Laurel Sturt: Time for Teachers to Stand Up to Professional Bullies
Guest post by Laurel Sturt.
For as long as humanity has existed, feelings of insecurity and powerlessness have forged, in a crucible of inferiority, the cruelty which yet denies that same humanity. Dismissed as a banal character defect in some, and a mere inconvenience for the unfortunate targets, bullying never quite mattered enough to make the radar of national discussion. But bullying has evolved, the latest incarnation of the classic scourge of childhood its 2.0 cyber-fueled version. Garden variety schoolyard bullying has given way to the extreme public shame of Internet malice, literally mortifying in the number of suicides it has provoked. And so bullying is at last in the spotlight in the last few years, being challenged through discussion, programs and legislation. And whether it's effected by an obstructionist House Republican filibuster, Joe Scarborough browbeating a hapless guest, or a Miami Dolphin hazed in locker room "hijinks," bullying's fresh scrutiny is trending; Chris Christie's finger-jabbing predation is just the latest entry into a topic which won't put down the gloves. Guilty or not, Christie has enabled a culture of bullying, while equally cultivating a public persona of vicious predator, mercilessly hectoring constituents who dare a simple, challenging question. The fact that he then eagerly asks his cameraman, "Did you get that?" reveals the delight of a bully fresh from the kill. Ah, the smell of napalm in the morning.
Though the psychopathic rush of inflicting pain on another human being is not one most of us would appreciate, we have only to look at the realm of education to see an acceleration of bullying, in multiple guises. Take, for example, the oppressive federal mandates sent down from on high, No Child Left Behind, and its successor, Race to the Top. Here we have, for all intents and purposes, sadistic edicts impossible to fulfill, the charge of NCLB, "proficiency" for all children by 2014,