Pam Kosolofski’s son picked a fight at school and then turned himself in just so he could get a month in the isolation room, away from bullying classmates.
The Alberta woman said her son endured two years of being picked on and beaten up before his parents pulled him out of school in Grade 6. His mother taught him at home for the next three years.
Kosolofski said her son told them he was getting beaten up regularly by different kids. But they were only made aware that he needed medical attention – he had a concussion per year – because a family friend worked at the school and told them about the fights.
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No teacher ever called about the medical aftermath of the fights. They seldom called about his failing grades. But Kosolofski said she was called in often to the school about her son’s discipline problem.
She is not bitter. She admits her son “is not an angel” and that they made parenting mistakes. But she does have a problem with the school’s atmosphere that echoes the small town where family status matters. She did not want her town named.
“If you have the right name they won’t pick on you.”
She said every child should be treated equally in school and that “it shouldn’t matter if you make a million dollars or $5.”
Kosolofski has some sympathy for the teachers because of the lack of respect in schools today.
“In my day, if you got in trouble at school, you got in trouble at home. No questions asked. Teachers are afraid to discipline because of having to confront an angry parent.”
When she pulled her son from school, she noticed he became easier to handle. He used to come off the school bus angry and take it out on his sisters. Her son is now attending high school in another province and enjoying new friends.
Kosolofski said two Grade 8 students at her kids’ former school were found last year to have a “hit list” of how they would pay back others for imagined or real slights. Neither of those children is in the school now.
The situation at that school is not as rare as parents might hope. But what is changing is that bullying is out in the open and steps are being taken to change behaviours.
“I think it’s always a problem to greater and lesser degrees,” said Joy Bastness, executive director of the Saskatchewan Association of School Councils. “There’s always that opportunity for someone to take advantage.”
Bullying was the theme of a conference the parents’ association held this past spring, said Bastness. Teachers and parents are learning through these conferences and from speakers and training sessions to recognize the signs of bullying and how to protect children.
While rural areas are not more likely to have bullying, Bastness said there may be more reluctance to discuss it in a small community where everyone knows one another.
That’s where Vicki Mather and Shannon Dobko come in. They both work on prevention of violence in schools, Mather in Alberta and Dobko in Saskatchewan.
Mather is co-ordinator of the Safe and Caring Schools program, run by the Alberta Teachers’ Association and funded by the provincial government since 1996. Mather’s program has developed booklets geared to different grades that explain the signs of bullying and how parents, teachers and students can stop victimization.
“It’s violence prevention, but it’s more than that. It’s pro-social development.”
The anti-violence message has been integrated into all the courses taught in Alberta’s kindergarten to Grade 6 level – “a first on the planet” said Mather. A website is being developed for the higher grades while work continues on adding the message into the high school curriculum.
She said violence prevention works best when all the adults in the community model the right behaviour, so the kids learn from them.
Has it helped? Mather said a study is checking that but “we’ve had principals and teachers tell us how it’s turned around their school. Kids learned respect. They report bullying.”
Dobko said there are gender differences in bullying, with boys more likely to be physical while girls will shun others or whisper about them.
About 10 percent of all students are victims and seven percent are the bullies, she said. The rest are silent observers and the risk is that they will become desensitized to the isolation and violence if not taught to report it or to support the victim.
“Physical stuff is scary but total isolation is devastating and can create scars forever.”
Dobko works on violence prevention plans with rural schools around Saskatoon in a program called Shared Services that is funded by the provincial education department.
Once teachers have learned to recognize the signs of violence, they and schools must tailor their awareness and intervention programs by involving students in poster campaigns or presenting skits.
Dobko said a bully is a child who has a need for power and who has learned that by using that power, he or she can win every conflict. Passive bystanders appreciate that power in lower grades, which can make the bully popular.
Older students tend to isolate both the bully and the victim and unless someone intervenes, the pattern remains.
“Bullying doesn’t quit once you leave school,” said Dobko. Bullies and bystanders can carry their behaviour into work, family and community relationships. Kids learn how to interact socially in school, said Dobko.
“What we need to teach the kids is how to deal with conflict on their own and when they can’t handle it to go to the services in their school.”
Dobko and University of Saskatchewan developmental psychologist Dr. Lorri Sippola are doing a long-term study of bullying.
They are surveying students in Grades 4 to 12 in the Saskatoon West school division twice a year for three years to find answers to such questions as why bullies are popular, whether that changes over time and where bullying happens.
Her best advice for parents worried about their child is to work with the school “because the kids can’t do it alone.”
