Students, teachers and staff, I implore you not to wait for a formal cry for help. Don’t sit back and expect that a child considering ending his or her life will confront you and don’t naively assume that no child in your school is considering ending their life.
No, waiting for something that may never be detected is negligence. We must be more vigilant. Stamping out bullying must be THE priority of schools. Not ‘a’ priority – ‘the’ priority. We must expect that schools see to it that their culture is healthy, that their students are cared for and that bullying of any kind is treated extremely seriously.
Schools should stop promoting themselves as a ‘safe and caring environment’ unless they can truly back it up with decisive action. Similarly, they should stop looking at bullying as a legal problem and start looking at it as a significant social and emotional problem. Instead of worrying about their base line duty of care to avoid lawsuits, they should start fighting for their students. Let them know unequivocally that each and every one of them is important. Give them a true sense of self and show them how they can use their unique skill set to make meaningful contributions to society.
Ensure that no child is victimised based on looks, intelligence, ability, religion, gender or sexuality. Dismantle prevailing ‘in groups’, because an ‘in group’ can only exist without a real and tangible ‘out group’.
Is this hard to achieve? Of course it is.
But I tell you what is harder. It is harder if you are a loving parent who has done everything in your powers to love and care for your children and fill them with confidence and respect, only to see it all whittled away at the hands of schoolyard bullies. Too many parents of children who have committed suicide or attempted it, have been let down by schools that are reactive to bullying rather than proactive.
In my opinion it is more important for schools to get on top of bullying than it is for them to excel in teaching the curriculum. Because what good is the knowledge of calculus and trigonometry to a child that is planning their own suicide?
I am extremely heartened that young Noah got the support he so desperately needed, but I can’t help lament the fact that he was so mercilessly bullied in the first place:
A boy who posted to his Instragram account pictures of self-inflicted cuts to his arms along with a dire warning that he planned to commit suicide on his upcoming 13th birthday spurred thousands of people from around the world to send inspirational messages to the troubled youth.
Noah Brocklebank, a seventh-grader from Columbia, Md., has been bullied by his classmates for years. He’s been called ‘fat,’ ‘ugly,’ ‘annoying,’ and loser,’ amongst other terrible names.
‘I just felt like everything was worthless,’ said Noah. ‘My life was terrible. I had no one.’
That bullying, along with a case of depression, led Noah on Jan. 26 to post a the troubling picture and a message saying ‘Day of scheduled suicide: February 8, 2013 my birthday.’His terrified mother saw the message and Noah committed to a hospital for eight days for treatment, CBS News said.
The mom, Karen Brocklebank, came up with idea to help her son cope with the hard times he was facing.
She decided to share his story with the world in hopes that others could offer reassuring words.‘I put it out there. I was desperate. It was a survival plea,’ she said.
She initially asked some friends on Facebook to put their messages to her son in a letter.
Noah soon received more than 2,000 letters in just a couple of weeks and that number has now grown to several thousand.
‘It has restored my faith in humanity. It really has,” his mom said.
The letters have obviously provided comfort to Noah who says he spends time reading the inspiring messages from people around the world.
Topical Teaching 