Jarring a student in the cafeteria line by calling him a "fat freak" or humiliating a girl in the locker room by tagging her a "slut" is only the very beginning of the harm a bully can dish out.
Now, a child can be maligned in text messages and on social network sites with instant and massive impact.
Cyberbullying has "the appeal of anonymity," said technology facilitator Nancy Sharoff, a member of the Ellenville Teachers Association and an instructor for NYSUT's Education & Learning Trust.
She was among the presenters in a recent daylong educational conference — "21st Century Bullying and its Implications on Schools" — sponsored by the New York State Educational Conference Board. ECB is a coalition of five large education-related organizations including NYSUT.
The topic was prompted by a growing number of recent student suicides, including four from Schenectady High School in one year. Bullying is suspected of playing a role.
A major concern in today's bullying arena, cyberbullying means harming someone through the use of instant messaging, chat rooms, polling sites, text messages, blogs, e-mails, virtual worlds and social networks.
Because it's technology, there is always a new tool. Consider "happy slapping" — one person physically or verbally provoking an innocent bystander while a third party videotapes the act on a cell phone, then uploads and shares it with the masses.
Then there's "Bluetooth bullying," where someone sends a derogatory cell phone message to everyone within a certain vicinity. "You're not quite sure if it's sent from the person standing next to you or the person down the hall or across the street," said Sharoff.
Why? Reasons range from "revenge" to "fun" or the victim "deserved it," Sharoff said. Some bullies claim they were just messing around, or "it was only text."
Middle-level students especially often see "no connection between actions and consequences," Sharoff said. At this age, she said, the brain is not developed enough to make those connections.
Efforts to prevent and stem bullying are surfacing nationwide as leaders from school districts, teacher unions, communities and School-Related Professionals unite to take on the problems.
East Ramapo middle school science teacher Diane Gonzalez became concerned when she witnessed bullying in the hallways and classrooms, and felt the sting of it when students began spreading rumors about her sexuality.
With the support of her administration, she began learning about bullying prevention as part of character education, then conducted staff training. Everyone had a lot to learn.
"A lot of the staff didn't even know their comments were inappropriate in the lounge," said Gonzalez, a member of the East Ramapo Teachers Association who serves on both NYSUT's and the National Education Association's Human and Civil Rights committees.
Now, East Ramapo has a schoolwide Positive Behavior Intervention Strategies program that reinforces good character values.
Conflict resolution should not be used to deal with bullying, according to Kim McLaughlin, director of the New York State Student Support Services Center.
"Bullying is not conflict. It's victimization," she said. "It's not anger management — it's aggression."
The center (contact nyssscenter@gvboces.org) uses the Olweus prevention program implemented by many schools.
In the Olweus program "adults are in charge of the school," she said. All participants are trained to bring out their own warm, positive interest and involvement with students, and consistently use non-physical, non-hostile consequences for poor behavior.
The program involves:
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questionnaires to establish needs;
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setting up a bullying prevention committee;
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staff training;
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development of schoolwide rules against bullying;
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lesson plans; and
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a system of supervision during breaks and between class periods in "hot spots" such as stairwells and cafeteria lines. In class, regular meetings are held about peer relations and bullying.
Meetings with children who bully should be separate from meetings with children who have been bullied, said McLaughlin, who oversees 47 certified trainers.
Taking on these issues in the early years is the focus of a multi-year program for elementary school children. Called Promoting Alternative Thinking Strategies, it focuses on self-control, emotional awareness and interpersonal problem-solving skills.
"Teaching children to develop verbally mediated strategies for self-control should facilitate development of improved impulse control," said Gary Lazenby, a retired public education teacher and administrator who implements PATHS as a consultant with the Children's Institute at the University of Rochester (http://www.childrensinstitute.net).
"Verbal identification and labeling of emotions should assist in the management of emotions and behavior control."
Sharoff said the creation of strategies to deal with cyberbullying must include parents, teachers and the community, as well as a long-term commitment.
Schools need to have an accepted use policy relating to technology. A campaign must include specific definitions of harassment, intimidation and bullying, she said. Sharoff recommends graduated consequences and remedial action.
Each school then needs procedures for investigating and reporting cyberbullying, as well as a policy for off-campus language and behavior that is the school's concern if it becomes disruptive to the school environment.
She told parents to "monitor, monitor, monitor ... and that does not include putting the computer in the family room." See where they go on the computer, and be up front about monitors or filters put on the computer.
Jacqueline Elacqua, president of the Berlin Teachers Association, has used her art class to begin unraveling what is behind bullying.
"Art, I think, automatically creates character education," she said. "In my classroom it brings out the best in kids because they are empowered by art and get therapeutic value of expressing themselves."
She has been to meetings with others teachers, a social worker and a guidance counselor to deal with a male student who initially saw art as being "sissyish." By slowly getting him more involved, Elacqua said, he eventually came to lead and teach other kids. But she knows there is more to learn in helping this student and others.
"I'm hoping to learn more about strategies for stopping stuff," Elacqua said. Sexual harassment, she said, is a growing concern among teachers and staff.
"Addressing the many consequences of bullying requires a multi-pronged approach," said NYSUT Secretary-Treasurer Lee Cutler, who helped get the topic on the ECB agenda. "It requires the involvement of the whole school, over a long period of time."
Sharoff believes by the time students get to junior-senior high school, kids who are bullied have stopped coming to adults about it; many have given up.
She talks to individual students, giving them examples of having to try again and again — just as adults have to.
"I try and leave them with the idea that never again in your life should you accept that you don't have the power to change," Elacqua said.
Maintaining [SAFE] schools
"Students can't learn if they don't feel safe. Period. End of story," said Kevin Jennings, director of the U.S. Department of Education's Office of Safe and Drug-Free Schools.
A safe school used to be defined as one where no one stabbed anyone or sold heroin, said Jennings, a former teacher and founder of the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network.
Uncivil behavior, however, forces kids to skip school, drop out or become violent. He addressed 270 teachers, school board members and administrators at an Albany conference on bullying last month.
"Most of the ice in an iceberg is below the water... It's the everyday behaviors that drive kids out of school," he said.
Jennings said the goal of the U.S. Department of Education is to create "school climate standards" as one of the primary school standards.
These will be measured much like reading and math under the department's goal of building data, he explained. Students, teachers, staff and family will complete surveys to help determine what that climate is.
Emotional safety will be weighed along with physical safety — ranging from a student feeling safe enough to risk a wrong answer, or safe enough not to be taunted in the hall or bathroom.
This school year $40 million to $50 million is available in pilot grants to foster safe schools, he said, and that figure is expected to rise to several hundred million under reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. Results will be recorded by building, and will be made public, he said.
Jennings, who moved NYSUT members with a stirring speech at the union's Representative Assembly last year, said he chose to accept the federal job because of a Massachusetts sixth-grader named Carl Joseph Walker Hoover.
Last year, Carl hanged himself with an electrical cord because of repeated bullying, Jennings said.
"You're here today because you know a Carl, or maybe you were a Carl when you were a kid," Jennings told attendees at the Educational Conference Board session.
"It should be a national scandal that some people would rather die than go to school." He asked attendees to remember their own "personal Carl."
The U.S. is now 10th in the world in college graduation rates, Jennings said, and it was No. 1 when he was born.
"Our prosperity is going to depend on our brains, not on our hands," he said.
Jennings can be reached at kevin.jennings@ed.gov.