I have a new beef with the public school system and their claims for having zero tolerance against bullies. In short, while school’s like to say things like this to keep parents happy, it’s not what they actually practice. Instead, teachers still don the age old tactics of victim blaming to keep a quieter classroom by telling the students who report harassment and issues from other students as “tattletales.”
I’m not a teacher, but I have lead Girl Scouts on my own (as my co-leader thought all meetings were her “fun time” to catch up on texting), and kids are exhausting. I couldn’t really imagine having twenty of them all day, five days a week, and the different challenges that brings on. I also know what the tattletale kids act like, raising their hand to report every sneeze, every cross-eyed look, every person not doing what they’re supposed to do. I know those kids exist, and, sooner or later, you have to start blowing them off and telling them to mind their own business and ignore certain actions of others. However, when someone is reporting harassment or bullying, and you’re telling them to shut up and take it, that’s another story.
Enter my son, the bully magnet with thin skin. There is one child in his classroom that even the teacher addresses as a severe problem student. And, if this child gets called out on his behavior, he starts crying and wailing crocodile tears, at the top of his lungs, until the entire class has to come to a grinding halt to cater to him. This child goes to some kind of new-aged, special ed class for a few hours a week, but all the rest of the time, he is there, with the regular kids, making their school experience Hell.
This single child is actually such a problem that the teacher has sent him to the office before just for the sake of telling all the other children that he’s awful, do not talk to him, do not look at him. Things that, I would have to imagine, only a desperate teacher would say. This kid has to be putting her at the end of her rope.
My son, V, tells me that he tried being this kid’s friend at first, thinking maybe if someone was nice to him it would “give him a reason to stop acting up for attention.” For the three and a half weeks of the friendship, this other child just tormented my son. When V gets invited to an honors club, this other kid looks at his paper and tells V that he must be stupid if he needs help with algebra, because this other kid has already known it for years. Now, this is the 4th grade, and, no, they don’t even teach algebra yet in the classroom. This is some next level stuff here, and this kid is being a dick, plain and simple. Or, the Book Bowl Club just isn’t enough of a challenge, because this kid claims to be able to read an entire chapter book in less than a day. It’s stupid, juvenile stuff from a kid who clearly doesn’t have the intellect to walk and chew gum at the same time, but it hurts V’s feelings all the same.
They would sit together at lunch and the kid would pull, poke, and punch my kid until V would tell him “stop it, or I won’t be your friend any more!” This resulted in the other child starting tantrum mode, crying, moving to the other side of the lunchroom, then screaming that V hit him when questioned by teachers. Likewise, when they sit near each other in the pick up line and the teacher called out “who’s talking?!” this kid would point at V, who would then get a tongue lashing from the teacher, even though his nose is always stuck in a book and he has very little interest in socializing with the other kids (seriously, he sits under a tree and reads at the majority of his recesses).
Now, I know my kid, he’s terrified of getting in trouble in any form, no matter how small, so he tends to walk a pretty straight line. He’s not perfect, but, sadly, from experience, I know that he will stab himself with pencils to vent his frustrations at bullies before putting his hand on someone else (I’d honestly prefer the opposite, if that’s any better, really, but his stress is something we struggle to manage – Tae Kwon Do helps a lot). I know this, I’ve been through it many times, but, as the new kid in school, his teachers do not.
Since V got irritated and scratched this other kid off of his friends list, the kid has just become more harassing. He’ll call his name over and over again in class, trying to get V to talk to him/get him in trouble for talking. Or, he’ll smack his books out of his hand when they’re walking. Not to mention the constant degrading remarks about how V is stupid. And, if V raises his hand and reports this harassment, the teachers say (and at least one teacher has confirmed this to my face), “____, stop hitting V. V, stop being a tattletale! If either of you keep it up, you’ll both get a strike!”
A strike is a derogatory mark that denotes how much recess you lose. So, my son loses his steam for standing up to the kid and reporting the problems, because he’s afraid of getting his first strike ever (whereas he tells me this other kid gets “like 30 strikes a day!” – which I’m sure is at least slightly exaggerated). But, what I am interested in knowing is why is my son reporting the harassment gets viewed on the same level as the person doing the harassing? This isn’t solving the issue or having zero tolerance to bullying, this is telling the bully that he can hold his victims hostage, because the other kids can’t stop him without getting in trouble themselves! How about the teacher just tells him straight out, “I don’t want to be bothered, now go away!”
I want to see the teachers’ side of this, I really do. I know the teacher has already put the kid off in a desk on his own. I know the kid visits the office regularly for bad behavior. I know the teachers are all probably wishing that full time special needs programs were still something that the public schools allowed, so that children who had mental handicaps, delays, and behavioral/emotional issues weren’t ruining the learning experience for all the other children (forcing all the other children to move at the special needs pace while the teaching has to stop to cater to special needs). But I also know that between this child and the kids who don’t speak English, the teacher is giving way too much of her time and attention to a few children instead of being able to teach them all. I know this situation is more the fault of the school board than the teachers, yet, here we are all the same, and how the teacher handles the bullying behavior from a problem kid is not justifiable by any circumstances, even if the teacher has tried to contain the bully with failed methods. If the behavior hasn’t stopped, the problem isn’t resolved!
Other than boldly proclaiming that the teachers have zero control in the classroom, rather than zero tolerance for bullies, there is no sensible explanation to this. I, for one, am a parent that is sick to death of victim blaming, and I think that calling reporters “tattletales” and making sure that children having issues have no where to turn and no one to talk to in school is a dangerous, ridiculous path to go down. I see this kind of behavior and how it isolates victims, and it does not make me wonder why things like Columbine happen – because teachers see and hear things, and they can’t even be bothered to have a sympathetic ear when someone reports being picked on. Instead, they tell the victim that he’s part of the problem because he seeks out help from someone who is supposed to be a trusted adult.
Wow, I’m really glad that teachers aren’t counselors for battered women’s homes! Could you imagine allowing that same mentality of victim shaming there? “Well, you’re just as guilty for reporting your husband beating you to the police!” “You should learn to work out your own problems with people instead of running away or asking other people to fix them for you!” “You two used to be friends, so figure out your problems and move on!” “Yes, I see him hitting you when he walks by, but what am I supposed to do about it? I already moved his seat!” It’s completely illogical to treat children this way while waving a Zero Tolerance for Bullies flag around the parents. I can’t believe that there is nothing that can be done for this problem kid other than giving him free-range to torment other children.
Trying to Mom 