LINCOLN – More than 250 religious education students at St. Jude Parish returned to school Monday bearing a powerful message: Bullying is a crime, and it must stop!
On Saturday, they had attended a seminar, “The Culture of Bullying: What It Is and How to Stop It,” offered to educate parents and youth of the parish about the harmful and potentially life-altering effects of the negative behavior. Adults listened to a similar presentation Friday evening and engaged in a meaningful and thought-provoking discussion about how bullying has affected their families and community.
Students in Grades 6-8 attended the mandatory seminar in lieu of a retreat. Some Grade 5 and Confirmation I and II students also participated in the five-hour program, which included a pizza lunch and concluded with a Mass.
The program was organized by Keri Carvalho, assistant director of religious education at the Lincoln parish in response to the death of Jeffrey Michalenka, an active 16-year-old St. Jude parishioner who took his own life on June 14, 2006 after suffering from years of bullying and harassment at school.
“It is so sad that bullying is so pervasive in our schools and society as a whole,” said Carvalho. “Because of our loss of Jeffrey Michalenka and the effect it had on all of us, we have made it a priority to address the issue of bullying.”
According to seminar presenter Raymond Edler, bullying is an inadequate term that fails to describe the true meaning of the offense.
“Bullying is a catchword for all these specific ways of hurting people,” he told both audiences, listing harassment, intimidation, theft, character defamation and assault as forms of causing emotional and physical scars.
“I think it’s a major problem in schools, neighborhoods – everywhere kids congregate,” Edler observed, noting that while many schools have zero tolerance policies and administrators and teachers usually confront and discipline perpetrators, bullying still occurs in areas where there is little or no adult supervision, such as hallways, locker rooms, restrooms and bus stops.
Types of bullying include teasing, name-calling, put-downs, threats and social exclusion. Edler, using a PowerPoint presentation, told the attentive students that bullying often escalates to physical altercations, including pushing, shoving, hitting and kicking. He added that verbal bullying often continues unabated in schools through Grade 12.
A new form of harassment, Internet bullying, includes Web sites that draw attention and defame victims, and the use of threatening e-mails to intimidate victims.
Edler, a former educator who is now self-employed as a management consultant, emphasized that bullying also can occur in the home, and many adults are also the victims of some form of harassment in the workplace. He dispelled the myth that bullying is simply a rite of passage that will subside in time.
“Bullying is based on the imbalance of power,” Edler continued. “Usually victims of bullying are not able to defend themselves over the long haul and they eventually wear down.”
Edler, a Bristol resident and Our Lady of Mount Carmel parishioner, added that while most victims of bullying do not reach the point of suicide, the long-term effects can be low self-esteem, feelings of loneliness and isolation, depression and anxiety. Targets of bullying may also develop migraines and eating disorders.
Edler said that targets of chronic bullying want to escape by absence from school, they stop participating in class, are unable to focus and pay attention, often have lower grades and are reluctant to tell adults and authorities. He added that victims often suffer in silence until significant social and academic damage has been done.
He also emphasized that the victims of persistent ridicule and physical abuse sometimes are at risk for suicide or taking violent revenge.
Quoting a 2002 U.S. Secret Service Study, he said, “When the Secret Service, in the most comprehensive analysis of school shootings to date, finds that 71 percent of the perpetrators viewed their acts as retribution for bullying by their classmates, we had better take that seriously.”
