that, and that that’s why she’s here.
I ask her, having informed her that Emily has probably had more to put up with already in her young life than most, and meanwhile noting that Becky doesn’t come across as silver spoon herself, whether she knows the term for a ‘person who makes other people unhappy for fun, or just because they can, because they’re tough and powerful and the other kid isn’t’. There are more than enough clues for Becky there.
“Bully”, she says. This is an important moment, and worthy of a pregnant pause, because to me and Becky both, that’s a dirty word. We have established the nature of the act, and Becky has named it. She knows what that is, and there no need to go into detail anymore. And Becky has been accused of nothing. I mention, because it’s true, during our general discussion on this nasty topic, that short of telling a parent that their child has fallen under a council wagon, and is horribly squashed, the worst news you can bring a parent is that their kid has been making other children unhappy for fun. (I’m still not using that word).
During our conversation, Becky tells her tale in an intelligently covert way. (Becky is skilled in covert operations, clearly.) Emily was getting close to her posher, middle class mate, whom Becky admired and coveted as a special friend. Emily is clever and witty….she got scared. This, you’ll recognise, is a familiar, very human tale.
Asked if she could help, (because we both knew she could), Becky said she would, and off she went, with my thanks for her attention and her promise.
EMILY
On the appointed day, Emily arrived, a much chirpier character altogether, “It’s stopped”, she says breathlessly, “She’s even being nice to me.”
“Splendid”, I respond, “I thought it might, but don’t forget your blood oath if it starts again. How’s your hamster?”
Becky clearly went off to flex her little muscles in a more positive direction. Given the opportunity to avoid confronting the meaning of that word, and all its implications, perhaps Becky felt it an opportunity too good to miss. We should never use the ‘bully” word until everyone involved is clear about its meaning.
I thanked Becky when I saw her next, because after all, she’s the one who sorted the problem out. I didn’t know her Mum was dead though, until Emily told me.
Pete Sanderson
Behaviour Needs
Behaviour Needs run highly engaging and practical courses for teachers and teaching assistants. “Preventing and Dealing with Bullying in School” is happening on
8th September in London. For details of this course and a schedule of forthcoming courses on other aspects of behaviour management visit: www.Behaviourneeds.com
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