Forum focuses on tools to undo bullying

By OWEN BOSS
Staff Writer

NORTHAMPTON — A panel of experts and area residents got together Thursday night to address bullying, legislation that is being crafted to address it, and the far-reaching and long-term effect it has had on local schoolchildren — and adults who have dealt with abuse in the past.

The public forum, which was sponsored by local radio station WHMP and the Daily Hampshire Gazette, drew a small crowd of about 30 residents to the Sanctuary inside First Churches on Main Street; where the group took part in a discussion with a panel of six experts in a variety of fields, each of whom offered their own take on bullying and how best to address and prevent it.

Throughout the two-hour discussion, area residents, including Christine Wu, 44, of Hadley, shared stories of their own childhood struggle with bullying and said the term “bullying” itself downplays the abuse and violence they suffered through.

“We need to give children the empowerment to say ‘hey, this is happening to me’ and to give other students the empowerment to be there for them when something happens,” Wu said. “I can count three people in the 12 years I was bullied who stood up for me, and I can’t begin to tell you the number of incidents I endured.”

Among the panelists was state Rep. John Scibak, D-South Hadley, a member of the House Conference Committee currently overseeing the reconciliation of the two anti-bullying bills passed recently by House and Senate. Scibak, who said he hopes to have the legislation out of committee by next week, said legislators have worked tirelessly to accurately describe what constitutes bullying.

According to the House version, Scibak said “bullying” has been generally defined as the severe or repeated use by a perpetrator of a written, verbal, or electronic expression or physical act or gesture or any combination thereof that causes physical or emotional harm to the victim.

Giving children the tools

Self-defense expert and trainer Lynne-Marie Wanamaker, who said she worries every day that her own children may one day be the victims of bullying, stressed that more has to be done to equip schoolchildren at a young age with the tools to combat the problem.

“We need to recognize how hard it is to be a bystander and the role they can play in interrupting what we are calling bullying but what is actually verbal and physical abuse and harassment,” Wanamaker said, adding “I think about the kind of courage, integrity and concrete skills it takes to step in in these situations, and I am aware of how much work it takes to develop these competencies to be that stand-up person.”

Telling children how to act when faced with bullying, Wanamaker said, is only part of the process, and more has to be done at a young age to ensure that abuse is confronted early and often.

“When I think as a parent about how I want my child to be in a school situation, I think about the skills I would want her to have,” Wanamaker said. She said she started reinforcing those skills at a very young age and has helped her rehearse them “in benign situations, like those a 5-year-old would encounter, so that when she gets into a high school situation she has the skills.”

Lauren Wadsworth, 22, who recently graduated from Smith College and now works in the psychology department at UMass Amherst, said she felt the focus should be on rewarding students for doing the right thing, rather than waiting for them to do something wrong to punish them.

“We have to do more than simply reacting to bullying and more than teaching students how to react to bullying, but rather teaching students and even their teachers to model positive behavior, and each child how to respect each other,” Wadsworth said. “Because we all know that catching a child being good is a really good parenting technique.”

In response, Scibak said legislators working to reconcile the anti-bullying bill took Wadsworth’s concerns into consideration when working through language included in the legislation.

“Everyone is calling us and asking what the penalties are going to be for bullying,” he said. “They want to know if they are going to be suspended or if there are going to be criminal charges, and the focus of this really shouldn’t be on responding to bullying after it happens, it should be on preparing kids for it and preventing it from happening in the first place.”

Education, not enforcement

Although Greenfield Police Chief David Guilbault said he was glad legislation would require that teachers report severe instances of bullying to local police departments, he worried that criminal charges resulting from minor offenses would leave a permanent mark on a student’s record and could cost them when applying to colleges or for a first job.

“I think that this is going to place a tremendous burden on the schools, who are already going to be dealing with budget cuts,” Guilbault said. “Education is the main component that is going to make this legislation work, not enforcement.”

A point reiterated several times during the conversation was that bullying isn’t simply a school issue but is commonly the result of problems at home.

Providing what panelists called a “boots in the school” perspective was Southampton schoolteacher and 2008 Massachusetts Teacher of the Year Michael Flynn, who said he has noticed that as technology advances, his students appear to be losing the ability to interact face-to-face.

“One thing that as teachers we need to be aware of is the importance of children talking with one another, working together, learning to compromise, learning to disagree appropriately and resolve conflicts effectively,” Flynn said. “That is a big part of the issue of bullying, when you run into people who can’t communicate well or don’t have the skills necessary to do so. And technology has a way of compounding the problem by allowing them to be more critical without being face-to-face.”

Offering a possible solution to that problem was John Berkowitz, director of the Boys to Men Teen Mentoring Network of Western Massachusetts, who said the best way to solve communication problems is to regularly sit down and ask kids to share how they are feeling.

“I really feel like it is the old cliche that it takes a village to raise a child,” Berkowitz said. “Boys to Men feels that the family, the school — sometimes it’s just not enough any more when dealing with a tough economy and a difficult society that is affecting our teens and our children. We are going to have to take more responsibility as adults to do something.”

Residents interested in hearing the forum are encouraged to visit the WHMP website: http://www.whmp.com, where portions of the forum will be broadcast.

Owen Boss can be reached at oboss@gazettenet.com.