by Katy Allen
The movie, Bully, is a powerful exposé of the pain inflicted by bullying. It chronicles the insidious degradation that children and families experience when students misuse personal power to attack their peers and educators fail to marshal their power to stop the bullying. The movie is also a reminder that we don’t have many answers when it comes to solving this problem. As a researcher and a prevention educator in the field of bullying, the point must be made that this movie offers all of us the opportunity to begin a dialogue about this problem, but by itself, this movie will not change anything.
The controversy surrounding the MPAA rating of Bully highlighted the fact that many people believe that showing this video to youth under the age of 18 will change the behaviors of those who engage in bullying. It is important to realize that single event programs are not an antidote to bullying. They heighten awareness and sensitivity for a short time, and perhaps even temporarily motivate children to change their behaviors, but in the long run, one-time presentations do not work. They are a good springboard for conversation, but they will not solve the problem of bullying in our schools.
As an educator, one of the most difficult moments to watch in the movie is an attempt by an educator to get a victim to reconcile with his tormentor. It was a perfect example of the failure to understand bullying. Bullying is the systematic and systemic abuse of power. In order to reduce bullying, we need systemic change that alters the power dynamics. Whereas most efforts to reduce bullying have focused on the bullies and their targets, and on changing them, systemic change is about changing the context in which bullying occurs. It means shifting power away from those who misuse it and increasing the power of those who can protect those who are targeted.
May 1st, 2012: It’s the end of my first year of becoming a counselor, and in a class reflection the other night I commented that I felt like we had all been “Made.” There’s an MTV show by the same name, in which teenagers want to be “made” into something they currently are not; a cheerleader, an artist, a BMX biker, a soap actor. ... continue | comment
by Ed Brockenbrough
Every year as a faculty member in an urban-focused, university-based teacher education program, I pose the following questions to the teacher certification candidates and certified teachers in my classes: What is your vision of social transformation, and ... continue
by David Hursh [caption id="attachment_1120" align="alignright" width="300" caption="In the Millennium Village Project, schools are provided with rocket stoves (cylindrical pots fit exactly in the openings in the stoves) so that they can cook the produce grown at the school and ... continue
by David Hursh In this blog, I update readers on the first ten days of my three-week trip to Uganda. In a subsequent blog I will write about our visit to the Millennium Villages Project, a development project organized by ... continue
by Theresa Danylak The fact that education reporters claim that certain use of educational language (or “jargon,” as they often call it) causes them to be suspicious of educators may come as a surprise to many in the profession. A ... continue
by Ed Brockenbrough
Every year as a faculty member in an urban-focused, university-based teacher education program, I pose the following questions to the teacher certification candidates and certified teachers in my classes: What is your vision of social transformation, and how far are you willing to go in your capacity as classroom teachers to achieve it? Sadly, the murder of Trayvon Martin ... continue
by Katy Allen The movie, Bully, is a powerful exposé of the pain inflicted by bullying. It chronicles the insidious degradation that children and families experience when students misuse personal power to attack their peers and educators fail to marshal their power to stop the bullying. The movie is also a reminder that we don’t have many answers when it comes to solving this problem. As a researcher and a prevention educator in the field of bullying, the point must be made that this movie offers all of us the opportunity to begin a dialogue about this problem, but by itself, ... continue
by David Hursh [caption id="attachment_1120" align="alignright" width="300" caption="In the Millennium Village Project, schools are provided with rocket stoves (cylindrical pots fit exactly in the openings in the stoves) so that they can cook the produce grown at the school and provide lunch for all the students. "][/caption]
Here is my second blog regarding this summer’s work in Uganda. In the first blog, I described how two University of Rochester medical students and I taught environmental health at a primary school located just on the periphery of Kampala, Uganda. This blog focuses on our visit to the Millennium Village Development project in southwest rural Uganda.
In ... continue
