by INFORUM
Turnberg: It’s hard to forget bullies
August 27, 2011 at 7:00 pm in INFORUM
The first day of school generates the same excitement and apprehension in me as it does in my kids. Continue Reading
Turnberg: It’s hard to forget bullies
19 Comments
This was actually a pretty good article! Until I saw she copy/pasted half of it… Again.
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strife2211: It was a very good article. I decided you probably ar a bully. The part she “copied” was very pertinent to the article. Maybe it will open some people’s eyes on how they are teaching their children to treat others.
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I see a small section copied but how does that make the article worth less? It still makes a very good point. Are a copied version of the 10 commandments somehow worth less than the lost originals?
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This is shallow, low hanging fruit. Call this what you want. I’m far more interested in the underlying causes of bullying. Kids police each other on what’s socially acceptable and what’s not, in their own little school societies. For example, a 7th grade boy couldn’t wear a bright purple or pink shirt to school without being harassed in North Dakota, but in Korea, it would fly no problem. Gender roles. I have many other genius observations, if you’d like more just ask. Thank you so much. No, please, hold the applause, and Michelle Turnberg publications.
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Great column. Took my back to my elementary and junior high days.
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Okay, I am being serious . . . what about this statement do 41 people not like? I was pretty hard on Michelle last week and I thought she did a nice job on this article. I was bouncing between reading and recalling stuff from my elementary and junior high days. Readers stopping and reflecting is kind of a sign of a good article I would think. Thanks for the feedback. I don’t mind if it’s anonymous.
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Bullying is a serious problem in the schools. Children have to deal with many issues. That is all part of growing up. Providing children with a stable home environment and positive support from parents are critical. The quality of the home life for children carries over to how they behave in school. If children have a parent who is a poor role model, this is how children will behave. Teachers cannot do it alone. Parents need to be good role models so children grow up to be good citizens and treat each other with respect.
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Thank you for a great reminder Michelle about how important it is to treat everyone with kindness.
My daughter also made great friends with a senior high student when she was in junior high. Same story. Talented kid, treated every kid in that school like her equal and was nice to everyone. A real gem, we will miss her as she heads off to college this year. The lessons she left my daughter and example will hopefully be replayed as she enters the last few years of school!
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Yup, this column brought back memories of my own school days. I was, however, not bullied by the kids, but I sure was by my 4th Grade teacher at Walter Hines Page School in Minneapolis [or Richfield] MN. The fear of her and the verbal pain she inflected on me is just as vivid today as it was some 58 years ago. No person acting as an educator should be allowed to inflect such pain on any student at any time. Oh, and this was suppose to be a TOP grade school, at that time. Hope it has burned to the ground.
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Timely article. Very true that you remember vividly experiences of bullying.
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(of being bullied, oops)
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S.L. I can relate in a somewhat different way. Teachers can be bullies too. There was one in my junior high in EGF. I graduated in the early 90′s. He was a drafting or shop teacher and there was a heavy set boy in my class whom he relentlessly verbally abused about his weight in front of the entire class. It was horrifying. I was terrified of this teacher even though his verbal abuse was never hurled at me and to this day I feel just ashamed that I did not have the courage to stand up for the victim in my class. Thinking back on it…I would have to say this teachers bullying was probably the worst example of bullying I had ever witnessed because it also gave a message to the victims peers that it was ok to treat him like that. I often wonder where that teacher is today and if he’s ever given a thought to his bad behavior…perhaps as he’s in some nursing home somewhere having to rely on the kindness of others for his personal care.
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At South Junior High in Grand Forks there was a teacher in the 70′s who bullied kids, unless they were an athete or cute girl. Now after getting out of prison he is a registered sex offender.
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whole, not whol.
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Ah yes the dreaded bully,sick to your stomach about having to go to school again, what kind of illness can I come up with today to get me out of having to go to that place of torture. Feelings like that are not fun and often kids don’t tell their parents what is going on for fear it will worsen the situation. I was picked on so bad in junior high i though about killing myself, often, and why for what? To escape the torment, the frustration, the embarrassment, and the feelings of self doubt and worthlessness that came along with the daily tortures. It was because I didn’t wear the right clothes, or I had curly hair which at the time I was named “swamp witch”, maybe my bone structure was big so I was called fat or mooed at while I walked down the hallway. Bullying is serious, our kids are killing themselves everyday because of it, as i glanced through the articles before sitting down to write my own comment, I saw some instances of it here. Is there a time ever in a person’s life that they should be made to feel so worthless by others they don’t belong here anymore? Is there a reason that being mean to someone else makes us secretly feel better about ourselves, or is it the fact that our own life is so miserable the only thing we can do to protect ourself is to lash out and make others feel just as if not worse then we do? I am a mother of three children all teenagers, I raised them with the values that just because someone is different, doesn’t mean that they are any less then or have any different feelings then those of your own. I am proud to say my children have stood up for other kids getting picked on in school, and have been noticed by faculty doing so. If no one stands up and says hey that’s not right, don’t do that, I am not going to be a part of making someone feel bad what kind of adults are we raising. What kind of future do we have left as a society? We can all sit back and say, not my kid, when in reality they are all our kids.
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Geez bko…lighten up!!!
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I wonder if years down the road, the kids who bullied/picked on others are aware of how miserable they made their victims feel. Seems to me like a lot of bullies don’t consider themselves bullies at the time, they were just popular and having a laugh at someone’s expense.. no big deal to them right?
I noticed one guy got hired where I work not too long ago & was apparently a HUGE bully to a girl I knew.. Whenever I pass him or see his name, I ask myself “10 years later, did he grow up? Is he changed? Does he remember how he made this girl feel?” I’ve always wondered the mindnset of bullies not just as it’s happening, but years down the road.
It’s a shame if they truly don’t believe or remember themselves as being bullies. I can only hope their children (if they have them) don’t make the same mistakes.
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Isn’t it kinda ironic that being a bully is “bad”, however, the victim being bullied is generally considered a “wimp”…and when the victim finally stands up for themselves today there is “ZERO TOLERANCE” preventing a justifiable defense…
…that’s just the parents, then there’s the kids…!
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This will probabaly get a lot of negative check marks but so what. Remember how the so-called good kids who were so-called the popular kids such as the jocks and cheerleader types were always allowed to get away with anything in school? My thought on this is the many teachers never were part of this type of group growing up and now wish to be accepted by that type of student today. My mother taught for many years along with aunts and cousins of my parents and they all agreed with me on this.
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