Page 4 - Mini-Module 6

Foreword

The most untruthful of all childhood rhymes is “sticks and stones may break
my bones but names will never hurt me”.

I remember punching Graham C in Year 9. I fractured a knuckle of my right
hand on his glasses and it hurt me more than him. We had come back from
Sport and the class bully – a kid called John-Boy – took my boxer shorts from
my sports kit and while I scrambled to get them back from him he began
teasing me because of the ‘batman’ motif. Graham decided to join in the
teasing, chanting ‘Robin – Robin - Robin’. So I hit him. I didn’t hit John-boy
because that would have been suicide, but I hit Graham because in the
pecking order of my school Graham was below me. I was both victim and
bully. Every adult remembers bullies: the larger kids who tripped smaller
students in the halls, punched people after school when no one else was
around, spread lies to embarrass and humiliate others, or those who would
use emotional blackmail like “I’m having a sleep over and you can’t come”.
These are not fond memories but they serve to illustrate that bullying has
been around for a long time.

Perhaps it has been the tragic shootings at schools such as Littleton, Colorado,
and Taber, Alberta, that have made us sit up and take note that bullying is not
a ‘rite of passage’, but a major problem. As a result, principals in most
countries today have a legal responsibility and a moral duty to prevent
bullying. Effective leadership is mandatory. Anti-bullying strategies must
form part of a school’s discipline and behaviour policy. Procedures for staff,
parents and students to follow up if bullying occurs should be clear and well
publicised throughout the school. Most of all it takes strong leadership to
stop or at least reduce bullying.

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