I discovered this site, School Violence and Bullying, by Julia Howell, when I was looking through my webstats and saw my blog linked to it. What a pleasant discovery, as I’m sitting on my porch, laptop in hand, enjoying my ice tea on this fall day. It appears to be a new blog, and I’m looking forward to seeing what she adds to it.
There is a video she has linked to in one of her posts. I only had the opportunity to watch part of it, (my grandson came to visit…priorities, you know 
) but what I saw was thought provoking. I will see the rest of it later.
The more people we have looking into the issue of aggression toward one another, a better place this world can be. Because once you recognize the dynamics of bullying between individuals, you can better recognize it as they appear in a larger context and in relationships outside the school yard.
One thing I’ve learned about children is that they are our greatest teachers. They often teach by reflecting back what we don’t want to see about ourselves. Those pushed buttons can be a real inconvenience to what we want to believe. We are not always appreciative of this, but when you think of it, who else do they learn from?
Bullying isn’t an epidemic that affects children and that we all just grow out of. There’s bullying in the work place and bullying between husbands and wives and bullying between nations.
“Bullying” is just a more palpable term for violence, like “ethnic cleansing” is for mass murder. That’s why I like the title of this new blog. Because bullying is violence. It’s violence that assaults another on several fronts in any variety of combinations – physical, emotional, psychological and spiritual. Even without the telltale marks of black and blue, it is still violence.
But I suppose, it’s easier to say “bullying is just a phase” or “bullying is character building”, than “violence is just a phase” or “violence is character building.” I mean, how obviously absurd is that?
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