Bullying

I was out of class 2 days last week for bullying prevention program training. It was time well-spent, and I can't wait for us to go school-wide with this program. It's probably because I'm newly aware of bullying that I noticed that Skippy is being bullied by his classmates. All of them. One student is leading the bullying effort--he has influenced the others to not stand beside Skippy in line and to say something impolite whenever Skippy walks by. I learned about all of this on Friday after the bullying leader (let's call him Billy the Bully) had been dismissed for the afternoon. I told my class that I was ashamed that they would treat someone the way they had been treating Skippy. I gave the whole "How would you feel?" lecture. Amazingly, they showed remorse. At least, my girls did. They went over to Skippy to tell him that they were his friends and sat down with him during inside recess (it was raining) to play a game with him. Skippy was radiant. I definitely have to have a talk with Billy the Bully on Monday but maybe, just maybe, my class will be kinder to Skippy from now on.

Skippy is very bright and (you may recall) sometimes not medicated. When he's not medicated, he spins around the room, out of control, and does annoy everyone. Even when he is medicated, he takes things from his classmates, but I've always sensed this was a self-esteem-building trick for him--he wants to believe someone is his friend and jumps all the way to "this is my friend and he will share things with me." It's sad that his inconsistent medication makes his classmates wary of him because he CRAVES friendship--companionship, really. He has only his mother--no father or siblings. She's ill (or perhaps strung out on something--it was hard to tell). So really, he's alone at school and alone at home. Just imagine.