I have had enough of bullying

stories in the media and the same old failure to ask the question nobody seems to want to ask. Is bullying behaviour now really worse than it was when you were a child and, if so, why?

Bullying gets a lot more attention now. We are told about suicides which allegedly and actually occur because of bullying. Once they were hidden. 

For a short time I was a student at a big city high school. It was a single sex school. There was a suicide while I was there. We were not even told about it. The student was there at the end of one term and not there at the beginning of another. I remember some rumours about what might have happened among the girls but she had been in another class and considered "a bit odd".  It was only several years later, when talking to the deputy headmistress, my own suspicions were confirmed. I had left school by then.

"We were advised not to say anything," she told me, "But I think some of you knew."

Yes, I knew - or guessed anyway. 

Was bullying the cause though? Was is it bullying or something else? I remember that girl as distinctly strange. There must have been other signs as well. Perhaps coming from a family where both my parents were teachers I was more aware of the way teachers handled students? I don't know. 

I think we need to ask why there seems to be an increase in bullying behaviour. Is it really just the increased availability and use of social media? I genuinely doubt that. 

I was a mere kitten a very long time ago now but I remember my mother's constant, "What do you say?" to all of us. So much so that saying "thank you" became a habit. Other children were told the same thing. We were considered "polite". We remembered to say it even if our mothers were not there. Word might get back if we did not remember our manners. We were also told, "That was not kind" when we teased or pushed or snatched something back from another child. If we fought we were told it was wrong and we were punished. There were no lessons about differences between us. Nobody told us about racism or sexism or any sort of individualism. 

Now it seems to be nursery, pre-school, kindergarten, day care or somewhere else that children are being taught to say "thank you" because both parents go to work. On top of that children are being taught to see differences in lessons about "inclusion". Those lessons go on throughout the early years of school and even into the later years. It seems to me that differences are being emphasised in the name of "inclusion". 

Perhaps I am wrong but the idea that social media alone is responsible for the "explosion" of bullying seems too convenient to me. Do we need to start thinking about what we are teaching children - from the start?