Bullying

My daughter came home from her school camp on Friday and when I asked who was in her cabin, she said, ‘two really nice girls and some mean girls. We tried talking to them but they completely ignored us.’

Aaagh! Mean girls! Sugar and spice laced with arsenic.

Bullying of all descriptions is abhorrent. Last week’s viral footage of bullied Sydney boy, Casey Heynes, ground-slamming his young taunter in the playground, polarised those who saw it. Many were appalled at the potential lethality of the act and at the outpouring of support for Casey that followed it. They jousted with those for whom it seemed that watching Casey deliver brutal come-uppance to his bully was almost voyeuristically cathartic.

Continue reading "Girls or boys, young or old, karma gets bullies in the end" »

This Casey kid, this accidental hero, slamdunked that bully as though he’d been watching his fair share of WWF.

(Warning: Completely unrealistic portrayal of what actually happened)

What Australians - and worldwide audiences, apparently - warmed to, though, was not the violence itself but the good guy vs. bad guy dynamics of the situation. The underdog trumping the leader of the pack.

Casey Heynes, 16, told A Current Affair he just snapped under pressure. He broke the rules, and became a champion of the downtrodden.

UPDATE: The kid who apparently provoked Casey now claims that he was himself the victim of bullying - and that Casey started the fracas. It remains unclear whether public opinion will now swing behind the little guy…

Continue reading "On breaking rules and deposing fools" »

About 10 years ago in southern California a young fellow by the name of Ryan McPherson hit upon the idea of bribing homeless people with bottles of bourbon to fight each other, and to film the ensuing brawls for a series of movies entitled Bum Fights. The movies, four of which were made, were hailed as just the latest example of a sick society in irreversible decline.

Homeless groups said the movies encouraged violence against people living on the streets, as well as dehumanising and mocking them. Amid threats of legal action, the producers agreed to stop making the films, and were forced to pay compensation to some of the homeless men involved.

The idea of filming a staged fight between the homeless as a form of entertainment would be regarded by a normal person as offensive to dignity and decency. In Australia this week we’ve learned that a depressing number of people – tens of thousands of them in fact – will have a hearty chuckle watching a couple of kids laying into each other in the schoolyard.

Continue reading "A dumb, webbed-up nation cheers on the fat kid" »

On a recent trip the US I read journalist Dave Cullen’s book about the Columbine massacre. With a spate of highly-publicised suicides there apparently linked to bullying, and a subsequent rash of legislation in various states designed to “combat” the phenomenon, Columbine is a timely publication with much relevance to our own national debate on the subject.

In his book, Cullen demolishes one of the central and most persistent myths of the Columbine massacre: that a pair of misfits with artistic and intellectual tendencies were hounded by meathead jocks until they finally snapped. Instead he paints a chilling portrait of a malignant relationship between a psychopathic narcissist and his angry and malleable best friend.

Yes, the Columbine kids were picked on, argues Cullen, but not as badly as many others and they certainly displayed no ideological biases when it came to blowing away their classmates.

Continue reading "Bullying myths: Who are the real victims?" »

Facebook is an easy target. With its size and history of privacy gaffes, criticising it is like taking aim at the proverbial barn door.

The same could be said for the online world in general. When we are faced with a social problem, from cyber-bullying to privacy breaches, it’s much easier to blame technology or the company that provides us with it than to take responsibility ourselves.

We can truthfully say that the internet has changed us, but once we start talking about how and why we need to factor ourselves in as well.

Continue reading "Blaming technology when society goes wrong is lazy" »

There’s a hidden epidemic of bullying in Australia – and it’s not in the schoolyard. The corporatisation of universities has led to an increase in students bullying their lecturers for better marks.

“It’s often the international students, whose families have sacrificed so much to send them to university,” says one lecturer in the arts and social sciences faculty at the ANU.

Dr. Janet Shepherd* admits bumping up one student’s Credit to a Distinction, because he stalked and harassed her daily via social media.

Continue reading "Fee-paying uni students bully academics for good marks" »

Once upon a time, in a 20th century age of ‘things’, people used to make sense of who they were by what they owned – land, house, car etc.

Today, in the age of communication, people are defined by who they know and what they share.

The phenomenal success of Web 2.0 vehicles such as Facebook and now Twitter (which I was told by a reliable source this week has seen 6,500 per cent growth in users in the last financial year), has demonstrated an astonishing need for people to connect and interact as the basis of their identity and wellbeing.

Continue reading "When names hurt as much as sticks and stones" »

The bashing death at school of a 15 year old boy in Mullumbimby last week is a symptom of a much bigger statewide problem in schools.

Put simply teachers now have little control. The consequences for students of bad, even violent behaviour, are now so insignificant students simply don’t care.

A teacher cannot restrain a student at all, they can’t yell at students or else they will be accused of emotional abuse. A teacher must simply say “please don’t do this” and then hope they are obeyed. Step outside this rigid set of rules and you risk being “EPACed” - every teacher’s worst nightmare.

Continue reading "Teachers are powerless to stop schoolyard violence" »

By all accounts Jai Morcom was your average Aussie high school kid. The 15-year-old student had a good circle of friends who describe him as a peaceful and happy young man.

Last Friday, Jai found himself at the centre of what sounded like a fairly routine schoolyard squabble, a fight over who was allowed to sit at a lunch table.

The result of this squabble was anything but routine. Jai Morcom is dead. He was bashed so savagely – possibly because he was trying to break up the fight – that he died of massive head injuries on Saturday morning.

Continue reading "Should Jai’s death force a rethink of bullying strategy?" »

The silent epidemic - bullying - is being confronted with screams for help. Incidents of cyber bullying, workplace bullying and violence are being reported like never before.

The emerging pattern of teenage suicides, evidently linked to cyber bullying, marks a new-age epidemic that must be stopped.

In 2003, Melbourne medical experts described bullying as the silent epidemic. But now, it’s loud and clear how bullying is impacting on our generation living in cyberspace. And it’s not just in cyberspace where bullying is rife. It’s in the playground, the workplace and on the streets.

Continue reading "Screams for help - the silent bullying epidemic" »

The bullying epidemic has claimed yet another victim: 14-year-old bubbly, fresh-faced Chanelle Rae.

Rae’s funeral took place in Geelong on Friday, exactly one week after the high school student took her own life hours after reading a message on the internet.

We will never know what that message said, but we can guess at the kind of person that sent it.

Continue reading "To tackle cyber bullies, start with teen self esteem" »