Anti-Bullying Day: Wednesday February 24th

Of all the things that befall children, bullying is perhaps the most heartbreaking, and is even harder on parents than the kids who suffer it.

Nothing else quite inflames our sense of anger and justice as the spectre of the bully. Literature (and more so the movies) is full of bullies who at the end of the day get clobbered by the good guys: Mr. Bumble in Charles Dickens’ Oliver Twist, the Wicked Stepsisters of Cinderella and my personal favourite, Hans Christen Anderson’s The Ugly Ducking, who is transformed into a beautiful swan. 

But what is bullying really like in the real world of school?

Well, like most things, it’s complicated. 

In many years of doing this job, when a parent tells me their child is being bullied, it’s the paediatric equivalent of hearing “my child has a tummy ache”: could be anything from a misunderstanding to something quite serious.

Bullying is not like stealing or cheating in that the bully is almost never caught red handed. And even if he/she were, it would not address what often surrounds it, the moral tone and culture of the school. 

So the best way of thinking about it is to encourage habits of kindness and empathy that become embodied in the life of the school. I like to think we’ve got that here at The Oxford School, but it would be naïve to think that it never happens or that we can take our culture of kindness for granted. 

Wednesday February 24th

So this Wednesday, your children are welcome to wear any garment of pink, either in place of the uniform or with it to mark the occasion of Anti-Bullying Day. 

The original event was organized by David Shepherd and Travis Price of Berwick, Nova Scotia, who in 2007 bought and distributed 50 pink shirts after male ninth grade student Chuck McNeill was bullied for wearing a pink shirt during the first day of school.

So what’s to be done if your child tells you, or you suspect he or she is being bullied? 

First, listen carefully to what your son or daughter is telling you, distinguishing between what they say happened from how it makes them feel. Acknowledge their feelings while at the same time not demonizing the perpetrator; do not contact the other family directly but reach out to your classroom teacher and me first.

This includes online bullying which we consider part of our purview as a school regardless of where it happens. This is a prevalent problem and carries enough nuance that we could devote an entire post to it alone. I would just say two things about on line bullying here: first a transgression in this medium may be subject to the Criminal Code of Canada, and second, for every one case of Cyber Bullying there are at least ten of “Cyber Stupidity” where an inappropriate post is one that boomerangs back on the perpetrator with potential school/career ending consequences. 

Remember that childhood relationships are full of inequalities and that most often there is some semblance of reciprocity when conflict takes place; that’s the difference between Fairy Tales and the world we live in.  

Of course there are real bona fide examples of bullying and any such case that is found at our school will be dealt with seriously up to and including expulsion. 

But since we are a school after all, let’s presume good intent and mark this Wednesday, Anti-Bullying Day, as a learning exercise which will be observed in each classroom as per age appropriateness.