Education at the Millenium
A continuing series

Issue date:
March 20-22, 1998

The creators of the Cherry Creek bullyproof program advise kids challenged by bullies to use the strategies that make up the acronym HA-HA-SO.

H: Help. Get it or give it.

A: Assert. "Stop making fun of me. It's mean and unfair. Stop it."

H: Humor. "Yes, this is an ugly shirt. My grandma always does this to me."

A: Avoid. Walk away.

S: Self-talk. "I know I'm not really ugly."

O: Own it. "You're right; I am a Native American. Do you want to know what our culture is really like?"

If you see someone being bullied, intervene using the CARE strategy.

C: Creative problem-solving. "You've been giving Johnny a hard time. Tell me something you actually like about him."

A: Adult help. Find an adult if someone might get hurt. Telling to protect someone is different from tattling to hurt someone.

R: Relate and join. "My clothes never seem to match, either. Some of us just don't have any fashion sense. It's kind of funny. But no matter what, we don't make fun of other people at this school."

E: Empathy. "You shouldn't say that about Jane. I'd be hurt if you said that about me."

Call 1-800-547-6747 to order a copy of the complete guide to bullyproofing.

A schoolyard bully no more

The story of how one grade school turned its toughest kid into a nice guy.

		WHEN "VICTIMS" TURN VIOLENT
		Two deadly school shootings -- one in West Paducah, Ky., the other in Pearl, Miss. -- may not seem to have anything in common with garden-variety bullying. But researchers say that in the most extreme cases, bullying can be a contributing factor to such tragic incidents, especially in the case of victims striking back. In West Paducah, Heath High School principal Bill Bond has said essays written by Michael Carneal, 14, indicate the boy "had been teased all his life" and "just struck out in anger at the world." Bond told reporters after the shooting that Carneal felt powerless, and students described him as small and emotionally immature. And Luke Woodham, a 16-year-old outcast charged with stabbing his mother to death and killing two classmates Oct. 1 in Pearl, reportedly passed a handwritten note to a friend before the rampage that stated: "I killed because people like me are mistreated every day. I did this to show society: Push us and we will push back." In November, Woodham said on ABC's PrimeTime Live: "They just picked on me. It just made me really mad. It just really hurts," he said. "I didn't feel like I really had any friends. Nobody I could trust. So I kept everything inside of me. I didn't care about the world. ... My whole life ... I just felt outcasted, alone." Experts caution that incidents like these usually are the result of complex causes. But understanding bullying can provide insight. "There's all this talk about violence in schools, and people don't realize bullying is the antecedent to that," says psychology professor Dorothea Ross. -- S.R.

ichael Chambers was, in his own words, "a mess of misery" when the school year started. The fifth-grader was new to Highline Elementary School in Aurora, Colo., outside Denver, and eager to make his reputation. It took only a couple of weeks before everyone knew who he was: a troublemaker. He ruled recess, choosing the games and who would play. He openly defied teachers, one of whom called him the worst bully she had seen in a 25-year career. He intimidated and threatened other students. "I was everything everybody wouldn't want," Michael admits.

Today, Michael is a bully reformed.

"I'm a better student, I have more friends, I'm not as grouchy. I'm more considerate and more trustworthy," he says, taking inventory of the new Michael. Michael is a changed 11-year-old. His teachers, his peers and his mother agree. They credit a new "bullyproofing'' program pioneered by his school and since exported to more than 250 schools nationwide.

"He went from being very angry to realizing that that just wasn't the way to get attention, by bullying people," says his mother, Wendy Chambers.

This spring, two sensational court cases are expected to bring to light the most extreme effects of bullying. In Mississippi, Luke Woodham is to be tried in the shooting deaths of two classmates at Pearl High School, and the stabbing death of his mother. In Paducah, Ky., Michael Carneal faces charges in the deaths of three classmates at Heath High School. In each case, defense lawyers are expected to argue that their client's mind-set was shaped in part by being bullied.

Could an intervention program like the one that transformed Michael Chambers have prevented such tragedies?

BUSTING THE STEREOTYPE

Bullies once were considered an inevitable fact of school life, something neatly captured in a Simpsons episode positing Bart as a victim of Nelson's daily beatings. An alarmed Marge advises her son to tell the principal, only to have an appalled Homer exclaim: "What? And break the code of the schoolyard? I'd rather Bart die."

Today, experts are absorbing the revelation that bullying is more common -- and consequential -- than previously realized. A recent study by Bertus Ferreira, a criminal justice professor at Washburn University of Topeka, found nearly a third of high school students at three Midwestern schools wanted to transfer because of bullying, and 15 percent had considered suicide. And while it always has been easy for psychologists to make the case that bullies grow into violent criminals, it's the newer studies showing victims turning violent -- because of damaged self-esteem -- that may be propelling community interest.

"If you cut out the bullying, you cut out a lot of the violence later," says Dorothea Ross, an expert at the University of California. Studies have shown that far from lacking self-esteem, bullies have it by the boatload. Re-channeling their energies could transform them into leaders.

HOW TO "BULLYPROOF" A SCHOOL

Denver-area psychologists and social workers devised the bullyproofing system now in its fourth year at Highline Elementary. The only way to neutralize bullies, they realized, is to lessen their opportunities. The best way to do that is to empower potential victims with behavioral strategies and back them up with a supportive school community.

That's what "bullyproofers'' like Cherry Creek social worker Paul Von Essen call changing the "silent majority" -- the 85 percent of kids who are neither bullies nor victims -- into the "caring majority.'' The caring majority intervenes, grabbing a potential bully victim by the arm and pulling him into a classroom or a playground game. The caring majority informs a teacher if someone is in trouble but doesn't tattle. The caring majority abides by classroom rules of respect and sharing.

The result is that bullies find themselves in a world where they don't count. Their challenges go unheeded, their stunts dismissed. "They're out of place when they're bullying. They're uncomfortable," says Vicki Temple, Highline's school psychologist.

Michael Chambers, for example, realized he no longer belonged. "I wasn't a part of things," he says. He wasn't allowed to participate in "Fun Friday" game-playing, and going to a summer science camp he liked was in jeopardy. So he decided to change.

Michael realizes his work isn't over. "I'm trying to lose this temper. I have a really, really bad temper." But nowhere near as bad as it once was. "I'll say," says fellow fifth-grader Nancy La, once a bully victim herself. "He's changed a lot."

Steve Rhodes is a free-lance writer based in Chicago.
Photo Credit: CHARLES LEDFORD FOR USA WEEKEND