I missed at least thirty days of my senior year of high school. I started the year with the seven or eight close friends I always had. Then, one of them decided she wanted to spread unbelievably false rumors about me, causing the loss of my friendship with her and two other friends. Following this difficult time, I finally had my fill of a teacher who mercilessly picked on me all semester, and went to the principle about him. An investigation was brought against him by the school for his treatment of me and other students (as well as several other indiscretions), and he was fired. I was put into another class, but because a lot of people were getting easy A’s with this teacher, I lost the rest of my friends except for one. That is when I started staying home from school, and eating my lunch in my mom’s office when I did attend (my mom is a secretary at the school).
Throughout this horrible year, I frequently bounced between optimism and pessimism (but mostly pessimism). It was quite difficult for me to see my future as positive when I went from having a lot of friends who supposedly cared about me to eating lunch at my mom’s desk. In other words, I had negative outcome expectancies rather than positive ones (Schneider, Gruman, and Coutts, 2012). Since I didn’t see any point in carrying on a social life at school, I gave up and would just stay home. While my situation was already bleak beyond my control, I made it worse by creating a self-fulfilling prophecy; I expected the situation to get worse, so it did (Schneider et al., 2012). In a survey study by Hunter, Boyle and Warden, it was found that victims of school bullying are more likely to feel as though they have less control of their lives (2007). Furthermore, students who are bullied are more apt to use emotion-focused coping than problem-focus coping, making their attempts to overcome the situation less effective (Hunter et al., 2007). While pessimists are often blamed for their situations (and they do have some fault), it is more complicated than that; it is a vicious cycle of bullying which reinforces negative outcome expectancies, which reinforce the situation outcome, etc.
I certainly fit this mold when I was eighteen, though I became more optimistic toward the end of my senior year. Rather than seeing my situation as permanent, I could see the light at the end of the tunnel as graduation grew ever near. I began to make unstable attributions to my situation at school, as I knew this was definitely a temporary thing and I would be done soon (Schneider et al., 2012). As I slowly changed my way of thinking, I actually started to feel happy again. I started hanging out frequently with my one good friend, and started to smile at school again. Oddly enough, when those who would pick on me saw that smile, they started to leave me alone. What is even more special about the end of that year is that the principle was aware of my situation, and decided to have the school adopt strict bullying policies. According to my mom, in any case of severe and persistent bullying, the perpetrator is expelled. While this makes me happy, I only wish this policy had been in place when I was in high school.
While the scare tactic of expulsion certainly does work, high schools would probably be more benefitted by a program like the Olweus Prevention Program. It gets everyone involved, and has programs that are school-wide, class-focused and individualized (Limber, 2004). At the very least, active participation on the students’ and teachers’ parts would bring more awareness to the situation of bullying, rather than just the threat of being expelled. Such a program not only forces bullies to examine their own behavior and see its effect on others, but the teachers are taught how to better their strategies for intervening and helping victims. Even though my own high school never had this kind of program, and even though I had a horrible experience, it did not adversely affect the rest of my life. I am a happy person, I have a great life, and nothing matters less to me than high school. However, the fact that bullying and mean-heartedness still persist is something that every one of us should care about.
References:
Limber, S. (2004). Implementation of the olweus bullying prevention program in american schools: Lessons learned from the field. 351-363.
Hunter, S.C., Boyle, J.E., & Warden, D. (2007). Perceptions and correlates of peer-victimization and bullying. British Journal of Educational Psychology. 77. 797-810.
Schneider, F.W., Gruman, J.A., & Coutts, L.M. (2012). Applied social psychology:
Understanding and addressing social and practical problems (2nd ed.). Thousand Oaks, California: SAGE Publications, Inc.
Part of the reason it took your school as long as it did to implement more strict bullying policies may be that bullying can be misperceived by people. This topic was discussed in our forum this week regarding bullying, in which individuals may misperceive the negative behavior as something that is not a real issue to be dealt with (Limber, 2004). For those that recognize that bullying exists, it may be considered a necessary experience for kids to learn skills preparing them for independence and adulthood, leading to the belief that intervention is unnecessary, which can leave bullied-on victims vulnerable to more suffering. Fortunately, you were eventually able to achieve optimism at the end of your senior year with the knowledge that you were almost done. However, many victims of bullying are not as lucky as you and are not able to hold on for as long as you did during their school experience.
Bullied-on victims may experience difficulties learning to defend against or ignore bullies, partly due to some adults’ inability to show them (Bully OnLine, n.d.). Unfortunately, some victims give up and become severely depressed, even suicidal, as in John Halligan’s son’s case (2008). In order to promote helping behaviors toward victims and prevent them from having to endure bullying throughout their school lives, I agree with you that an intervention based on the Olweus Prevention Program should be implemented. Hopefully in turn both school staff, teachers, parents, and students’ awareness of the issues surrounding bullying will increase and result in reduced bully behaviors, allowing once bullied-on victims to better focus on their education.
References
Bully OnLine. (n.d.). Myths and misperceptions about school bullying: Overcoming stereotypes and false perceptions of school bullying and child bullying. Retrieved from http://bullyonline.org/old/schoolbully/myths.htm
Frontline. (2008). Interviews John Halligan. Retrieved online at: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/kidsonline/interviews/halligan.html
Limber, S.P. (2004). Implementation of Olweus Bullying Prevention Program in American Schools: Lessons Learned From the Field. In Espelage, D.L. & Swearer, S.M. (Eds), Bullying in American Schools: A Social-Ecological Perspective on Prevention and Intervention (pp. 351-363). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
Kudos to you for turning a horrible situation into a positive one. Although you suffered terribly, I believe that our suffering only made you stronger and made you better equipped to deal with any difficult situation you may encounter in the future. I also believe in the self-fulfilling prophecy. After being involved in a few bad relationships, I prophesized that I would be alone for the rest of my life. I am living that prophecy out now. I am a 36 year old single mom and have been without a partner since I was 3 months pregnant and that was over 9 years ago now. I think I should take a page from your book, and start turning my pessimism into optimism. Thank you for sharing your inspiring story.
I would first like to state that I think it’s a great thing, that you overcame such a hard time! It’s sad to say, but many don’t. I lost a friend to suicide in high school because of bullying and it’s an experience you never let go of. I thought it was great that you were able to apply some of our learned social aspects to your life at the time, such as the self fulfilling prophecy. I don’t think many people are aware of it, but it certainly is a factor in the outcome of our experiences.
I also like how you touched on optimism and pessimism. I believe that an individuals’ perspective on certain things plays a huge role in experience and because you were able to overcome that pessimistic view of life you started to see the light again.
I only hope that with Americans becoming more aware of bullying that more intervention programs, such as the Olweus Prevention Program will be implemented in order to help other students. Like you stated, you wish there was a policy in place to protect you. Hopefully school realize how effective programs like this are and begin to implement them as a protective factor for all students.