Who said we can't do anything about bullying?

Opinion - I was heartened to see that The Guardian had recently devoted a special weekend section to bullying in schools.

Bullying is a problem in most schools in the Western Hemisphere and afflicts even very civil regions such as our own Island. Indeed, we are at a time in history when our rising awareness and appreciation of human rights makes bullying offensive if not outdated. What is lacking is not outrage against the physical and psychological domination of one defenseless person by another or a group of others, but a lack of understanding of what fuels bullying, what keeps the bully or bullies in charge, and what prevents the majority of students, educators and parents, who are quite decent and caring individuals, from getting passionately involved and putting a stop to this despicable practice once and for all.

In 2007, supported by a grant from the Canadian Centre for Ethics in Public Affairs, I produced, in my capacity as a sociologist specializing in civility, incivility and bullying, a 60-minute film called Understanding Civility. It was specially designed for a secondary school audience. It was presented to the office of the curriculum director of the Eastern School District. He kindly sent a description of the project to all principals in Prince Edward Island Eastern Board schools. I asked for permission to show the film to as many students as possible so as to receive their reaction to the film, advice on how the film could be improved, and advice on whether or not they felt the film could prove beneficial if shown across all high schools in Canada. The film includes important sections on the historical development of civility, the social psychology of embarrassment, saving face and the blaming of others, and how very nice people can become very rude in certain situations. An important part of the film is a section on bullying and the reasons why people do not step up to protect and represent the victims of bullying.

To date, Colonel Gray High School has been the first school to show the film to about 300-plus students. The student response was extremely positive. As I would like the rest of the invited schools to respond, I am glad that schools are revisiting the terrain of civility. Certainly, two one-hour documentaries produced by the CBC and CTV will air this fall discussing the subject of civility. Anchors from both networks travelled to Charlottetown to interview me for these documentaries. Canadians are collectively interested in increasing civility between strangers, within the education system, between co-workers, and within the family. So I hope that further talks with these various schools will lead to additional screenings of the film with results as encouraging as those obtained at Colonel Gray.

Let me, in concluding, share with the reader some basic truths about bullying.

Rule 1: Bullying increases in cultures where extreme competitiveness and a rigid specification of what is cool and what is not cool predominate cultural relations. The victim is almost always singled out because he or she does not fit into the specified norms of the dominant bully or the group that has appointed itself as a superior manifestation of the cultural norms.

Rule 2: The bully continues bullying because he or she or they are allowed to get away with it. They enjoy the easy benefits of bullying. Why work hard to earn respect if you can humiliate or scare others into submission? So, only when schools adopt clear-cut rules regarding verbal and physical civility and enforce them without the slightest compromise will the bully become marginalized. A thousand counsellors will not make a bit of difference unless we have a national tough-love position regarding bullying, not only in schools but also in workplaces. After all, the only measure of justice is an educational standard that protects the well-meaning students and penalizes those who are not. Any other approach makes a sham of the word justice and destroys the confidence of our students in a coherent and morally reliable reality.

Rule 3: It is for two reasons that the victim of the bully does not receive the protection of those students who know that what is being done to him or her is wrong. The potential 'helpers' do not help because they are afraid of becoming targets themselves. Ironically enough, they do not develop the courage for intervening because they do not feel that their act would be supported by the system. Secondly, the fact that someone else can be the first to step forward relieves the would-be helper from the responsibility of responding first. Everyone waits to see who will step forward and, because of this waiting, a paralysis sets in (the bystander effect) and the victim is condemned to suffer in a world of abject and hopeless loneliness. For some it ends in suicide. For nearly all it ends in bitterness and a life-long mistrust of groups and/or powerful people. At worst, the victim decides to beat the devil at his own game and starts bullying others. After all, if given the choice of being at the bottom or top of the merciless heap, why choose the bottom?

So we need to ask ourselves if we want a school system built on the old twisted belief that school should be a preparation for the hard knocks that will come later in life, or a school system that is founded on the proposition that one should 'go ahead and be that which one wants to change in the world.' The first leads to ruthless citizens cheering gleefully as they watch competitors being unceremoniously knocked off reality-TV shows, the second to citizens with an active and uncompromising conscience and a desire to build a non-violent society.

Afterthought: The bully is dreaming of a person or system that would not allow him or her to continue being the way they are. The bully lives a terrible life of tension. While it may appear as if he or she is adept at cornering others, it is he or she who is truly cornered, cornered by anger, resentment, fear of being weak, fear of being bullied by a stronger bully.

It is my hope that this Island can lead Canada in establishing a new civility in schools, a civility not based on mindless submission to artificial manners but one based on active caring about the welfare of others. So, once again, I invite all principals in P.E.I. to invite their overworked teachers to examine a copy of the DVD entitled, Understanding Civility available by e-mail from myself at bdavetian@upei.ca.

It was once said that 'civility costs nothing and buys everything.' That is an erroneous statement. Civility costs a lot. It costs us our desire to be at the top of the heap. It costs us our need to be self-absorbed. It asks that we forget ourselves for long enough to ask, 'How is the other feeling. How would I want to feel if I were in their shoes? And how can I help them feel better?'

Civility costs a lot, but buys itself - which is not a bad bargain.

Dr. Benet Davetian is associate professor of sociology and chair of the department of sociology and anthropology at UPEI. His recent book, 'Civility and Culture', is being published by the University of Toronto Press this fall. He is founder and director of The Civility Institute (www.courtesy-institute.org) and offers seminars and workshops on civility.