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Bullets, Bullies,
and Lessons Unlearned
Two days after Seung Hui Cho massacred 32 students
and teachers at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, I
landed at the Greenville-Spartanburg airport for two days of bullying
prevention training. After I retrieved my luggage, I walked to a rental
car counter where a young female clerk stood alone, talking on the
phone. I decided to rent a car at the last minute, being tired of
shuttles. As I filled out the paperwork, the clerk told me about the
videos and photographs Cho had sent to NBC. I had been traveling and
didn’t know about them.
My training in Greenville consisted of two days of
“booster” training in the Olweus Bullying Prevention Program, an
effective program originally designed by Dan Olweus, a researcher from
Norway. The United States Olweus program is centered at Clemson
University in South Carolina, which is why I was in Greenville. The
Olweus program is a “whole school” approach that reduces bullying by
changing the school culture. Part of the Olweus method involves class
meetings, interventions, and awareness by teachers. I thought of that
when I read about Cho’s experience in a high school English class.
According to numerous news reports, mostly based on
the statements of Cho’s high school classmates, Cho was called upon to
read aloud in class. Characteristically for him, Cho resisted. His
teacher forced the issue and threatened him with a failing grade. This
is how CBS
reported the incident:
Once, in English class, the
teacher had the students read aloud, and when it was Cho's turn, he just
looked down in silence, Davids recalled. Finally, after the teacher
threatened him with an F for participation, Cho started to read in a
strange, deep voice that sounded "like he had something in his mouth,"
Davids said.
"As soon as he started reading, the whole class started laughing and
pointing and saying, 'Go back to China,'" Davids said.
Cho was born in South Korea.
CBS added, “The high school classmates' accounts
add to the psychological portrait that is beginning to take shape, and
could shed light on Cho's state of mind in the video rant he mailed to
NBC in the middle of his rampage Monday at Virginia Tech.”
Unfortunately, it is unlikely that this was an
isolated incident. More likely, it is a graphic metaphor of the kind of
mistreatment that Cho, apparently without sufficient resiliency or
coping mechanisms, drew upon when he became a self-appointed angel of
death on April 16, 2007. In the incident related by CBS and others, Cho
was bullied by a teacher and taunted by fellow students. When he went
on his rampage, he killed teachers and fellow students. Do the math.
We did not discuss Seung Hui Cho or the Virginia
Tech tragedy in the Olweus “booster” training in Greenville. There are
enough reasons to teach and promote bullying prevention without invoking
the sensational events, like Columbine, Paducah, and Blacksburg. We
know that most victims of bullying in schools suffer silently and that
is enough. We know that some of them commit suicide and that some of
them strike back violently.
Last fall, in the Clark County School District, a
middle school student who was small for his age had been bullied
enough. He stashed a knife in bushes on his route home and stabbed two
students who had bullied him. In the Canyon Country of north Los
Angeles County, another bullying victim slashed open a bully’s forehead
with a knife. The Great American Myth of bullying is that victims
should “just fight back.” That’s not always a good idea.
Most victims internalize the bullying and the
results are lower grades, poor attendance, physical symptoms, and low
self-esteem. The bullies don’t get off much better. Studies show that
they are more likely to spend time in prison, indulge in drug and
alcohol abuse, and get involved in aggressive relationships. Bullying
produces no winners. And sometimes, rarely, incredibly, and awfully, it
produces horror.
I won’t take the position that the bullying Seung
Hui Cho endured had a causal effect on him that led to the April 16th
massacre. The interviews with fellow students and family members
suggest an underlying, undiagnosed, pathology. So do reports from his
teachers and a court finding that he was a danger to himself. Cho sent
out warning signals that filled the sky.
But I know this. I would not want to be a high
school English teacher who allowed Cho to be taunted by his classmates
and spend the rest of my life wondering if I should have done something
to stop it.
© April 25, 2007
by Mike Tully |
Mike has been writing a regular column on
Inside Track
Online since July 1, 2003. |
