In my article “School Bus Bullying? Look Who’s Taking Responsibility and Who’s Not” on Tuesday I reacted to the social uproar that attended the horror story of four seventh graders cruelly and mercilessly mocking a 68-year old bus monitor. Now that emotions have settled a bit from the initial shock, what becomes clear?
1) Contrary to popular opinion there is a consensus: It is bad to be mean to people. Cruelty is wrong. Treat each other with decency and respect.
2) Serious problems occur when adults in positions of authority don’t take responsibility. People—all mammals, actually—need to know that their leaders have authority. In fact, it makes them anxious and angry if they don’t. When the authority has no authority civility deteriorates because the civilians know their civilization is disordered. Children whose civil behaviors are not yet habits may be the first to show the symptoms of disorder. Children hate an authority vacuum, even if they have smiles on their faces.
3) Different kids handle their insecurity in different ways.
4) Adults in society teach social norms more from actions than words. Adults may think they are “teaching right from wrong,” but children might simply be learning what makes adults mad.
5) Children compare what some adults say, with what other adults say, with what their peers say, with what people actually do, with what they see in the public media. They try to make sense of it all by forming hypotheses, and they test those hypotheses by acting things out in the real world and noting what happens.
6) When they make mistakes, it’s good for children to get a comeuppance. There is a lot of disagreement about what form that should take and how it should be delivered. But suspending these four boys for a year is not proportional to responses taken in other cases of bullying. It is reactionary and would be a clear case of scapegoating by those who are technically responsible, but who feel powerless to make responsible decisions. Parents can help by standing by children as they suffer the consequences of their behavior and help them to understand. Blaming children and their parents is avoiding responsibility and scapegoating for a bigger, deeper problem.
7) As children learn from their mistakes and work to make better and better decisions, they are trying to find their center, something to believe in, some point of integrity. Integrity is not something you “teach” kids. Becoming integrated is a life-long project for all humans. (Adults don’t have a monopoly on integrity. For example, adults who stand up for respect and decency by making death threats, or insults, or advocating cruel and unusual punishments, lack integrity.)
Children are in search of adults with backbone. They need adults who can make decisions and take courageous stands. They need to see examples of people acting with courage, compassion and resilience. This search for integrity is why teenagers follow and idolize teachers with a strong center. Their need is so great that they are contemptuous of adults without backbone. (It’s not mature; it’s not good; it’s not graceful; but it is fair.)
1) Do public school officials have the authority to do what is right for children?
2) What role can each of us play in bringing better education to American children?
3) Do parents and teachers want to be partners in building character in their children? Or will parents and teachers keep pointing fingers at each other while the children are left on their own to figure out how not to let their schooling interfere with their education?
To be reminded that hatred and evil still lurk in humans is upsetting, but let’s not project onto the children our own failings. Better for the adults to come together, learn from one another, and think creatively about what to do about a destructive, archaic approach to children. Let’s not treat the symptoms—let’s get to the root cause.
Let the record show that a child with a cell phone called this sorry state of affairs to our attention (a modern version of “The emperor has no clothes”). Let us look into the mirror the children are holding up to us.