Bullying at school has attracted an enormous amount of attention, spurring academic studies and popular books, regulations, and training sessions for educators. By now its status as a serious problem is widely acknowledged, as it should be. We can never go back to the days when bullying was regarded as a boys-will-be-boys rite of passage, something that victims were left to deal with (and suffer from) alone.
But as with other ills, both within and beyond our schools, some responses are much less constructive than others. The least thoughtful (or useful) strategy is to announce a 鈥渮ero tolerance鈥� stance on bullying. Either this phrase amounts to empty rhetoric鈥攔ather like responding to repeated instances of gun violence in our country by sending each cluster of victims our 鈥渢houghts and prayers"鈥攐r else it refers to a policy of harsh punishment for bullies.
The latter approach is worth our attention precisely because it comes so easily to us, complementing a punitive sensibility already well-established in our schools. Students who break the rules or otherwise displease us are subjected to suspension, expulsion, detention, enforced isolation (鈥渢ime-out鈥�), loss of opportunity to participate in enjoyable activities, and so on.
Making children suffer for what they鈥檝e done is often defended on practical grounds, but I鈥檝e been unable to find any evidence to support the claim that punishment makes schools safer or leads the children who have been punished to become more ethical or responsible. Indeed, punitive responses鈥攅ven if they鈥檙e euphemistically called 鈥渃onsequences"鈥攁re often not merely ineffective but actively counterproductive. To cite only one in a long line of empirical investigations, an eight-year longitudinal study published in 2005 found that punitive discipline was subsequently associated with more antisocial behavior, less prosocial behavior, and increased levels of anxiety.
Interestingly, when many proponents of traditional discipline are presented with such evidence, they simply pivot to a very different defense, one that can鈥檛 be dislodged with evidence: They insist that if someone does something bad, something bad must be done to that person. He or she must be 鈥渉eld accountable"; a consequence must be imposed for moral reasons, even if there are no practical benefits.
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But the effects of punishment do matter, and where bullying is concerned, they suggest a painful irony: Punishing kids who bully not only fails to address the source of the problem, but actually makes things worse. As educator and author Barbara Coloroso pointed out in her book The Bully, The Bullied, and the Bystander, punishment teaches the bully 鈥渢o be more aggressive and hurtful. He will undoubtedly master the art of doing his bullying in ways that are sneaky or 鈥榰nder the radar鈥� of even the most observant and aware adults. More important,鈥� she adds, 鈥減unishment degrades, humiliates, and dehumanizes the children who are its objects. (Sounds like bullying to me.)鈥�
Decades鈥� worth of research shows that punishment鈥攅ven when it doesn鈥檛 include physical force鈥攑romotes aggression. But studies conducted in the United States and in Sweden revealed another layer to that reality: Bullies in particular are more likely to have been raised by authoritarian parents who rely on punishment. Dan Olweus, a leading authority on the subject, conducted the latter study. He, like other critics of punishment, has offered suggestions for what can curb bullying. The key is to 鈥渞estructure the social environment"鈥攖he entire school culture鈥攔ather than trying to target individual students by encouraging intervention by bystanders, offering advice to potential victims, or, worst of all, punishing bullies.
Punishment in general is likely a hidden contributor to bullying, both because of what it models and because of its effects on the students who are punished.
It鈥檚 easy to assume that punitive discipline is an inevitable part of school life. That leaves us quibbling only about the details of implementation鈥攆or example, how severe the penalty should be for a given offense. Once we take a step back and consider whether punishment itself really makes sense, the status quo becomes very troubling indeed.Consider: A punishment is a response by someone with more power (say, an adult) to a prohibited action on the part of someone with less power (in this case, a child). Specifically, it consists of deliberately making the child suffer in some way. The intent may be to discourage the child from repeating the action, but the more common results of punishment are that the child (1) becomes angry and frustrated, (2) learns that you get your way in life by using your power over those who are weaker, and (3) becomes more focused on self-interest and less likely to consider how his actions affect others. Punishment induces kids to ask, 鈥淲hat do they, the people with the power, want me to do, and what鈥檚 the consequence to me if I don鈥檛 do it?鈥�
From this perspective, it quickly becomes clear that the problem with school policy isn鈥檛 just that punishing bullies inevitably backfires. Rather, punishment in general is likely a hidden contributor to bullying, both because of what it models and because of its effects on the students who are punished.
Dig even deeper, though: Maybe it鈥檚 not just that punishment contributes to bullying. Maybe traditional discipline is a kind of bullying. That鈥檚 the unsettling implication of Coloroso鈥檚 parenthetical afterthought that I quoted above. Definitions of bullying tend to sound something like this: a hostile action鈥攐r a pattern of abuse, intimidation, or harassment over time鈥攊n which those who are smaller or weaker are victimized by those who are larger or stronger. That the larger, stronger people may have graduate degrees or can spin out elaborate rationalizations for their actions is really beside the point.
One barrier to acknowledging this, apart from our reluctance to admit the intrinsic unpleasantness of what we鈥檙e doing and the harm it may be causing, is the way unquestioned assumptions are built into our use of language. For example, when we talk about kids, the word respect typically refers to something they owe us, not something they鈥檙e owed by us. Likewise, bullying is a word we鈥檙e accustomed to using only to describe something done by students.
Another barrier is the difficulty of shifting our level of analysis. Even if, recalling certain bosses or colleagues, we concede that adults, too, may be bullies, and even if we were open to the possibility that they might victimize children, too, it鈥檚 much more disconcerting to consider that bullying isn鈥檛 just done by individuals. Widely accepted practices and policies may amount to institutionalized bullying. Taking away recess, handing out zeroes, forcing children to stay after school, sending unpleasant reports home to parents, exiling students from the classroom (or school)鈥攁nd threatening in advance to do these things to them if they fail to obey us鈥攎ay not have been intended as bullying. But what matters, and what predicts the effects, is how these things appear to the people to whom they鈥檙e done.
This shift in perspective should prompt us to transform schools from places of 鈥渄oing to鈥� students to places of 鈥渨orking with鈥� students, to see kids鈥� troubling actions not as infractions to be punished (where someone must be made to suffer), but as problems to be solved鈥攁nd opportunities for teaching. If we need a simple reason to support these shifts, maybe it鈥檚 sufficient that we want to make sure our actions never resemble those of a bully.
