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Vocabulary > Violence > Bullying > UK
The Guardian p. 17 7.3.2007
bullying
http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2012/mar/01/lady-gaga-oprah-winfrey
http://www.bornthiswayfoundation.org/
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/01/opinion/kristof-born-to-not-get-bullied.html
http://www.guardian.co.uk/child/story/0,7369,1461109,00.html
bully
bully
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2-1995732,00.html
cyberbullies
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/crime/article1550626.ece
act of bullying
http://www.guardian.co.uk/crime/article/0,,2028053,00.html
Born to Not Get Bullied
February 29, 2012
The New York Times
By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF
CAMBRIDGE, Mass.
When she was in high school, Lady Gaga says, she was thrown into a trash can.
The culprits were boys down the block, she told me in an interview on Wednesday
in which she spoke — a bit reluctantly — about the repeated cruelty of peers
during her teenage years.
“I was called really horrible, profane names very loudly in front of huge crowds
of people, and my schoolwork suffered at one point,” she said. “I didn’t want to
go to class. And I was a straight-A student, so there was a certain point in my
high school years where I just couldn’t even focus on class because I was so
embarrassed all the time. I was so ashamed of who I was.”
Searching for ways to ease the trauma of adolescence for other kids, Lady Gaga
came to Harvard University on Wednesday for the formal unveiling of her Born
This Way Foundation, meant to empower kids and nurture a more congenial
environment in and out of schools.
Lady Gaga is on to something important here. Experts from scholars to Education
Secretary Arne Duncan are calling for more focus on bullying not only because it
is linked to high rates of teen suicide, but also because it is an impediment to
education.
A recent study from the University of Virginia suggests that when a school has a
climate of bullying, it’s not just the targeted kids who suffer — the entire
school lags academically. A British scholar found that children who simply
witness bullying are more likely to skip school or abuse alcohol. American
studies have found that children who are bullied are much more likely to
contemplate suicide and to skip school.
The scars don’t go away, Lady Gaga says. “To this day,” she told me, “some of my
closest friends say, ‘Gaga, you know, everything’s great. You’re a singer; your
dreams have come true.’ But, still, when certain things are said to you over and
over again as you’re growing up, it stays with you and you wonder if they’re
true.”
Any self-doubt Lady Gaga harbors should have been erased by the huge throngs
that greeted her at Harvard. “This might be one of the best days of my life,”
she told the cheering crowd.
The event was an unusual partnership between Lady Gaga and Harvard University in
trying to address teen cruelty. Oprah Winfrey showed up as well, along with
Kathleen Sebelius, the secretary of health and human services.
Kathleen McCartney, dean of the Graduate School of Education here at Harvard,
said that she and her colleagues invited Lady Gaga because they had been
searching for ways to address bullying as a neglected area of education — and as
a human rights issue. As many as one-fifth of children feel bullied, she said,
adding: “If you don’t feel safe as a child, you can’t learn.”
Lady Gaga describes her foundation as her “new love affair,” and said that,
initially, she thought about focusing on a top-down crackdown on bullying. But,
over time, she said, she decided instead to use her followers to start a
bottom-up movement to try to make it cooler for young people to be nice.
I asked Lady Gaga if people won’t be cynical about an agenda so simple and
straightforward as kindling kindness. Exceptionally articulate, she seemed for
the first time at a loss for words. “That cynicism is exactly what we’re trying
to change,” she finally said.
Bullying isn’t, of course, just physical violence. Lady Gaga’s mother, Cynthia
Germanotta, who will serve as president of the Born This Way Foundation, says
that one of the most hurtful episodes in her daughter’s childhood came when
schoolmates organized a party and deliberately excluded Lady Gaga.
Lady Gaga was reluctant to talk too much about her own experiences as a teenager
for fear that her foundation would seem to be solely about bullying. Her aim is
a far broader movement to change the culture and create a more supportive and
tolerant environment. “It’s more of a hippie approach,” she explained.
“The Born This Way Foundation is not restitution or revenge for my experiences,”
Lady Gaga told me. “I want to make that clear. This is: I am now a woman, I have
a voice in the universe, and I want to do everything I can to become an expert
in social justice and hope I can make a difference and mobilize young people to
change the world.”
Yes, that sounds grandiose and utopian, but I’m reluctant to bet against one of
the world’s top pop stars and the person with the most Twitter followers in the
world. In any case, she’s indisputably right about one point: Bullying and
teenage cruelty are human rights abuses that need to be higher on our agenda.
Born to Not Get Bullied, NYT, 29.2.2012,
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/01/opinion/kristof-born-to-not-get-bullied.html
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