Out of the ongoing hysteria around school bullying came a perfectly reasonable question at the Flin Flon school board’s public-input session this past January.
Referencing use of the term “no tolerance” in connection with bullying at École McIsaac School, a parent asked education officials how there could truly be zero tolerance of this behaviour. Kids are kids, right?
Superintendent of Schools Blaine Veitch replied that he himself does not use the term “no tolerance” because that would be pretty difficult to
stick to.
Instead, he said, “You try to work with each situation as the details are. Of course we’re trying to prevent bullying, and if bullying occurs you’re trying to deal with the bullying and the victim. I guess it’s so case-specific that maybe that’s why you see some differences as [to how] it’s handled.”
For all of the well-meaning, if overblown talk of “eradicating bullying” in our society, the pragmatic, case-by-case approach described by Veitch is the best we can hope for in a world full of imperfect, emotional human beings.
Author Emily Bazelon is one of the few in the media who seems willing to delve into the bullying debate in a cool-headed fashion.
Against a backdrop of parents completely averse to any hurt feelings germinating within their children, Bazelon dares speak the truth: not every act of disrespect committed by one youth against another is reason to sound the communal alarm bells.
“…when the bullying prevention message gets twisted into the idea that kids have to be nice to each other all the time, that’s just not attainable,” she told the National Post in 2013.
Indeed. Attempting to legislate away every uncomfortable moment in a child’s life – in anyone’s life – is a fool’s errand. People aren’t always kind to you, but more often than not it’s a temporary phenomenon.
But let’s not downplay bullying. As I know firsthand, when bullying turns violent, or threatens to do so, the situation has escalated into territory none of us can in good conscience accept.
When I was in grade 9, right here in friendly Flin Flon, a bigger, meaner classmate detested me. Finally that hatred evolved into him matter-of-factly telling me this toward the end of a computer class: “I’m gonna kill you.”
What do you do with that? I was fairly certain this boy did not actually intend to take my life, but he at the very least wanted to use his size advantage to physically harm me.
If someone told me today, as an adult, “I’m gonna kill you,” my obvious next step would be to call the police. But when you’re 14 and it happens at school and you’re pretty sure it’s a hollow threat – and telling someone might exacerbate the situation since there are no guardian angels constantly patrolling the hallways and schoolgrounds – you feel like you have nowhere to turn.
Nothing resulted from that incident. I didn’t tell anyone and the boy never laid a hand on me. Yet I’m sure many of those scenarios end in far less peaceful ways for the victims.
Those are the types of situations our schools must address. Leaving a kid out of a game of ball hockey is not bullying, as some overzealous parents endeavour to argue. Imposing physical violence, or promising to, most certainly is.
And when it comes to addressing those serious situations, it’s not clear what can be done about one threat here or one shove there. You just deal with it all individually, according to the severity of each incident. Like Veitch suggested.
As Bazelon told the Post, “the world is a place of shades of grey.”
“That’s not to say you can’t feel morally outraged when there’s really good cause to do that,” she added, “but let’s make sure we really understand all the facts here.”
Local Angle is published on Fridays.
