Bullying Questions Rise for Teachers and Parents

Whether you voted for Trump or not, we now know that on January 20, 2017 he will be sworn in as president.  The problem is that during the last year Trump has blurted things out that hopefully he didn't mean, he just didn't think before he spoke.  The problem is that teachers are now reporting an up-rise in bullying, with some news reports of parents keeping their kids home due to them being afraid.  They even have a name for it, "The Trump Effect".  I don't think this is the "Keep America Great Again" that Americans want.  I watched Trump's acceptance speech and really felt he tone down his negative comments and tried to sound like he really wants American's to be as one.  I think he stated several positive ideas and objectives in this speech that can be used to point out some ways that Donald Trump plans to improve the United States. This does not stop the many children in America from wanting to know why Trump has said some of the things he has said or emulating him.  My guess is that no one informed Trump that his T.V. audience involved everyone, including children.  While an adult might get upset, mad, angry or not even take what he said seriously, a child most likely will really have a hard time figuring out what is going on with this type of talk.  A lot of administrators today are going to have to meet with teachers and have a game plan that involves their school communities making sure that students feel safe and not feel bullied. Bad mouthing the future president will only portray the exact type of behavior that we want to eliminate and cause additional conflict.

Students  need to be reminded to think before they speak, text or post things online.  Something that may seem funny at the moment may actually hurt other people.  My guess is Trump thought he was being funny to one person in the elevator and didn't know he was being recorded. In today's world with so little privacy we all need to think before we say something.  Many people tell students if you would not say it in front of your priest, your grandmother or your principal, you probably should not say it.  Melanie Trump has said that as first lady she will fight against cyber-bulling and has even told Donald Trump that what he said 10 years ago is unacceptable.  One of my favorite websites that cover some of these concerns is Netsmartzkids for kids and nsteens for teenagers

The way I handled it with my own children was to discuss the history of how the treatment of woman has changed since I was young.   I was teased daily about being flat chested, wearing coke bottles on face and walking like I had a pole stuck up my ****. Back in those days it wasn't uncommon when walking down the street to get vulgar comments yelled at you and get whistled at as you were walking home.  Having to pick a route home to avoid rude comments was common.  In high school two very muscle smart girls that I was friends with wanted to play football.  I have no doubt they would have been great at it, but unfortunately they were locked out of the locker room and were not  allowed in the discussion or  voting process.  You probably guessed that the answer was no.  Ironically the state I went to high school in was also the first state to have a woman football player whose position was a placekicker. I will tell you that happened about 13 years ago, and I graduated from high school 36 years ago when my friends wanted to play football.   Fast forward to my job in college where I was sexually harassed on a regular basis. In fact the manager who was harassing me a one point went to my boyfriend and apologized (note he never apologized to me).  I never reported it, I am not even sure there was a way to report it. Several years later I found out that there were several other woman being harassed by the same person and apparently none of us knew how to report it.   My senior year in college where I was helping a young man who was a sophomore in college from my work do his taxes I found out that he was getting health insurance and I was told I could not get it. I went in again to request health insurance. I was again told even though I worked 40 hours a week, I was a students so I could not get it.  I pointed out that Pete* was also a student and he received health insurance.  I would have accepted no and probably had no idea how to peruse this in the earlier 80's but apparently my boss thought I would take it further and the next month I had health coverage.

Just recently I watch the movie Enigma (2001) fyi rated R with my family.  One of the main characters in the film was Joan Clarke, who was the only woman in the movie hired to work as a crypt-analyst.  When she showed up to take the test they didn't believe she had done the first test herself. She was never allowed to be awarded the actual degree she earned in college because woman were not allowed a full degree until after 1948.   One of the other main characters was Alan Turing, who I am embarrassed to say I had never heard of before this movie.  According to  http://www.biography.com/, Alan literally saved over 14 million lives in World War II with his invention of the enigma machine.  Haven't heard of the enigma machine?  It was the first computer even invented, before electricity! After saving this many people, would not Alan be a hero?  He was found to be gay and arrested and put on medications.  He was finally pardon from the Queen just a few years ago.  I think these are they types of movies that remind us not to repeat history.  Would the war have lasted longer if Joan would not have been hired or if Alan would have been arrested earlier?  Would the computer have been modernized as the basic model for making a computer was not designed by Alan, who spent hours working on it?

There are so many great people in history that show us that our differences can help us succeed.  People who were told they couldn't do things.  Helen Keller, Fred Astaire, and Michael Jordan, along with Katie the first woman football player who wasn't even born until I had graduated high school.  Knowledge is so empowering but so is kindness.  I encourage everyone to show love and compassion to everyone, pass on your smile!  Learning should be fun!  It doesn't matter if your public schooled, homeschooled, unschooled, private school or self-taught no one wants to worry about saying things that hurt other people or having people say things that hurt them.  Random acts of kindness, the Gold Rule, or say hi and give a genuine smile.  Peace and love to all!  I felt this was too important to not address and will return to more fun ideas later this week!

*name changed