The headlines come almost
daily now. Incidents of bullying, some
of which result in death, are certainly on the rise. Just this week there is the news story of the
Junior High student in Oklahoma
who committed suicide that is being linked to bullying. There is even a story this week of a young Sikh
woman at college being bullied, if you will, via a cell phone captured picture
posted on the Universities' forum.
Google ‘bullying’ and you
could read for days the various stories, mostly lesser reported incidents. Are today’s children meaner than years gone
by? Some have floated the theory that
today’s children are ‘softer’, less able to handle the ‘routine’ bullying that
has occurred since the conception of brick and mortar schools. I thank the heavens that when I was growing
up there was no internet – no facebook, Youtube, and the ilk for which my
bullies could further wreck their havoc on my life. We didn’t have cell phones, capable of taking
pictures, and so there was no such thing as ‘sexting’ either.
The young college woman
responded beautiful to her ‘bullies’ and her story is one of inspiration. The 8th grader in Oklahoma is dead at his
own hand. What is the difference? There is the fact that the young college
woman has her faith, is in fact deeply devoted.
I would think the fact that she was being mocked (bullied) as a result
of that faith was in part why she was able to stand up so elegantly to her
mockers. But there is another important
difference between the two. The college
woman is an adult. She has had time to
develop her sense of self, her faith, and her place in the world. The 13 year old boy from Oklahoma had not.
Children are meant to grow *into*
adulthood. They are *not*
mini-adults. I’m often shocked,
appalled, and saddened by the attitude so many adults have concerning children
– ones with children and ones without. A
seven year old, or even a fourteen year old, is not capable of ‘handling’ the
stresses of adulthood. To believe they
can is not merely absurd, but criminal – in my mind. Many, many children SURVIVE the horrors of
school. In order to feel okay with what
they endured they serve up platitudes, ones they may even have convinced
themselves are truth, about why it’s ‘ok’ that they went through what they went
through. “It made me grow up, it
toughened me up, it taught me valuable life lessons.” And so on.
However, if shown another way, a better way, not one of those adults (if
honest) wouldn’t have said, ‘yes, I choose this other option.” I know I would have.
There is no reason a child of
any age should *have* to endure what some – no, what many – endure in the
public school setting. And do you know
why? We don’t except adults to endure it
in the real world! You take a job at a
company and you are harassed because you are a woman, you are a person of
color, you are gay, or your co-workers think you are weird, and there are laws
in place to protect you, to help you, to stop the harassment! Why – because as a society we have determined
it is WRONG for those actions to be perpetuated onto another member of society. A co-worker writes ‘slut’ across your chair
everyday at work and what happens? There
is an investigation and the guilty party is punished – fired from her/his job,
sued by you, and so on. A co-worker gets
upset with you, for whatever reason, and punches you in the face or jumps you
from behind the bathroom door at work.
What happens? He’s arrested for
assault and battery. He loses his
job. You do not have to continue to go
to work and live in terror that you are going to get punched in this face by a bully.
Why do we offer less to our
children?
Dealing with ‘difficult’
people is something that everyone has to do in life. But, here’s the paradox. Everyone is difficult. Yes, everyone! The only thing that makes someone not
difficult for you is that you find common ground with that person. You have similar ways of thinking, or
conducting yourself. You ‘click’ with
people. Some are able to find common
ground more easily, with more people, than others. The majority of the people, the vast
majority, that are in the workplace today were public schooled. If public
school were the Holy Grail of socialization, we would have a better society
today, instead of what we do have.
If surviving those ‘tough life lessons’ during elementary, middle, and
high school years is a Beta test for the abilities of adults to thrive in
society as an adult, would we grade society as having passed or failed? Saying that home schooling harms children is
as ignorant as saying that public school ensures success for children. Saying that children need to survive the
brutality of bullies inside the walls of public school is criminal. At the very least, if I’m at work and I’m
harassed and no one will do anything about it, I can quit and walk away. We don’t even allow children THAT right
inside the prison of public school.
Most Americans believe in
freedom; the freedom to choose one’s path in life. Some want to take away the freedoms of those
who are of a different religious position, political position, or even from
those whose skin color or sexual orientation is ‘different’. Those Americans who believe those freedoms
should belong to all, should be in total support of anti-bullying laws, the
freedom to home school, and even the movement to tear down and rebuild the
public educational system so that our children – the future of our society –
are FREE to be who they are, in a setting that not only encourages, but
protects, their rights to explore, to think, to learn, to grow without fear. With that pipe dream firmly in place, I say
that home schooling is a completely appropriate answer to the question, “How
does one avoid bullying at school?”
~Mari B.
Girl!! Your stuff needs to be posted in magazines! For everyone to read.
ReplyDeleteHow sweet of you! Thank you for your encouraging words!
Delete~Mari B.