Daily Local News (West Chester, PA)
Shapiro kicks off listening tour
PHOENIXVILLE >> Teachers with more time to listen and better promotion of in-school student resources were just two of the several suggestions Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro received from students during the first of six forums focusing on bullying and cyberbullying in schools.
The forum was held Oct. 26 at Phoenixville High School and featured a panelist of seniors from Phoenixville, Coatesville and Downingtown West high schools and 60 students from all three school districts.
Shapiro told the students he considers bullying and cyberbullying to be “critically important” issues, but rather than have adults “dictate to the terms of how you are going to interact with one another, I believe we need to do a better job of listening and understanding what’s really happening in our schools and how we can best address it.”
And there was a lot to listen to.
Senior panelists Jordan Ford from Phoenixville, Grace Kennedy from Coatesville and Max Minnier from Downingtown West each offered their own perspective on the issues, all agreeing cyberbullying on social media platforms, is a much larger and more frequent problem than physical bullying in person.
Ford said cyberbullying is more prevalent perhaps because it is more likely “to go unchallenged. If it happens in front of your face, you may feel more obliged to stop it, but if you see it in passing online, you may recognize it, but feel less inclined to make an effort to stop it, which is why it’s so easy to spread. No one likes to be challenged and it’s easier when no one calls you out.”
Minnier and Kennedy said Instagram and Twitter are the social media platforms on which cyberbullying is most likely to occur.
“A bully can hide behind a phone or a computer and not have to do it face it face, and social media has a delay, you and wait and think your response through, so a bully feels more protected,” Minnier said.
But the issue is more than a black and white, good buy/bad guy scenario, said Kennedy. Understanding what may motivate a student to engage in bullying behavior is an important way to stop it. “They may have an issue going on at home that no one knows about and they want to put the attention on someone else,” she said.
“You need a two-pronged approach, to help the person who was victimized, but also to help the person who was doing the bullying,” Ford said.
“A lot of people feel ostracized, they don’t feel school is a very safe place and they dread going there,” said Minnier.
That feeling of being ostracized applies to both bully and victim and making connections with teachers, administrators, guidance counselors, psychologists or school resource officers can often make the difference. But it’s not always an easy connection to make, the students told Shapiro.
Kennedy said she was bullied, but because she had a good relationship with her principal, the matter was dealt with swiftly.
But many students don’t feel comfortable doing that and think of the office as only being the place “where you go when you’re in trouble,” said Minnier. Similarly, he said often the only students who have enough of a relationship to seek help from a school resource officer are those who have a tendency to break the rules and have had contact with that officer previously.
Further, Ford said, most students think of guidance counselors as being people you see primarily when discussing issues about choosing a college. “I never thought of them as someone you go to for help with anything else,” he said.
No matter who the adult is to whom a student turns in times of need, the most important aspect is often familiarity and trust, the