Stop the bullying? If only there was a program that works

REGINA — Perhaps, there is a school anti-bullying program somewhere that works. If so, Rod Dolmage would love to see the evidence.

The University of Regina education professor has been quoted in the past as saying school anti-bullying programs don't work. Not so, this veteran academic, actually says, "I can't find any evidence that they work."

That's an important distinction. Dolmage has heard anecdotal reports of one program that has parents bring babies into schools, with students permitted to hold them and thus develop empathy for other human beings. But anecdotal reports are a long way from well-researched evidence.

Heaven knows, there's no shortage of anti-bullying programs and policies. Since several high school students committed suicide as a result of bullying, Saskatchewan school boards have been required to have them. Offering programs are the Saskatchewan branches of the Canadian Mental Health Association and the Red Cross. A non-profit B.C. group calledStop A Bully is trying to enlist Canadian schools to join its program and has declared this "Anti-bullying Week."

As to why the plethora of anti-bullying programs haven't stopped bullying cold, Dolmage has a theory.

It's that regardless of how sincere they are, there's a gap between schools and the rest of the world.

That is, anti-bullying programs tell students to respect others, but students then go into a world where respect seems old-fashioned and violence is the way to resolve disputes. "My point has always has been that it's a broader thing; that we keep asking schools to solve society's problems."

He said that schools are microcosm of society, with some students better-adjusted than others, but with other students the victims of poor parenting or abuse, unemployment, poverty or absentee parents.

There are also outside influences over which schools have no control. Students go home and watch hockey, for example, and not only see fights but see people egging on the fighters. "And then, they go to school and they're told it's not acceptable to be using violence."

Kids want their world to make sense, but see these contradictions, he said.

Dolmage offers a long list of other things that schools are ordered to do: anti-drug education, sex education, even driver education. "We can't control that. But that's what society wants . . . it wants them to fix the kids — and schools simply can't do that.

"They don't have the time and the resources to do that."