Wednesday, August 16, 2017

What We Both Saw

Zero tolerance for bullying! I hear that so often, and when I hear it, it is said with determination and there is fire in the eyes of the speaker. They say it. They believe it when it's being said and they know it's the right thing to say.

But that's the problem with all of this isn't it?

Words.

Sometimes they have meaning.

Sometimes they don't.

I was watching kids playing in a pool, it was a summer camp activity. I knew this because there were camp staff with them in the pool. I could easily identify them as camp staff because they all wore singlets with the words 'camp staff' on them.

Right in front of me I saw a bully standing under a devise that, when full, dumped a blast of water on whoever was below. He was centered directly under the dump bucket and was taking, to his delight, the full impact of the water. There were kids around him, pushed in close, who were taking the left over splash. The brave ones tried to get closer and the bully elbowed them hard and they moved back. This was his and he was keeping it.

This was seen.

I clocked three of the camp counselors notice this.

But nothing happened. They made no move. Two shook their head in disapproval, but that was the extent of their action.

But there was a boy, with a disability, who was in the pool, several feel away, who saw what I saw. A bully using force and entitlement to take from other kids the experience of a direct blast of fun. His elbows and his attitude were his weapons, his expectations of inaction by the staff was an integral part of his strategy for domination of that area of the pool. The kid with a disability saw all this.

He was accompanied by a staff. He got their attention and he pointed. It looked, from my viewpoint on the other side of the glass, that he didn't use words to communicate. He pointed, they saw and looked away, he pointed again, and they looked away again. He was getting frustrated and it showed.

"Tell the staff,""Tell someone in a position of authority" is one of the strategies we teach children, people with disabilities, and each other. It's a common sense strategy. If you see or experience bullying, or violence, or abuse, report it.

But bullies, and aggressors, and abusers, know that 'zero tolerance' often means 'zero acknowledgement' that people will simply 'not see' what they 'don't tolerate.'

That child, the one with the disability, was the one kid in the pool that did what needed to be done. He clearly took responsibility and because he did he SAW what was happening and he took action.

But that's where the action stopped.

Then, the whistle blew and the kids clamoured out of the pool.

I saw the bully standing, smiling from the fun he had. I'm not sure if that fun was the water bucket or the fact that he had it to himself.

He won.

Everyone else lost.

And he knew it.

Zero tolerance doesn't exist if there is zero determination and willful, purposeful, refusal to see what won't be tolerated.

And maybe we need a new strategy.

Maybe we should be promising something different, not 'zero tolerance for bullying' but 'zero tolerance for inaction' to the issue of bullying, abuse and social violence.

That's what I'd like to see.

That's what I'd like to experience.

That's what may make the world a little bit safer.

5 comments:

  1. Again, silence speaks much more loudly than words.
    The Catholic church used to talk about sins of commission and sins of omission. The first are easier, mostly - don't do this or that. Omission - failure to act is much harder to identify. And the failure of a 'responsible adult' to take action when a bully is behaving as a bully harms all of those present...
    clairesmum

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  2. If they acknowledge that they see, then the staff have to act. They don't want to act. It's work.

    They will justify that by saying it wasn't really important - no one was getting hurt.

    ONE of them, able-bodied, could have found a non-violent way to encourage participation by everyone, even a way which mollified the bully without letting him continue, by putting in a little effort. THAT is their job, and they weren't doing it.

    It's not just laziness, but that the OTHER staff would then be on notice that THEY are supposed to do something - and would be unhappy at the staff who did his job, for making THEM look bad. Being a good staff, being selfless, is very hard.

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  3. The people who look away are the ones who let the bullies rule the rest of us.

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  4. Maybe it should be more widely taught, and discussed, that the experience of inaction, and refusal to acknowledge harm and wrongdoing by people who *could* do something to help, is more traumatising to our human psyches/ mental and emotional health than the direct experience of being harmed. We are socially dependant creatures, dependant on each other for our individual and collective safety and wellbeing, and others 'looking away' and 'staying silent' when action needs to be taken is a thing that breaks us.

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  5. By doing nothing to change this, the camp counsellors were telling ALL the children, "We approve of this child's behaviour." When we do nothing, when we say nothing, about the wrongs we witness, we are on the side of the wrong. We are complicit. We, too, are wrong.

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