I continue to try and make sense of the tragic case of Phoebe Prince, the 15 year-old South Hadley, Massachusetts student who committed suicide following months of bullying by her high school peers. The transfer student from Ireland was allegedly bullied in a vicious and systematic way that made her life so miserable she chose to end it.
What is perhaps most troubling is that the victimizers in this case aren’t your typical big muscle, low self-esteem, pick on others to make up for your deficiencies, kind of bullies. These cruel perpetrators of hatred and vengeance are by all accounts good students, from a good school, in a good town–and almost all are girls!
This tragedy brought to mind three pertinent ideas from our work:
First, the notion that we shape the culture, the culture shapes the character. The perpetrators clearly “lack character.” But, more importantly their “bad character” is developed and reinforced by the culture that has been shaped. In this case the culture shaping forces are students, faculty and staff, parents, and the wider community. An acute focus on “bullying behaviors” misses the fact that the bullying behaviors are used to preserve cultural norms, in the way that gangs define and regulate membership. Reports indicate that the culture is so strong that even in the wake of the tragedy and all the media attention, those who wish to preserve the anti-social norms have intimidated those speaking out, and have even trashed online sites set up to memorialize the victim.
Second, the idea that in an Ethical Learning Community you must grapple with the difficult issues, or what we call “the elephants in the living room.” Once again we find out after the fact that people knew, but maintained the code of silence. We find out that the will to preserve some positive public perception prevented this community from grappling with a difficult issue in their midst. No community is perfect. No community evolves to a point of excellence and then simply maintains itself. It is a continuous process of self-reflection and growth, which requires honesty, humility, and courage. It can be painful to confront them; but the pain of ignoring them, as we see in this case, is almost always far greater.
Finally, sadly, there are no innocent bystanders. Either you’re part of the solution or you’re part of the problem. The importance of collective responsibility, a sense of needing to care for self and others is an essential element of an Ethical Learning Community. It is a simple idea, but it is extraordinarily counter cultural. All those members of the community who justified inactivity by the belief that “they weren’t personally doing the bullying” bear some responsibility in this tragedy–and it looks like that includes to some degree students, staff, administrators, and parents. It’s clear that the pressure to “mind your own business” was strong (and is strong, based on the continued efforts to intimidate those speaking out now). However, as we have learned in so many tragedies before, “the easiest way for bad things to happen is for good people to do nothing.” I’m sure that this will be a difficult life-long reality for many in this community.
