With the raise in violence in our schools, a cause for these outbreaks is often focused on “loners” who never showed signs of any antisocial behavior before the violent episode ended the lives of both students and teachers. The news media interview psychologists, teachers, students, and anyone else who might have a plausible explanation for the carnage seen on our television screens continuously until the next tragic event in another becomes the focus and the cycle is repeated. When questioned, many who knew the student mention that “bullying” may have played a role in the incident but the student was a “loner” who “kept to himself”, know one really “knew” him. While many people have been “bullied” on occasion, being the “target” of serial bullying is psychologically damaging.
I can attest to the fact that bullies existed in the "50s and early "60s when I attended grammar school. While the details of my experiences have dimmed over the years, the memories remain painful and the internal scars never fully healed. During the first and second grade, I missed school for a variety of illnesses in addition to wearing a patch over one eye to treat a vision problem. It was difficult to read the blackboard and it was not long before I was far behind my peers.
Since I was seen as “dumb” by the other kids and my teacher, I was excluded from activities at recess. There was never a place to sit with my class mates in the cafeteria so I usually ate alone. After school, one classmate awaited me at a certain corner to deliver a blow or kick for fun. The fact that I was ostracized and called names by my classmates was difficult for my teacher to miss. But she managed to “look the other way” with impressive regularity. My parents' advice was to “ignore the bully and he will get tired and go away”. I learned from bitter experience that bullies do not go away, they merely become crueler and bolder in their attacks.
When I repeated the third grade, I was called “flunkie”, “four eyes” and “cow eyes”. I began to perceive myself as not “normal” as those who are “normal” have friends and did not face the treatment I received each day. I finally became angry enough to strike back by beating on my dolls, the family pet, by shop lifting and terrorizing my sisters. For a time, I became the “bully”
I hated and I hated myself.
Growing up in the era of the Donna Reed Show, Leave it to Beaver, and Dick Van Dyke
reinforced the moral values taught at home. There were only three channels and broadcasting ended at 1:00. Television was a balance between crime, comedy, drama and variety shows. When I was sent to my room as punishment, a frequent occurrence, there was no television, DVD player, computer, PDA, phone, or I pod; there were books so I decided to read. The more I read, the more I loved to read.
With over a hundred cable channels available, it is difficult to find a channel without a rerun of CSI, Law and Order, or NCIS. Television shows now include graphic scenes of murder and autopsies. As a result, young kids are fed a diet of brutal violence and gruesome description.
With no moral constraints on young people, those who may have been the “targets” of a bully are choosing violence to retaliate against other students and teachers or to experience the violence depicted 24/7 on television.
