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The following program is a high definition production of Blue Ridge PBS.
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>>MARTIN: Hello and welcome to "What it Takes." I'm Dr. Rose Martin. On today's show, we're
talking about bullying. Bullying stories can be found everywhere. And I'd guess that all
of you have experienced bullying in some form or another over the course of your lifetime
and have a story to share. I know I have. Unfortunately it's something we all have in
common. We hear a lot about bullying facts and statics, and we need them to get a handle
on what's happening and to create effect anti bullying programs. But statistics reveal only
part of the story. My guests today have stories to share too.
But they're here today for what may be a lively, frank discussion on getting this issue solved.
Let's meet them. So I want to welcome first of all, Dr. Joseph Jones from Radford University.
Thanks so much for being part of the panel today. I look forward to hearing what you
have to say. And we also welcome Mr. Jim D'Alelio a parent and are welcomed and Roanoke City
Schools, Dr. Asia Jones. Thanks for being part of the conversation today.
So let's start out with just a question about desensitized and feedback. Have we become
desensitized to this whole idea of bullying?
>>ASIA JONES: From my perspective, I don't believe so. It's something that as a school
administrator that when it is reported to us we take it very seriously and we have to
take action. And so parents who bring it to our attention or the student that brings it
to our attention, it's, they, it's real for them and taking a stand on that and addressing
it I think is very important so I don't really see us as being desensitized to that.
>>D'ALELIO: I think we are somewhat. Not to disagree... I mean it's on the news every
day. It's on, it's on Today, the Today Show had a story, locally Channel 10 did a story.
I mean all of these people are doing stories on bullying. It's always, bullying, bullying,
bullying. And... you know the only time a person really understands what's going on
is if they're involved with it. If their child's being bullied. That's when they become more
aware of it. It's kind of like if it's not happening to my child I don't care about it
but I think that's where I see it is right now.
>>JOSEPH JONES: I think in a lot of ways though it's always in our face. It's like politics.
It's getting there and to the point where, like you said, it's not my child I have too
many things to worry about. And I don't think we're totally desensitized to it but I think
that, that we're moving toward that direction. >>D'ALELIO: It's getting saturated.
>>JOSEPH JONES: Absolutely.
>>D'ALELIO: I mean it's everywhere.
>>MARTIN: And you had mentioned, as a parent, once it involves your child then all of a
sudden it is on your radar so as a parent how do you deal with it?
>>D'ALELIO: I'm... it's a tricky situation to handle with your kid because sometimes
there could be a big backlash against your child. I mean like I had, a couple of my kids
have been bullied. I sat there and talked to them and worked and tried to give them
some strategy on how to handle the situations. You know you try and teach your child to ignore
the problem maybe it will go away but then it starts getting to the point where it's
harassment or physical then you call the administrator at the school and you talk to the school about
it and there are some great administrators out there that will handle the problem the
way it should be handled and then sometimes you have the administrator who ignores the
problem so I mean you do I mean you have first thing I feel and my wife feels the same way
that we gotta be advocates for our children you gotta but you know you don't want to become
too aggressive when you're dealing with the problem... because it's hard dealing with
your child because it's hard to see them go through that pain and you want to work with
the school system to make sure everybody work, to make sure it's a win win situation.
>>MARTIN: And what advice would you have for other parents who are watching right now or
are struggling with this issue of what do I do and how do I best address this situation
with my child?
>>D'ALELIO: One is you have to have a good communication with your child. You have to
be able to have your kid come to you and talk to you cause your kid may be going through
something that you don't even know that's going on. Uh, like I have a pretty good report
with my boys and they come to us and talk to us about problems and stuff and if you
don't have that communication you're not going to be able to help your kids out. I mean that's
the first and foremost, you've got to be able to talk to your kids. Have your kids come
talk to you. And when they do have a problem ... don't be afraid to pick up the phone and
call the school because they're willing to help. Most schools are. Wouldn't you say that
Asia.
>>ASIA JONES: I do. I find that. And that's excellent advice along with I would suggest
aside from the open dialog and collaborating with the school to help your child become
resilient with, when this happens. Do some role modeling also to have them not to retaliate
with bullying, to have healthy relationships with their friends because often times we
find that they're on again friends off again friends and that's where the bullying may
start.
>>MARTIN: What are some of the signs you look for either as a parent or from the research
that you've done or from a school perspective? What should parents be looking for?
>>D'ALELIO: I think with me um they don't want to go to an activity that they like to
do because they're being picked on because for me, my boys dance. And my oldest was getting
picked on because it's different. A lot of boys don't dance. Uh then for a while he was
like maybe I'll give it up and I'm like no you know and that's a sign. They start to
withdraw, their grades drop, I mean you've seen that, kids their grades will drop, they
withdraw, they don't want to start ... going to school, they start faking sick.
>>MARTIN: And those are the emotional tolls that we see but I'm sure there are physical
signs also that emerge.
>>JOSEPH JONES: Yeah. And I also think that as parents I think it's important that you
do have that dialog that have, I mean... when I was growing up it was how was schools today,
what did you do, what was it like, these enormous conversations about this. Um so I think you
have to open that dialog but also with students it really is about fear because they're so
afraid. Data, data suggests that kids who are bullied, they skip school at least once
a month. And they have no plans of going to college because they think it's going to be
the same way so I think it's pretty important to watch your child and make sure... and why
don't you want to go to dance and why don't you want to go to football practice. What's
going on with the drama club? And I think that's, I think that's pretty important.
>>MARTIN: And you know we're looking at trying to build resiliency, we're looking at giving
kids a place to go and something, a place to turn. But Asia, tell me what your experience
has been with adult bullies. Parents who come in who maybe their child has been bullied
or you know they're coming in and they're saying I want action, I want it now, teachers,
do teacher report being yelled at or being pursued aggressively by parents?
>>ASIA JONES: Well it can be a very emotional situation and the frustration level could
be very high and the parent comes in very emotional and irate perhaps but once they
know we're all on the same page, on the same side of the team, that we're going to try
to get to the bottom of this. You mentioned adults showing bullying behavior. Aside from
looking at the warning sides if your child is actually being bullied, I think it's important
to see is your child a bully? Are they highly competitive? Do they have joy in putting people
down? Um, social media, is there issues there where there, someone's the other end of the
joke and you know are they easy to, I think with movies, into violent movies or find things
that we might find inappropriate as acceptable? All of those might be signs that your child
might not be handling situations in a very empathetic approach and recognizing differences
and the acceptance of that.
>>JOSEPH JONES: I do think, attached to that is... um, a study came out a couple of months
ago that parents who bully typically were children who were bullied and bullying comes
from a sense of entitlement and power. I can bully you because I think I am better than
you. And so when you have those and as a high school English teacher I experienced the same
thing. You have parents that come in ... my son will graduate, do you know who I am? I
own most of the car dealerships in this area, I can have you fired and all of this kind
of mentality but that bullying behavior started as a child and if you look at the studies
out there, they're a lot of adult bullies in the work place now and it all began when
they were in schools.
>>MARTIN: And some of the work that you're currently doing around bullying, you've done
a lot with tolerance and acceptance and you know it seems odd that we want to be different
and we are all so different and individuals and yet often times that's what makes us a
target. Can you talk a little bit about your work?
>>JOSEPH JONES: Communities are, construct social norms about what's acceptable in a
community and what's not acceptable. Schools are small communities so a kid with red curly
hair may be bullied in this area but may be praised and worshiped in this area because
this area values red curly hair, this area not so much, and so we have to begin teaching
our kids that tolerance is, is the way to go. We have to teach our kids that difference
is good. It's okay to not be like everyone else. The problem comes though this whole
notion of tolerance goes back to this whole idea of how the community situates tolerance.
Maybe religious affiliation, some of those things the community is so adamant against,
how horrible that is that it's hard to kind of infuse tolerance into the schools when
you have, honestly, when you have parents who are reinforcing you know, kids go to school
and we teach them tolerance, tolerance, tolerance, you know accept people and then they go home
and their parents are no, we don't accept those people, we don't accept that race, we
don't, they're evil people, the red curly haired kids are horrible, so it's problematic.
>>D'ALELIO: See, I agree with you on that. I think to solve bullying it's, it's not,
I mean the school systems, you guys do a great job about teaching kids tolerance and what
you said it's, and I firmly believe it starts at home.
>>JOSEPH JONES: absolutely.
>>D'ALELIO: It starts there. I mean, to get, I mean cause you don't know what goes on behind
closed doors, you don't know what's going on there and like you said, I mean the kids
that the parent may be openly supposedly accepting everyone but then they get behind closed doors,
I mean they're just, I mean that's where it has to start. It's, it's, I Iook at it you
know society as a whole is the schools, parents, community, I mean unless we take it seriously
as a society it's not going to go away.
>>MARTIN: So what are we doing, I'll ask each of you individually, what are you doing in
the school, what are you doing to continue to support your boy then in your research
to build this local support and build tolerance and acceptance?
>>ASIA JONES: Well, it's providing leadership activities for students where they are engaged.
They recognize that they are a part of the community, the power of their voice, working
with students who understand what bullying is ... being able to, if they are a by stander
and they happen to see someone being picked on, recognizing, being empathetic, putting
themselves in that person's place and being able to report. And we're very, it's, we teach
our elementary children that it's not about tattling, it's about telling, and for our
older students, it's not about snitching, it's about reporting and when it is indeed
reported it's something that's taken very seriously. If... children are different, whether
it's ethnicities, or gender or what have you it's how are you neutral in addressing that
and being sure you follow up with the student who was bullied and the student who is bullied
or the person who is doing the bullying.
>>JOSEPH JONES: I personally think and you know, I, I love public education and I was
a teacher and I train teachers now and I think, I think that works at the, under the small
the elementary and primary levels. But I also think that we need to restructure how we do
this. It's really not up to a kid, I argue to run to my principal, or to run to my teacher
and say oh this happened to me it should be that teacher that never allowed it to happen
in the first place
>>D'ALELIO: Correct. I agree with you. And sometimes there will be teachers, I'm sure
you with your trainees, some teachers will sit there and let it happen in their classroom.
>>JOSEPH JONES: absolutely.
>>D'ALELIO: Some of my kids are like yeah he's saying nasty stuff and the teacher starts
laughing and kind of encouraging, I mean
>>JOSEPH JONES: which is horrible
>>D'ALELIO: I mean that's, that's what I was talking, it starts with the parents, you know
with good role modeling and it also starts with the teach- at the school level, it starts
with teachers even down to the custodians if they see something, they see what's going
on. I mean, they're the powers of authority, kids look for authority, they look for guidance,
they look for kinda like is this ok? I mean even throwing paper in the classroom, I mean
a kid, a kid and the teacher kind of laugh it off, no punish the kid
>>ASIA JONES: Creating the safe environment.
>>D'ALELIO: yeah.
>>MARTIN: and you know what, let's turn our focus to hear from students. And you know
we can talk about bullying and we can offer suggestions and we can institute programs
but let's really see what students have to say. Our executive producer, Angela Hatcher,
had a chance to sit down with 2 students who openly shared their experiences and views.
Let's take a look at what Tony and Andrew had to say and I'll ask all of you to respond
on the other side.
>>HATCHER: What can we be doing better to help combat bullying?
>>MITCHELL: I think the biggest thing to combat bullying is just to be proactive you know,
you, you let your students know, you let your children know, you know, that it's, it's not
acceptable behavior.
>>TONY D'ALELIO: It's letting the kid know who doing the bullying understand what they
did and why that's wrong.
>>HATCHER: Do you ever feel that kids are afraid of tattle telling that sort of thing,
they're reluctant?
>>TONY D'ALELIO: I know growing up, for me I would get scared and be like I don't want
to go like tell whoever's picking on me like they'd say my name and it'll get worse. I
remember I was like 13 and I would go to the, with a problem and I was like you know please
don't say anything, I don't want anyone to know about it and then that didn't happen
and so it just got like worse and worse, why did you tell on me? So I think if the kid
being picked on and the adult both understand that it's something that's confidential, I
mean it will make it better.
>>MITCHELL: That really is the moment when you're the most vulnerable when you're discussing
a problem or an issue with someone and you don't , you don't want that to be exposed
to everyone else so yeah trust and open communications are probably, just the 2, 2 biggest things
>>HATCHER: Let's talk about Mom and Dad getting involved. It's one thing to go home and tell
your Mom and Dad this is going on with me or I see this happening to a friend. What
happens when Mom and Dad go to school? Is that cool or no?
>>TONY D'ALELIO: It's scary when they go in and talk to administration cause you're, my
fear was that you know you're going to make it worse and you know it's just more people
getting involved and I would see my parents get upset because when they saw me hurt they
were hurting like 10 times worse and so I mean, that's, that's scary for the kid to
see your parents step in but uh honestly I don't ... I think it's good when a parent
steps into the administration because it lets the administration know it's a serious issue.
>>MITCHELL: Before you do that, I think you need to have a conversation with your child.
You need to know what they're comfortable with.
>>HATCHER: Treating everyone with respect and kindness and compassion and that's what's
going to overcome it. And then you've got kind of the zero tolerance method of we're
just not putting up with it, so what do you think works?
>>MITCHELL: I feel like when you have the zero tolerance policy you have a lot of bitterness
with that if someone is cracked down for bullying and punished, they're not going, they're not
going to have respect for their victims they're gonna have more of an animosity because they
see it as someone who got them in trouble.
>>TONY D'ALELIO: If you're nice to someone, reach out to someone, then they'll do it to
someone else, and so on and it will branch out from there and so I like that idea better
than the zero tolerance thing cause you can't completely wipe out bullying because there
someone who's always going to wanna try and put you down but if you have an idea of just
being nice in return it'll help wash it out.
>>HATCHER: What do you guys as students, cause you're with your classmates day in and day
out, what do you pick up on that maybe they don't see that they should or they need to
know about.
>>MITCHELL: If we as students and friends can recognize that's someone's having a trouble
or having trouble or having a problem and if we can intervene, you know, at a faster
level than the teachers then I feel like that's a responsibility that, you know, we as students
can pick up on.
>>TONY D'ALELIO: And I think students have a higher, a bigger impact on someone than
a teacher telling you that's wrong so it I feel like when the teacher tells you it's
wrong it's more like an eye roll type I'm not going to listen to you type thing but
if one of your peers were to reach out and say ... hey that's not cool, you know, what
are you doing? Then that'll have a bigger impact and so they'll think again when they
try and be mean to somebody else. I feel like in middle school it was more like there was
only one way to be and there was like one way how to dress, one thing to do and, and
or like one type of music to listen to and, and I feel like know everyone's appreciating
everyone being so different.
>>MITCHELL: and when you do recognize bullying you're there for support and you know you
say you know, don't let, don't let someone bring you down, be confident in the person
that you are.
>>MARTIN: so what's your reaction?
>>ASIA JONES: I was very impressed with those two. They had lots of answers and it's about
empowering each other and empowering the students and I can understand when uh the fear of my
goodness, the bully is going to find out that I reported. It is important that someone is
told so that we can do something about it but there's no cookie cutter way in addressing
each scenario but just being very sensitive to that fact that it was, it took a lot of
courage to come and report it and how do you handle it.
>>JOSEPH JONES: Again I think it speaks to this notion that it is the teacher's responsibility
because once that student comes and says hey, this happened... that target on that student
just got three times bigger cause now the bully is gonna ok I will get, you know, I
will get back at you for doing this and there is also that fear of telling and especially
in elementary schools, you know when I was in school, don't tattle, don't tattle, don't
tattle and now it's like this whole paradigm shift into now we want you to tell, and, but
I think there are ways to get around that. I think you can create a classroom that gives
you an anonymous kind of tattling if you will.
>>D'ALELIO: I kind of like what the kid said there um like peer intervention more or less.
I mean it's kind of like we were saying is that you know teachers have role, administrators,
parents and stuff but sometimes just peer to peer relationship has more effect on what
is going on. I mean it's to be cool to be you know that, you know I always hate that,
the in crowd, the popular crowd, I've never figured that out what makes someone popular
but that's something else but you know it's someone from that crowd, you know it's like
mean girl movie, one of them stands up, one of them finally stood up against the one.
It just takes one kid to turn around to say someone, like they see someone picking on,
you know if she was picking on him and I turn around ... hey knock it off.
>>ASIA JONES: Well and that's ownership. Yeah ownership within their own community. And
then also engaging students to be very connected to their schools because if they don't feel
there's a connection to their school then they're highly probable to make others feel
miserable if they're feeling that no one cares about me here and so therefore I'm gonna make
you feel as though no one cares about you as well so
>>MARTIN: and I guess I'd like each of you to think about a final type of thought that
you'd like to share with people. What message would you like to convey about what we've
talked about today and how kids and adults, all of us can move forward and get this issue
resolved.
>>JOSEPH JONES: I think I'd like for people to realize, and we know this deep down inside,
that intolerance is not innate. We teach kids to hate. We teach kids to be racist. We teach
kids to do these things.
>>MARTIN: And what do you think about tolerance, how does that impact you know how do we teach
that tolerance and acceptance? >>JOSEPH JONES: Through modeling and through
appropriate behaviors. When you're a, a parent can't run into Target and scream at somebody
and get all angry at a store clerk because this isn't on the shelf cause the kid is standing
there watching, well if mom can do this then it's okay for me to do this at school.
>>D'ALELIO: right
>>JOSEPH JONES: And so I think it has to be done through modeling appropriate behavior.
>>MARTIN: So I'm gonna put you on the spot a little bit, what did you think seeing your
son on the screen talking about bullying?
>>D'ALELIO: It was nice. I mean it was, I liked what he said. I remember some of the
stories he had to say you know...
>>MARTIN: and the hurt, as he said it hurt him to see you hurt
>>D'ALELIO: Yeah, it was hard. I mean in, kinda what you said to run in screaming and
yelling at the school. I mean, me, I used to be teacher at one time and it was, and
I've been on both sides of it and it was hard to know, you know there are policies and procedures
and I would call the principal and talk to them and there was one principal in particular
that I said please don't use my son's name and it was and then so I called another phone
call back and he was a vice principal and so then I said I'm not talking to you and
so then I had to go to another principal and I told him I said I will not have this again
because I will keep going up the chai- till I get to someone like you. You know an administer-,
a higher up administration, I mean, but I didn't yell and scream, it was, that's hard
to do, I mean that's hard to do as a parent when you see your kid ache... come home and
just you know cry for, because someone called him a name that had nothing, that didn't even
know him or know him at all or shove him in a locker because he was standing, they just
felt like they could get away with it, push him down you know, catch it all on camera
and the response I got back was well that's just this thing they're doing up at, he was
in eighth grade and that was just something they're doing up, one kid would get behind
the other kid and push him down and they said um well that's something that they're doing
at the JV team up for initiation, and I'm like well it's done in the gym class , my
kid... I mean he hit his head and they caught it on camera and I said use the fact that
you said you caught it on camera, oh no, they came in and said Tony's dad called and complained
so then he got more repercussions on the bus so I yanked him from the bus and said I'm
picking him up every day for a while until this is resolved.
>>MARTIN: and how, did it get resolved?
>>D'ALELIO: For the most part. I mean none of the kids weren't punished. They weren't
really punished. Um in most schools, you know a lot of touch, students aren't allowed to
touch another student, am I right, you're not allowed to put your hands physically and
touch and I said right there's your, you know, so that's my, my only question is that's where
it needs to start when something happens. The resolve, you know, or they bring the chi-
like in elementary level they bring in the two, what... you know, what is your problem
with this child, no, he's picking on him. Solve it. I'm not saying every kid needs to
be punished you need to get to the bottom of why they're picking on the kid.
>>MARTIN: And it sounds like an immediate reaction so that things are dealt with right
away and then there's no lag time so that people, you know so that people don't feel
like there has been swept under the rug, right and so what do you recommend for parents,
do they wait, do they report things immediately, do they try to work it out on their own?
>>ASIA JONES: Well, we want to empower our children and our young adults so if it's something
we can address, how to be resilient or how to address a situation that makes you uncomfortable
first then certainly we want to have our children prepared to do that. If it's something that's
repetitive and they're uncomfortable they need to report that whether it's to the teacher,
a counselor, like you mentioned every adult in the building, and going back to what you
mentioned it is something that's taught to kids. It's not a school issue, it's not a
particular group issue, it's a community issue.
>>MARTIN: And you know this issue has so much more to talk about, I want to invite you please
to come back because we've got a lot left to do, okay and you have been wonderful. And
you know we all have something we can do and what I'm hearing and what we can agree on
is it starts with acceptance, that means acceptance of others and of ourselves, right, including
our differences and our similarities. Let's give up the need to impress others. Let's
give up labels and let's begin to treat each other with the respect we deserve, you know
let's see if we can start a new trend, let's make tolerance contagious. We can end bullying.
Let's make the commitment to make the day that that happens started today. I want to
thank my guests and you for spending time with us. For information about today's topic,
to watch this program again, or share it with someone you know, please visit our website,
BlueRidgePBS.org. Programs like this are made possible because of you and I thank you for
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