Bullying

A couple of weeks ago Superintendent Peter Grant featured the subject of bullying in his column. I also receive the monthly magazine, Minnesota Educator published by Education Minnesota. An article by Dr. Walter Roberts, a professor at Minnesota State University, Mankato was featured. His column was titled, "Adults must confront epidemic of bullying".

Then FCCLA officers gave a presentation on their organization and some of the activities they have conducted. They also talked about ongoing goals and one of them was stopping the violence and dealing with bullying. "We know there is a problem and we feel there is a way we can help," said FCCLA vice-president Jake Hauschild.

Today one in seven 11 to 15 year olds say they have  bullied or been bullied. That is a high percentage when you think of a middle school full of  680 students.

At the Monday night board meeting a student, parent, grandparent and friend discussed the problem with bullying at the K-M schools. In my 30 years of covering school board meetings I have never seen the school board members' faces look so serious. You could have heard a pin drop  when the family spoke.
Up until this year I myself have not heard a great deal about bullying, including personal stories, but I am not in a position where I am eager to cause trouble for people-and believe me I could!

Evidence of bullying has been seen for years and years. When I was in school the buses picked up students after school in the parking lot adjacent to the shop/ag rooms. There were fights every day between the time school was released and students loaded on to the buses.

Today bullying is much more than fighting. Probably the most cruel is verbal and kids in fifth, sixth, seventh and eighth grade can attest to its prevalence.

I can't help think about what Mr. Grant reiterated about bullying. We can be born with a certain amount of athletic or academic ability, but  he said bullying is a learned behavior. It's everywhere-media, movies, politics, television and unfortunately the American family and home.

Does K-M have a problem any different than other schools? Probably not.

Too bad it had to get to the point where family members had to come to a school board meeting. I know staff and administration have addressed the problem. I don't know how much the K-M School Board knew about the concern, but those seven serious faces up there gave full attention to the individuals speaking during the public input portion of the board meeting.

Ben Carson wrote a book called, "Thinking Big". One of his quotes is, "We get out of life what we put into it.The way we treat others is the way we ourselves get treated." As adults we need to insure our youth are not exposed to bullying in any form.