I was dreaming, dreaming that my son was safe in school every time I drop him off.”
— My Mom Sahra
This is a personal article and close to my heart, after my younger brother experienced verbal, physical, death threats, and cyber harassment; before, after, and during school. We contacted school administrators to inform them about the serious harassment and asked them to solve the problem. Two days of suspension for the bully was the only action they took. Immediately following his suspension friends of the bully joined him and the harassment escalated. The next two weeks we did not hear from the school administrators, and the harassment now occurred in the classrooms, cafeteria, basketball games, and practices, to the point that my brother did not want to go to school anymore.
The next morning we called the school and requested the same day a conference with the principle, teacher, counselor, and the basketball coach. When we asked them the status of the original harassment, their answers were ―two days of suspension of the student took care of the problem.‖ We informed that the last two weeks, while we were waiting for the result of the school investigations, the harassment had continued and escalated. Meanwhile, friends of the bully retaliated for him in the classrooms, cafeteria, and basketball games. This is why we are having this meeting with everyone today, because of the original threat, retaliations and the lack of solution from the school administration. We believe that the school and the administration failed to provide a safe and secure learning environment for on a daily basis.
We learned from the school counselor, that often bullies have parenting problems, self esteem issues, below average academic skills, and some have language problems. More boys are bullied than girls in elementary, middle school and most severe cases are in high school. It was heart breaking to learn this information from the counselor. And after we provided the original Facebook death threat, the only action taken by the school was two days suspension.
That’s when we decided to educate ourselves about bullying and learn everything we can to keep us informed. We learned cyber bullying and school bullying is more frequent than we realized. Even though some students do not have access to the social network, like student ―A‖, they cannot escape cyber bullying. They will likely experience more bullying in person. As we researched we learned that bullying can ultimately lead to suicidal action, physical aggression, and experimentation with drugs and alcohol so they don’t have to think about their situation.
What Defines Bullying?
It means repeated cyber bullying, physical, verbal and psychological attacks or intimidation directed against a student who cannot properly defend him or herself because of size or strength, or the student is outnumbered or less psychologically strong enough to stand up to the bully. Then, we asked my brother and his friends why they don’t speak up about bullying.
This was their answer – because adults, teachers and counselors fail to understand and even underestimate the extent of bullying. Students do not believe that most teachers or parents respond effectively to the situation or some times do not intervene. These are some reasons:
- fearing they would not be believed,
- not wanting to worry their parents,
- having no confidence that anything would change as a result,
- thinking their parents’ or teacher’s advice would make the problem worse,
- fearing their teacher would tell the bully who told on him or her
- fear of retaliation,
- feeling shame at not being able to stand up for themselves.
We believed when my brother went to school he was in a safe environment, and did not worry about physical, verbal, and death threats. We thought the school administration was fulfilling their duty of protecting the student. That was not the case. We hope no other families ever experience the fear and humiliation of bullying and social network death threats.
What Can Be Done?
Surely, not enough was done to ensure that child’s safety. As a former administrator of student services, in my district, a published death threat was grounds for immediate suspension and expulsion. The student/bully needs intervention, too. He is on the path to incarceration. At the same time, this student’s cumulative file would be read. Does he have a history of aggression? Does he have a learning/language disability? If so, has he had any special services? Has he been abused? Does he have a history of school failure? Sadly, it isn’t likely that this is the first time that student has engaged in “socially inappropriate behavior”.
S Speech Language Pathologists are often involved in similar cases. It is surprising how often a language/learning disability and/or a social skills disorder underlies aggressive behavior and school failure.
One year ago, the federal Department of Education’s nationwide letter urging educators to combat bullying in their schools is a strong and significant message that this abusive behavior will not be tolerated. The letter outlines legal obligations to protect students, provides examples, and illustrates how schools should respond. Technology is a factor in bullying that was not present years ago. In New York State, the governor – on September 8, signed a comprehensive anti-bullying bill, the Dignity for All Students Act.
An expert says, classroom guidance to teach appropriate social skills must be provided to all students. And then individual and small group interventions must also be utilized for those students who are bullies or being bullied. In schools, the “speech teacher” is most often the staff member selected to teach the verbal and body language of empathy, respect, non-aggressive strategies and group social skills.
At the Center, we have several children with similar objectives. In preschool age children, this deficit manifests itself in behaviors such as intractable tantrums, kicking, biting, spitting, pinching, scratching and sometimes worse. Such behavior has not been directed at the staff, but usually at the parent. Since we have such close contact with parents, we can form an effective team teaching the child to use specific language to replace the physical behavior. It’s also very effective to get to know the child’s limits and to relieve pressure or other means to defuse their anxiety before they “lose it”. In addition, we are thankful for your donations which enabled us to purchase the “Kimochis”. Kimochis are a set of five stuffed animals who come with three different behaviors in their pockets. The children can experience the value of specific words attached to certain “feelings” and decide how to change their Kimochi’s words to reflect “better” feelings, actions and words. There is a curriculum specific to the Kimochis. But at $500, it is too expensive. We have been developing our own activities. Thank you for making it possible to buy the set of Kimochis. It helps us address an increasing need. We still remediate s and r, teach linguistics, sentence structure and increase vocabulary, teach phonological processes (precursurer to phonics and reading and spelling), strengthen auditory memory, stop drooling and develop oral-motor skills, practice conversational skills with our deaf and hard of hearing group, and yes, work on social skills to helper children function in society.
Thank you for your support! Your donations have helped over 260 children!
Our Wish List:
- May you have peace and joy during this wonderful season!
- We wish we could serve more children by opening one more afternoon!
- Flat Screen TV with closed loop for Waiting Room showing our children and thanking our donors and volunteers.
