What separates the Surviving Girlhood approach to tackling bullying from that of others is our belief that bullying is, in essence, symptomatic. Echoing what appears to be the pervasive attitude of our society, schools reactively deal with the issues presented instead of looking beyond to explore the root cause. Just as a headache tablet may stop a pounding head for a while, anti-bullying education and policies will similarly help to reduce bullying in the short term. Just as our body may be indicating a deeper concern with a persistent headache, bullying is a reflection of deeper rooted issues with a school’s climate. Focusing solely on the problem and constantly fighting fires is ineffective and speaks of a need to go beyond the symptom to explore what’s infecting our schools and communities with disease.
Adults can reinforce and escalate the behaviour with ineffective and inappropriate responses; adult response can reinforce the negative thinking and behaviour of the young people involved without equipping them with the skills to manage future conflict.
Figure 2.1: A model of escalation
A new approach
A war on drugs, a war on terrorism, a war on violence and bullying in our schools – all too often we hear the call to reform society with tough measures and strong action, often well meant but inexplicably ill placed. A war on anything is still, by definition, a war, and a negative, pessimistic approach to advocating change in our education systems.
Research tells us of the importance of adult influence on children, and how children will consciously and unconsciously repeat and re-enact what is modelled to them by key adults in their life. Social Learning Theory, derived from the work by psychologist Albert Bandura, denotes that children learn and imitate observable behaviours, creating ideas for how new behaviours should be enacted (Bandura 1976). This process of modelling and the subtle messages communicated through tone, language and attitude are how we learn what to say, how to say it, how we interact with others, how we use our power and influence, what is important to us (our values) and even our beliefs – the cornerstone of what it means to be ‘us’.
Trying to resolve a negative issue such as bullying with negative action, messages or consequence (e.g. the threat of punishment) will always be counterproductive. It stands to reason that what we promote we will see, or in another way, what we look for we will find. Our children are also adept at recognizing the inconsistency of our words and actions when we send confusing and nonsensical messages – threatening children with the fear of punishment for anyone who hurts another through conflict or bullying, for example. As we tell children not to use their power over one another, we demonstrate the opposite – using threatening, manipulative and controlling words or behaviour to make children compliant, typically through fear of consequence rather than being able to choose to do right by their own judgement and will. This is not to say that consistent, measured and appropriate consequences to poor behaviour shouldn’t be communicated to the whole-school community. Sanctions still have their place, but only in conjunction with discussion, reflection and exploration of the child’s and school’s needs.
When faced with issues and challenges in the classroom, it can be a natural response to focus on the problems we see and become caught up with the predicament we are faced with, often in a reactive way. The Surviving Girlhood perspective differs in the very foundation of how we approach problems, difficulties, issues and testing circumstances, such as dealing with pervasive bullying. Our focus is simply on what we want to see in our classrooms, school corridors, playgrounds, homes, streets and communities. By modelling to children the positive attributes we wish to see and empowering our young people to understand themselves better, we create a powerful chain of self-directed influence, teaching young people the strength of a life lived in alignment with their own positive values and attitudes.
Relationships: The core of conflict and harmony
In a fast paced world, it can feel as though it is ‘every man for himself’, and we are often taught, implicitly and explicitly, that we need to think of ourselves before others. Our education systems, religious teachings, and cultural and societal influences promote the idea of ‘me’ as separate to others – what do I like, what do I want, how do I feel? While autonomy is important, the decline of community and overemphasis on personal gratification has lowered the importance of social responsibility and connection to others. The concept of relationship is slowly becoming limited to a romantic partner and a few close friends, breeding a sense of isolation, loneliness, disassociation and a lack of support; or wildly exaggerated to hundreds of strangers we acknowledge as ‘friends’ on our social networking sites, and with whom young people often share personal and intimate information, despite never meeting in real life.
As we shift our perception to a different paradigm, where bullying is a symptom of an underlying concern, we begin to note the connectedness of the entire school community, and beyond. The actions of the individual contribute to the school climate as a whole, creating a ripple effect of influence. The head teacher can set the tone for the entire staff in the morning meeting; the science teacher influences five or six groups of 30-plus children in one day; and the radical behaviour of the school ‘bad boy’ flows through the corridors as gossip and whispers, and is then taken home with children and passed through the wider web of connectedness via social networking sites. On a macrocosm level, the same can be said about the world as a whole: never before in our history have we been so technologically connected, hearing about events occurring in far-flung places as they are broadcast directly into our living rooms and offices. As social theorists, psychotherapists and quantum physicists declare, we exist in a web of interconnectedness where our actions, thoughts and feelings affect others, both directly and indirectly.
As we begin to explore the importance of our lives in relation to others, we note how being in a harmonic relationship with ourselves and others provides us with our most basic and key needs – the need for inclusion, support, acknowledgement, fun, connection, safety and growth, among others. Can the problems we see on a day-to-day basis in our schools, communities and across the world as a whole be resolved with a focus on relationships?
When an incident of bullying occurs, or a playground fight, a teacher admonishing a student for late arrival, an argument between child and parent, a teacher gossiping about another member of staff, or a heated discussion about a new curriculum approach, relationships are affected. Those involved may feel anger, disappointment, sadness, frustration and a whole host of uncomfortable feelings, in relation to another person or persons. It is extremely rare for an event or feeling to be held in a person’s thoughts separate from the context of the person who was involved or who we feel caused the thoughts and feelings we now have. Consider someone who didn’t indicate when changing lanes while driving and nearly caused you to have an accident. Does the road rage you experience float disconnectedly through your mind, or is it linked to the other driver, whether you know them or not?
Our failure to focus on creating harmonious, supportive and fulfilling relationships, in addition to our disregard for how relationships are affected by day-to-day issues, will lead to symptoms of bullying and similar behaviours. As the teachers dealing with girl issues will confirm, the damage to relationships with negative, underhand, mean and bullying behaviour cause untold misery and stress. By promoting and enhancing relationships and highlighting the connectedness of all people, we can begin to challenge all members of the school community to develop stronger and more effective relationships and to repair the relationship when damage is caused.
Being in relationship with myself
Developing childrens’ (and adults’) awareness of the importance of relationships with others is only half of the equation. While we are constantly in relationship with all those we come across and the greater world around us, including the environment in which we live, we are also always in relationship, as a verb, with ourselves. This connection to ourselves is through our inner thoughts and internal voice, our feelings, actions,