“I know I’m weird,” she said slowly, tossing her multi-colored hair around her shoulders as she sat down heavily in the chair in my office, “but I can’t help it!” Tears welled up in her dark eyes, and she shuddered involuntarily. The smell of sweat and fear filled the air in my small room. Her eyes, heavy with cheap mascara looked as if they had withdrawn into her pale, blotchy face. She shifted her long body from side to side. “I feel like a dumb goose,” she sobbed. “I don’t belong in this school or even this world. I know they all hate me.”
I sat back gently to give her space and listened with interest to what she was saying. I had seen her on the school campus many times, usually alone, looking stressed and unhappy, walking quickly from place to place, carrying her heavy school bag and not looking at anyone. Other kids seemed to avoid her and whispered about her as she walked past.
“It’s not fair, I’ve done nothing but be myself, but nobody can accept that. I am starting to think that it’s true what they say. Why do they want me to change? I don’t ask them to change who they are!” she blurted out.
“I don’t belong here,” she reminded me. “I want to stay home and never go to this stupid school.”
She paused for a moment, then she said, “But I hate home as well, I don’t belong there either, my parents are losers and never get out of bed. I don’t know what to do. I really hate my life.”
The sound of her pain seemed to hang like a sword in the air. I was stunned by this stream of painful emotions that surged like a tornado in my room.
“No,” she said emphatically, “It’s not fair because I have done nothing.”
“Would you mind if I asked you some questions about what’s been happening?” I asked. “I’ve seen something like this before,” I added, “and I have some ideas about what we can do.” She shifted slightly in the chair, her long legs looking for a place to hide and her sobs began to slow down. She shrugged her shoulders and said, “I guess…Go ahead then.”
I paused again for a brief moment, then I asked gently, “Where does this kind of thing happen most?”
“It’s everywhere but mostly in my classes. It’s the story of my life. They gang up on me and shut me out deliberately and they talk about me behind my back. I can’t take much more of it,” she said. “They bully me and make me feel stupid. One kid even made up a song about me. Everyone laughed, even my so-called friends,” she said with disdain.
She lifted her head slightly and looked out at me from under her tousled hair. I handed her a tissue and she dotted the black lines of mascara that had made streaky tracks on her face. I had been carefully listening for a way to talk about what she had been experiencing and I had a number of choices including “bullying,” “ganging up,” “shutting me out deliberately,” “talking about me behind my back,” “making me feel stupid,” but I chose “bullying” because it seemed to sum up all the other things she had been going through and it was, after all, a description that she had chosen.
“Is it bullying that you’ve been the target of?” I asked. When I used this word, she looked up at me and her face winced at the sound of the word. I felt that I had struck a chord with her.
“Yes, it’s bullying plain and simple,” she said sadly.
“I would like to tell you my ideas about how we can get rid of it, would you like to hear them?” I ventured. “It may take a few minutes and if there is something you don’t understand, please ask me. Is that alright?”
She didn’t answer, and looked bored, but I persevered.
Planning an Undercover Anti-Bullying Team
“I have seen problems like this one and even some worse ones solved with ‘Undercover Anti-bullying Teams,’” I continued. “They are a group of students from your class that we select together, and they come up with a plan to eliminate the bullying. Once they find out how much the bullying is affecting people, they usually are happy to do whatever they can to bring some happiness back into the class. It’s my guess that they are looking for a chance to do something right. I think they know about the bullying but don’t know what to do about it. They hate it as much as you do.”
“Yeah, sometimes some kids have stuck up for me and the bullying has stopped, but it doesn’t last. I wish they could keep it up because that’s when I think they accept me.”
I paused for a moment, thinking about what she had just said. I could see that there had been moments when there was no bullying, that there had been exceptions to the story that she was telling me.
“On your team,” I continued, “must be the two kids who are the biggest bullies together with four others who are kids that the teachers and other students look up to.”
She looked startled when I mentioned the bullies being on the team.
“That’ll never work,” she said, “Why should they want to help me when all they do is bully me?”
“Well for one thing, they are outnumbered,” I smiled, “and the other more important reason is that, in my experience, sometimes even the bullies get sick of bullying, but they don’t know what else to do. They almost think that’s who they are. For some reason, they like to think that they know how everyone should be and when they come across someone who they think is different, they try to get them to be like them! That’s the part I am still trying to figure out, why they think they should do that.
“I’ve found through doing this Team idea for over 50 times now, that once they are introduced to a better way and the other kids on the team get behind the plan, they always seem to change the way that they speak and act, and in some teams, they have become the leaders of the team! In many cases, the bullies have become friends of the ones they had been bullying, but we don’t expect them to.”
“It could work….” she said cautiously. “50 times? How many failures have you had?” she cheekily asked, and I thought I detected the hint of a smile.
“I know it sounds ridiculous, but there have been no failures. Every team has been successful in eliminating bullying, and what’s more,” I said with pride, “it hasn’t returned!
“There are two other important parts to this way of dealing with ‘bullying’.” I continued. “Firstly, the teachers of your classes are told what has been happening to you in their class and that an ‘undercover anti-bullying team’ has been set up to eliminate it. They are usually quite surprised, and some teachers have even told me that I’m mistaken. They say that there is no bullying in their class! Just goes to show how clever kids are. The kids who bully certainly don’t want the teachers to know about it.”
“The teachers are told the names of the team members including those doing the bullying, but without mentioning the names of the students who are doing it. They are invited to make suggestions about who they think should be on the team. Sometimes we add their names as well, but most often you will know the ones best suited to help you. It’s not just your friends, but ones who you think could really make a difference. So now the teachers know about what was previously kept hidden from them. They become like extra team members!
“Secondly, when you are sure that the bullying has gone for good, the team members receive a certificate of recognition from the Principal and a canteen voucher from the school. We have a special ceremony in my office where we hand out the certificates to the team. We talked about how the team went and what they have done and what they can keep doing to make this school safe from bullying. Sometimes the Principal hands out the certificate, sometimes the dean, and sometimes teachers and even parents will come to show their appreciation. Sometimes, the ex-victim likes to give out the certificates!” Like I said, I’ve done this over 50 times now and it has worked every time.”
“I guess…” she said tentatively. “It’s better than nothing being done which is how it’s always been.”
“Once the team is set up,” I continued, “They make a plan that details how they are going to make the changes. I don’t tell them what to do, it’s better if it comes from them.”
“Then I wait a couple of days for the team to begin their plan and the next step is to call you out of class, and we talk about what has changed and what remains to be changed. I write all this down on my form. Then I call the whole team together and I share with them what you have told me. We talk about the same things that I talk about with you, such as: How is the plan going? Should they add to the plan? Is it enough? Have they been able to stick to the plan? What have they noticed about your reactions to their efforts? Have other kids said anything? Have they been able to keep it undercover? Etc.
“You don’t have to meet the team or do anything special, but it does help if you recognize the efforts the team is making. I also ask your teachers to tell me what changes they have noticed, and I share these observations with the team and with you each time we meet. We keep going with this process until you decide that the bullying is over. In most cases it takes at least a couple of weeks for the changes to become permanent, but I am sure you agree that’s not much compared to how long this has been going on for.”
She was starting to show some real interest by now. She brushed back her hair and stood up and looked at her eyes in my mirror. She used the tissue I had given her earlier to dab the corners of her eyes. She is quite tall, I thought, as she stood beside me.
“Well, to get this started I need to carefully write down the story of the bullying. This will be what I read to the team. Then we select the team members and then I email your teachers to let them know what we are doing. The next day, I call the team members from classes where they will not be obvious and give them their instructions.”
“One more thing,” she interrupted me, “why is this ‘undercover?’”
“I was hoping you would ask that,” I said. “As I explained earlier, I have found that when people feel that they have been caught out bullying, they are more than likely to blame the person they think has exposed them. Then they try to get revenge on that person, and it usually makes things worse. If they are invited to solve the problem of bullying without being exposed as the bullies, they respond positively. It’s a way of protecting you from retaliation. They become part of the solution, whereas before they were part of the problem. It gives them a fresh chance to do what is the right thing to do. Punishment never works in cases like this.”
“Also, the other students who have been observing the bullying and have done nothing to stop it usually feel ashamed of their inaction. By being anonymous, they also get a chance to make the changes they have wanted to do without it being a big deal.”
“But the main thing though, is that this kind of bullying survives because it is undercover or under the radar. Teachers rarely see it. We must use the same kinds of tricks against it, and who better to do it than students themselves? It is a job that no teachers or other adults can do; it’s going to need some special strategies to expose it and to get rid of it.”
I paused for a while to let all this information be absorbed by her. She seemed to understand what I was saying.
“What I have noticed happening with these teams, is that sometimes the friends of the team members notice the changes and ask if they can be on the team. It’s often hard for the team members to keep it a secret because they enjoy the new job and things in the classroom change pretty quickly. I believe that the kids who bully are not bullies by nature. Often, they don’t even realize they are bullying. They think they are having a joke. Hardly ever do they think that bullying is their only job in life.
“Are you ready now to tell me your most recent experience of bullying?” I enquired as I took out the forms I use to record her story.
“Well,” she began, “It’s been going on for most of my life. It wasn’t as bad at primary school, but it’s gotten much worse as I’ve gotten older.”
This is what she told me. I carefully recorded her own words, checking every now and then to make sure I had written down exactly what she said.
“Well, in social studies, we had to get into groups around tables and I was late to class because of my rowing training. The only place left was right by the door where no one was and everyone who was around were saying things like ‘goosey girl,’ ‘loner,’ and ‘O.T.L.’ (Only the Lonely) and stuff and laughing so the teacher couldn’t hear. I was sitting by myself, and it made me feel horrible, like I was dead meat.
“Another time last week was when I walked into the library, a group of the boys were lined up against the wall on both sides and they were yelling stuff at me and saying stuff to me. They were calling me names and saying that I made up an account on Facebook just to have friends and stuff and why did I bother coming to this school because nobody wants me here. A while ago in P.E (Physical Education), we had to get into groups, and nobody wanted to be in my group. The leaders put me in a group, and they were all going, ‘why do we have to have her in our group and stuff?’ This kind of thing happens to me a lot when we have to get into groups.”
I wrote it down as she spoke, checking with her to make sure I heard her clearly. Then I asked her how this incidents affected her and made her think and feel.
“I feel like I can’t cope, and I want to be able to relax like everyone else. It’s OK for them but they don’t realize what they are causing me because I don’t get any support at home. I don’t feel at home even at home. It makes me want to run away. Sometimes I want to leave but I can’t. Sometimes I want to leave and never come back. I hate coming to school early for rowing because kids are saying horrible things and stuff but if I am late, everyone draws attention to it. They look at me and act in a shaming way. It makes me hate school. I used to love school and now when I wake up, I just want to lie there and not move. I hate it so much. Sometimes I wish I was not even alive.”
I let that powerful expression of her emotions hang in the air. I had heard similar stories many times but each of these moments are so moving, so important. Following the questions on my form, I gently asked her, “Ideally, how would you like things to be?”
She paused for a while and looked at me. My guess was that it was hard for her to relive those painful moments, but this question seemed to shift her thoughts.
“Well, I want to feel comfortable here to relax and forget about everything else, to be comfortable at school. I want to be able to say what I feel, not being scared of everything I say and do. I don’t want to be bullied anymore. I want to have friends, good friends that I can trust and not laugh at me or put me down. I feel like I must defend myself to show that they are not hurting me,” she added.
“Thanks for letting me write it all down,” I said. “Can I read it all back to you to make sure that I have got it down correctly? Remember that this is the story I will read out to the Undercover Anti-bullying Team once they are assembled.” She nodded her head. I read the story to her just as she had told it to me. She listened carefully to my reading of her story and looked sad. “Are you OK with me reading this out to the Team like that?” I asked.
“I hope this works,” she said, “and that they don’t use it as a reason to bully me more,” she said with a worried look on her face.
“You know, in all the Teams I have run, that has never happened. Most times the team is shocked to hear the story and is ashamed that it has got to this stage. In some cases, students have cried when I have read their story out. One time, the bully confessed! It was him that eventually became the leader of the team.”
She seemed reassured by this, and I said to her, “Now we must select the Team before I let the teachers know about it. Let’s look at your class list and we can go through each student one-by-one and you can tell me what you know about them and we can select the Team.” I printed off the list and we discussed each student. I explained that apart from the two students who were responsible for the most bullying, the other four people would be students that the rest of the class and teachers looked up to. Students with status in the eyes of their peers. I recorded these names on my form.
Once the composition of the team was decided, I thanked her for her bravery in coming forward with this and I sent her back to her class.
Building the Anti-Bullying Team
Then I sent this email to her teachers:
Hi Teachers,
Candice has told me a story about some bullying of the continual teasing, name calling, mocking family, excluding from group work type, what others might think as “low level,” but to her its big and causing her to switch off school. Together we think that an Undercover Team might work well to eliminate the bullying.
She has selected:
Michelle, Josephus, Mario, Alayah, Yanet and Carlos as students she wants to support her. Remember that in this group are the two “worst” bullies. Considering what you know about these students and others in the class, can you suggest any others that may be more suitable?
If you think this is a good team to go about doing anti-bullying work, don’t reply. If you have any suggestions, please let me know asap as I need to call the team together tomorrow.
There is nothing extra you need to do but it would help if you notice the activities of the team and feed your observations back to me by email. I will pass them on during the monitoring process. You may decide to take some actions yourself with the class, but please do not let the existence of the team be known to the class.
On the side of a bullying free school, Mike.
Sending such an email to the teachers is a risky business and I have only recently begun to do that. It is my belief that this undercover bullying needs to be exposed, and the widest audience possible recruited, to eliminate it. By informing teachers about activities that have been happening in the lives of their students, they become part of the Team and become more aware of the relational climate in their classes. Knowing what I know about each teacher, I predicted a variety of responses.
1.Dear Mike
Thank you for the email regarding the bullying of Candice. I was quite surprised to read this because I thought she was doing very well. Are you sure you have the right person? I struggled to detect the two worst bullies though. Except for Mario who makes the occasional smart comment to everyone, not just Candice, they all seem to be nice kids. I won’t allow any negativity in my class though and it is important for me that kids feel safe enough to learn.
It must be pretty low level as you say because I haven’t seen much of it. Still, I will take your word for it and keep my eyes open for the positive actions of the team members. She has selected a good Team because the ones she has chosen are students that I think have leadership potential. Who are the bullies again?
I will keep you posted, George.
2.Mike
I thought as much! She is strange and the kids find it hard to accept her. She should get her hair cut and not put so much make up on. She mucks around quite a bit and draws attention to herself. She doesn’t do much work in my class and is absent a lot. She doesn’t make it easy for herself though as she sometimes says some pretty harsh stuff back to them. I wonder if she deliberately excludes herself from whole class activities.
She does need to harden up and not be so sensitive.
I will keep my eyes open for any kids who might be acting differently towards her, but I can’t see them making much of a difference.
Most of these kids on her “Team” are pretty hard workers when they want to be so I wouldn’t make any changes.
Andrea
3.Dear Mike
This is clever! I have seen this kind of thing in my last school but it was more obvious. The counsellor took the kids who were bullying aside and had a talk with them. There was a small change but it didn’t really last because my guess is that they did it for the counsellor, not because it was the right thing to do.
As you know, I do my best to have the best environment for learning. Happiness is important to me, and I want my kids to have fun learning. But if any one kid is unhappy in any way, I want to know about it.
I will call a class circle tomorrow and we will all talk about how we can make our relationships the best that they could be. I will not draw attention to Candice but talk about good relationships in general.
In agreement with you about having a bully free school, Jenny.
I was predicting a more unsupportive response from one teacher who I knew wouldn’t email me but would talk to me face to face.
I was sitting in the staffroom with my friends during morning break when he came over to me. The room was filled with colleagues drinking coffee and enjoying the respite from teaching. There were lots of warm conversations around tables and some people had gone outside to enjoy the early summer sun.
“Can I talk to you?” he asked.
I knew what this would be about and I steeled myself for what I knew was going to be a difficult conversation. “Could we go somewhere else and discuss this outside?” I asked.
We found a quieter corner of the courtyard and he started telling me his ideas.
“I am not happy about this ‘Undercover Team’ in my class,” he said. “It’s bollocks. I won’t tolerate bullying. I have high standards. If I knew who they were, I would make them stand up in front of the class and apologize to everyone for what they are doing. Then I would give them a detention or lines, and I would ring their parents and tell them what they are doing.
“Going soft on these bullies is a waste of time,” he continued. “They need to be held accountable for what they are doing and be punished. That’s how it was in my day, and I haven’t changed my opinion.”
I struggled to find a way to address his concerns.
“Kids in my class don’t dare bully each other. If I catch them, they know what to expect. If it was my kid who was bullied, I would want those kids excluded from school.”
I took a deep breath and tried to be calm.
“I know that this is not how you might do things, " I said, “but I have found over many years that when kids are punished, especially for bullying, they will somehow try to get their revenge back on the person that has told on them. If they don’t, then they will get their friends to. It always makes things worse. Besides, they spend time thinking about revenge and then they don’t learn. In my experience, students who are bullied don’t want the bullies to be exposed or punished. They just want it to stop.
“We both want the same thing, for kids to learn and to treat each other well. I am not asking you to change anything in any way, but just see if you can notice when the students on the team are doing positive things to support Candice.
“There may not be bullying while the students are in your lessons,” I explained, “but if all teachers can be on the lookout for any kind of unpleasantness, then our school is going to be a much happier and purposeful place, wouldn’t you agree?”
“Well, I’d be surprised if it was going on in my class, but I will keep an eye out for Candice as I do anyway.”
“Thanks for telling me about your concerns,” I added and went back with a pounding heart to my friends.
The Anti-bullying Team Convenes
Two days later I called up the team members. They shuffled into my office looking anxious and worried. I suspected that although they were classmates, they were not friends. They looked at each other suspiciously and began to ask why they were called out of class.
“Welcome,” I smiled and said as they looked uncomfortably for a chair to sit on. “You must be wondering why you have been called out of class and I will tell you why in just a moment and you may be surprised. But you may not be as well.
“Yesterday, one of your classmates told me a sad story of bullying in your class. I made sure she didn’t mention any names because as I explained to her before she started, the best way to eliminate bullying is for everyone to work together. Sometimes people get caught up in bullying and want to change because they know it’s wrong and they would not like it if it was done to them. Sometimes, people don’t even know that they are bullying and just think they are having fun. Other times, people see and hear the bullying and don’t know what to do about it. Many times, it seems as if even friends are in on it”.
“Who is it?” one student said. “Why us?” another said.
The room went silent, and some students began shifting nervously in their seats. I let the silence sit for a while and then I continued, “She has personally selected you as the students best able to eliminate the bullying. Not only that, but your teachers have endorsed her selection and are going to do what they can (without exposing the team) to make their classrooms safe from bullying. If you agree to be on the team, and when you have eliminated the bullying for good, you will receive a Principal’s Award in recognition of your anti-bullying activities and a canteen voucher from the school at a little ceremony to celebrate your success. He could even present it to you if you like,” I added cheekily.
“The important thing about this is that it is undercover. Nobody would know of your existence but myself, your teachers, the Principal, and of course the student who has been bullied. You can tell your parents if you like as I am sure they will be proud of your selection in this really important matter.”
They laughed uncomfortably and looked at each other sideways.
“I am going to read out the story and then I will tell you who it is and ask you if you would like to be involved. Are you ready to hear her story?” I asked.
“Yes,” they all nodded in agreement.
“I think I know who you are talking about,” one of the boys ventured.
“I will read the story exactly as she told me. I have added nothing and taken nothing out. You may know of the incidents she describes, and you may have seen it differently, but this is her story; this is how it is for her,” I added. “I am telling you in this way because I want the focus to be on the bullying, not so much on who was involved. You will notice that she doesn’t name anyone. That is not important to me. No one is being blamed or singled out.”
“This is her story,” and I read out her story, including how it made her feel and think.
There was silence as I read Candice’s story to the group, and some students said quietly, “that must be horrible.”
“I think I know who it is,” one boy said. “I didn’t know she felt like that. That’s sad.”
When I mentioned her name, I noticed looks of surprise on the faces of some students. Some were clearly embarrassed, but all the students listened without interruption to her tale.
“Would you all like to be on her undercover team?” I asked.
They all said they would be, including the ones she has identified privately as the two worst bullies.
“What do you want us to do?” Josephus asked.
“We make up a plan. I call it our ‘five point plan.’ On it, we list simple ideas that will turn things around for her. Who would like to start?”
I went over to the whiteboard with my marker in my hand. “If the same things were happening to you, what would you like people to do?” I asked.
“Offer her help when she needs it and offer for her to come into our group. I will do that,” Alayah said.
“That’s great!” I exclaimed.
“I could remind her that she doesn’t need to go ‘all stupid’ in a gentle way. I will do that because I think she will listen to me,” Michelle said.
“Stick up for her when people tease her,” said one boy and the others all nodded in agreement. “Would you all like to sign up for that?” I aske
