The young child sat in the back of the class always trying to keep a low profile; he ate alone at the long, busy lunch table; and he always tried to be the first on the school bus to get a seat right behind the driver. He didn’t want to end up near the back of the bus, because he never knew what he would have to endure at the end of his long school day. For some reason, the other kids took great pleasure in teasing the quiet little boy, bantering to such an extent that the hurt ebbed its way into his very spirit.

I’m not real sure when it began; it may even date back to Adam and Eve. There have been many psychologists and researchers who have tried to understand it, but I’m not so sure how anyone can come to a satisfying conclusion regarding what constitutes….bullying! The question is definitely worth asking; the answer; however, is difficult to give. As I’ve stated so many times before, I’m no psychologist and I couldn’t even begin to understand how the human mind works, but I’ve seen bullying and I even experienced a small dose of it when I was a young girl. And as an educator, I’ve seen the light in the eyes of children who are victims of bullying (sometimes at the hands of their own family members) dim to darkness.

We’ve all cheered at our favorite movies and/or programs when the dreaded bullies got what they deserved—Biff Tannen in Back to the Future, Nelson Muntz in The Simpsons, Nellie Oleson of Little House on the Prairie. And who could forget how Grover Dill tormented Ralphie Parker and his buddies in A Christmas Story? We don’t like the way bullies behave, but somehow they continue to torment their way into our lives—especially our children’s lives.

But there comes a time when we must step up and take some responsibility. Across the nation, millions of dollars are spent to fund character education programs in our schools today—to teach our children that it’s wrong to hurt another human being. And that’s all find and dandy, but instead of expecting our teachers and schools to teach our children right from wrong, shouldn’t we bear some of that responsibility? Next week I’ll share some ideas that we all can work on to stamp out bullying.