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When I was young, I was a target of horrible bullying. Then I stood up to my bully. After that, I found myself in a period of bullying behavior towards others, after which, I mellowed out and just found myself happy to not be noticed. Later, I worked in the schools and now deal with bullying often, not as a student, but as an administrator hoping to try to understand and prevent it. I’ve written at length about this in my answers to:What is it like being bullied in school?What does it feel like to be a bully?What are the long term effects of being a victim of bullying?I have a child who is saying other kids are starting to bully him/her. What should I do?That said, when asked to narrow why bullying happen in schools, I’d focus on viewing the act from the three perspectives that matter most in the act: the bully and what their motivations for what they do might be, why the victim is being targeted, and why those who are bystanders so rarely intervene. Nothing I am stating should be considered hard scientific research or any kind of theory, but my observations on the nature of bullying.I have a lot to say about bullying, so this is going to be a long post. If you don’t have time or the attention span for long posts about complex issues, I’ve provided the following link for you to watch cats falling in fish tanks: Enjoy.First, a definition, because “bullying” can mean many things to many people, so we are first just going to say that when I say the word “bully” I am referring to this.Bullying - the deliberate, premeditated, and continuous abuse of a specific individual or a specific group, over a prolonged period of time.You can agree with that definition or disagree with it, but know that throughout this write up, that is what I am talking about.The BullyNo talk on what causes bullying can begin with anything other than talking about bullies themselves. They are ultimately responsible for hurting others, but just assigning blame doesn’t help us understand what their motivations might be important for others to understand why they might act as they do.1) Competitiveness and the need to DominateWhen I think about all the bullies I have experienced, I can think of one defining characteristic that is always present - competitiveness. The bullies always have a touch of being competitive, or to be more clear, they see the world and all aspects of it as some sort of competition where they must always be the winner, or at least, where they must be higher up than someone else i.e. the losers.This isn’t to say that the act of competition is wrong. Some the greatest acts of human endeavour has happened only because people were competing for it. I’m just saying, that where bullying happens, competition is one of the main factors.An example I can provide comes from the school I work in. There was a girl. We’ll call her Ariel. Ariel is a competitor. She was on a state championship team, and pushes herself very hard. I’m not saying that athletics caused her to be cruel, and I am not faulting her hard work, but her desire to win at all costs is something worth noting. It demonstrates a need to dominate.When I first met Ariel, she was in the eighth grade, not long after I began working at the school. She was leading a pack of other girls, “the pretty clique,” in a bout of relentless taunting of a younger sixth grader. We’ll call him Billy. Billy is autistic. I can’t know if Ariel and the others girls knew this fact, but they knew he was different, and that he was most likely terrified of them. Given their treatment, I doubt they cared. It was the smart and subtle kind of hateful treatment. They repeatedly called his name loudly over the schoolyard. He tried to ignore them, but they continued obviously beyond the point that he made it clear he didn’t want to talk to them. It was taunting. I know that calling out, “Hey Billy!” sounds benign, but imagine you don’t know how to handle attention or how to act in a social setting, something many autistic kids struggle with. Then imagine that very problem is the reason attention is being directed to you, not just in private, but from a very loud group of popular girls in front of your entire school. I broke it up and sent them on their way. I remember clearly though her face, the girl I am calling hateful. It was truly hateful; delighting in causing pain in another person while knowing she was doing nothing that technically could bring her discomfort or repercussions.You see, that was the game. How can I dominate this individual without suffering anything in return? If I had to put my finger on it, it comes from a desire to beat others, as a means of gaining self-satisfaction and self-actualization. It isn’t to say that Ariel completely lacked compassion for others. I don’t honestly believe she was a psychopath, thought that may have been the case statistically speaking. I believe that people like her understand that people’s feelings matter, but the problem is that they just don’t matter as much as her own feelings. She must come out on top and no matter what, if she has to knock you down a few steps to do it, well… that’s ok. Yes, some people are just cruel like that.What’s more, recent research has shown that bullying like isn’t caused from low self-esteem or social awkwardness. In fact, the Ariel I knew was socially apt and knowledgeable of how to fit into a crowd. If she were to take a test to measure, she would likely rank herself very highly. That’s because Ariel is what some studies would call a “Pure Bully.” She doesn’t do what she does to make up for some deficiency in her self-esteem, but to seek to push her self-esteem even farther. One study showed that pure bullies don’t suffer from low self esteem, others showed that these types of bullies may even have greater self-esteem. More research showed that these bullies weren’t high strung or social oafs, but performed better than other kids in tasks of social cognition. Others debunked the myth that they perform poorly in school, as most outscored peers academically. For all these reasons, these pure bullies enjoyed a much higher social status than other types of bullies.What makes pure bullies different is a lack of empathy or trouble developing moral reasoning.One study found that bullies scored low on a test of empathic reactivity (Gini 2006b). Other studies (Obermann 2011; Perren et al 2012; Pozzoli et al 2012) report that bullies are more likely to• justify their behavior in terms of the consequences for themselves• rely on rationalizations that make anti-social behavior seem acceptable• endorse Machiavellian beliefs[1]Ariel fit this definition to perfectly. She was relatively smart, and had high-esteem, as well as enjoyed a powerful position among the rest of her class. She was aggressive, but never saw her actions as particularly wrong. In Ariel’s case, her bullying was finally brought under check when she finally went too far. She coerced a boy, one that had profound psychological issues already, to explain to everyone in the room how he would murder each of them… in detail… individually. The desire to instigate such a sick act I can only attribute to at least some form of sociopathic tendency to cause fear in others, a very clear form of domination. “Look at this crazy person. I control him. I want you to be afraid of him, so that you can be afraid of me.”That episode landed her in my classroom for two days (I work with discipline cases at our school, in case you were wondering.) Regrettably, the other student was not deemed safe to stay with our students, and was removed following the event. It, in my mind, was truly tragic, but I would like to think that Ariel learned through the devastation she left that her cruelty has massive repercussions in the lives of others. Ariel would have never thought of herself as a bully before this event occurred. To her, the behavior was natural, rational, and necessary for her to win at whatever game she was playing. Feelings didn’t matter. It took seeing the devastation for her to come to grips with it though. I haven’t heard of her getting in trouble since, something I hope continues in the in future.2) Parenting and Personal EthicsTo be clear, I think that Ariel came by her ways honestly. I know her mother. That’s the neat thing about growing up in a small town. Multigenerational studies on the social engineering and normative psychology is just called “life” here. That said, we’ll call her mother Cathy (if you haven’t noticed, we’ve changed all the names and are going in alphabetical order). Cathy was also hypercompetitive. I’ve seen this women dance around cheering, waiver her arms, and gloating for winning a raffle door prize, before announcing to the crowd of perplexed onlookers how much she loved winning.Cathy is also a bully. You can see it in her relationships. Small towns being what they are, that’s as far as I’ll go, but in meeting Ariel and then finding out who she was, I thought to myself something about apples falling near trees. That said, competition was never something, I believe, that was ever very far removed from Cathy’s household.As I said before, I am a fan of competition in that general sense. It is a way to encourage us to achieve higher standards in personal performance. That said, the other person isn’t bad for winning. This is where sportsmanship needs to be taught. While parents can teach competitiveness, they are also responsible for conveying the emotional importances of empathy and responsibility. In this, Cathy failed Ariel. Ariel lacks compassion.I say this because several times when Ariel has been caught, Cathy has intervened, protecting her from consequences she was due. Ariel was allowed to drive the family car when she was just fourteen, (nearly hit my wife and I coming out of a the local Sonic because the girl exited the entrance) she has repeatedly been pulled from disciplines she is due, and has little to no respect for the teachers who are placed over here. Cathy has raised Ariel to believe that she is above the law, and to have no respect for others, or for authority. Whether she had that as an intention or just a result of bad parenting, I can’t know, but I can know is that there are many, many lessons that children need to learn from their parents and if the parent is absent, or negligent in this regard, or in Cathy’s case, the bad example, the child is sure to come to their own personal ethics on the matter themselves. That is a situation which is usually only good for them and no one else.Parents must establish a baseline of ethical behavior and how children should view the world, as well as where they place themselves within it. They can not allow a view that allows the child to believe that they are so central to the universe that others are inherently inferior or to be looked upon with content. Parents must do more than recite obligatory rhetoric about “being good” and other vague and nebulous statements, but must model and oversee what “good” behavior is supposed to look like, guide and lecture when teachable moments arise, and discipline if the child fails to meet expectations, particularly when they do so in a way that hurts others. A failure to do this will direct the child towards a self-destructive path, which will damage their relationships to others through a parent’s own failures to be strong enough to establish ethics for their family or to abide by them themselves.3) Being VictimizedI have often said that bullies are created by other bullies bullying them. “Hurt people hurt people” is a saying I will often use when lecturing children on the effects of bullying. The truth is, this isn’t always the case. Many bullies are created out of thin air and with no impetus whatsoever. They are the immaculate conception of hate - the spawn of Satan, if you will. These I attribute to the other two sources; poor sportsmanship and bad parenting. The other major contributor, as I said before, would be past victimization.As I said in What does it feel like to be a bully? my bullying I directly contribute to being victimized in the years before. I had all the old symptoms. My mom had cancer, I was poor, and I had no friends. That alone, however, a bully doth not make. I really jumped over the edge when I faced my bully, and when it turned out well. It felt good to not feel so weak, so much so that I attempted to always protect myself from future hurt by hurting others in a way that reinforced my social standing.I was large and strong, but incapable of understanding how to be truly cruel. I never knew how hurt someone with words, or perhaps knowing how that felt, I couldn’t bare to be “mean” to them like that, but I would act out physically. Sometimes I would hurt physically as punishment for others hurting me emotionally. It never came to exchanges of blows, but I did like to inflict pain in one manner or another, neck pinches on pressure points were my favorite as they allowed so much control of the victim.I was projecting force in a way to dominate others. It was a form of competition, to be sure, but less so was it the intent to be first, but trying desperately not to be last.An except from What does it feel like to be a bully?It felt good in the moment, like you are in control of a situation you don't really know how to handle, but then you are just left feeling ashamed and alone.I also wrote the answer to Jon Davis's answer to What is it like being bullied in school?. There is an important connection here. Being bullied, makes bullies. I am not a perfect person and wasn't completely a victim in the matter. What I am not proud of is how the experience changed me for a while. When people were mean to me after the beginning of that story and before the big climax, the only way I knew how to handle it was mild amounts of violence. I was picked on and made fun of horribly, but to turn that around when the other people around me would say or do something I didn't like I would just do things that would hurt them a little. I thought this is what people do. They hurt each other. I mean I never hurt anyone. I was the good kid who was nice to everyone and look where that got me. I felt like it was taking back control of a situation that was causing me pain and a bit of revenge was acceptable, and a bit gratifying. I was suffering. Why was it wrong to share that? I don't really think it was right though that since I felt attacked I had to dish it back physically, but I did. I was young.I was lucky. By high school, I mellowed out, got a girlfriend, and wasn’t a bully anymore. It is sad, though. I know during that time I damaged a lot of relationships. I don’t feel close to many people from back during that time and that is regrettable. I know that many others aren’t as lucky though. They act out for life, punishing everyone in their life and never able to achieve the types of quality love that people who aren’t chronic bullies, like me now, are able to.Victim-bullies are quite the opposite of the pure bullies mentioned previously. Victim-bullies do have low esteem, and much of their actions are attempts to rebuild. Often, they have problems fitting in and fail many of the social aptitude tests that are part of growing up. It may be common to find one that isn’t particularly bright, or particularly good looking, or particularly anything that is required of them to “fit-in” with other students. They stand out, which was part of why they were bullied in the first place. They then take that example and take it as how the world works, reflecting it back at others as they received it first.That said, victims can sometimes be the worst villains. Those who become victims and then become bullies from that, however, don’t always have it so easy as people like Ariel. Ariel reached a horrific point, but then was made aware of the ramifications of her actions. I believe she learned a lesson. Victim-bullies may find themselves in a cycle of self-pity and justification that feeds their behavior. “I lash out because I was hurt.” or “I have to hurt them before they hurt me first.” In a way, the victimhood becomes a crutch to justify their future behavior regardless of the damage it causes in others.The excuses remind me of my alcoholic father and other alcoholics and druggies. They make excuses that they need whatever their fix is to escape whatever it is that they are suffering. We, the onlookers, allow this behavior because we feel sorry for them, which ultimately what they want, because that justifies the behavior and allows it to continue. We’ve heard of war veterans who turn to the pills to escape the horrors, artists and writers who say they need drugs to be creative, or just those who had a hard life and need something to numb the pain. Of course, we’ve also seen housewives and gardeners turn to the drink “to escape the horrors and hardships of their lives.” As I said, these are just excuses that druggies and alcoholics make up to justify their behavior. They want to drink. It makes them feel good. That’s because they are addicted to alcohol, not because of some horror from their past.Bullies are the same way. They want to feel good and hurting others makes them feel that way. For those who were once victims, this is far easier to make up excuses. They have many reasons why they do what they do. In reality, though, it doesn’t matter why. They just need to realize, or be told, that their hurting is wrong. Sadly, I feel, it is much harder for them to grasp this than it would be for the Ariels of the world. In their mind, no matter how much pain they cause to others, they are still seeking to gain some sense of justice over the hurt they have suffered. However, upon falling into the pit of narcissism that accompanies self-pity, many can’t see the value of harm they do to others. Being unempathetic and self-centered will never allow them to achieve a sense of justice, no matter how much pain they cause, even years after when they have hurt so many more so much deeply than any pain they previously suffered. Quite simply, these kids can be the worst because unless they are taught that rashing out because you’re angry isn’t an excuse for rashing out, they will continue on being a bully long into their adulthood.4) Mob MentalityChanging gears from the individual bully to a more broad look on deviant behavior, why do fans set cars on fire after they lose, or even win a ballgame? I’ve never understood this. After the game I am much more interested in getting a burger. Of course it isn’t the only place in the world we see this, as I might also ask why does a protest about a video on the internet suddenly become a mob changing an American Embassy? And getting back to our focus, why does one mean girl, suddenly turn into six?I’m reminded again of the first time I met Ariel. The time she was taunting the boy, she wasn’t alone. Alongside her were five more girls, all pretty, very well dressed, and at this moment, very, very nasty. Since then, I’ve grown to know many of these girls. Individually, they are all very sweet, and some very bright. What they didn’t know, was that I had to override that image of them echoing Ariel’s taunts like a possessed pack of rabid banshees that they were. When I would speak to one, in the back of my mind, I would be forced to ask, how on Earth can this be the same girl? As I write, however, I am starting to wonder if it wasn’t the same girl.According to research being done on the science of mob behavior, when people behave in a group, those parts of themselves which we consider most central to our core, our very ideas of right and wrong, much to our dismay, becomes terrifying relative."Although humans exhibit strong preferences for equity and moral prohibitions against harm in many contexts, people's priorities change when there is an 'us' and a 'them,'"Rebecca Saxe, Associate Professor of Cognitive Neuroscience at MITRebecca Saxe co-authored a paper which appeared recently in the journal Neuroimage as part of a group headed by Mina Cikara, a sociologist at Carnegie Mellon University."A group of people will often engage in actions that are contrary to the private moral standards of each individual in that group, sweeping otherwise decent individuals into 'mobs' that commit looting, vandalism, even physical brutality."[2]Why this occurs comes down to several things that happen in the mind when we take part in a group. The first is that being part of a group can lead to heightened emotional states, such as mania, rage, bliss, terror, etc. We all feel very different when we are surrounded by others, be they friends or others. Think back to being an adolescent in the classroom. We experience the sensation of tackling many different social problems at the same time, “Do I answer the question and earn pride? What if I answer wrong and I look stupid? If I answer do I look like a suck-up or a nerd? Will that girl notice me if pass her note? Should I risk getting in trouble and being shamed if I do?” Think about the child asking these questions and realize that they are simultaneously trying to juggle their actions according to the judgments of twenty other people in the room, some they like, some they dislike, some with power, and some who they are on some level afraid of. As a teacher, it drives me nuts when kids are too afraid to answer a question I know they know. As a teacher, I get it. Their emotions are in a sort of overdrive trying to decide what to do. This is all what is boiling down just beneath the surface of a nice, easy, boring hour in the classroom. Imagine what it is like when they are off to their own devices on the playground.The next element of the mob is the diffusion of responsibility. Diffusion of responsibility is when actions committed by a member of a group are less the responsibility of that individual, but of the group itself. This may mean that when individuals act badly in a group, at the time they rationalize that any terrible action they do as an individual is spread throughout the group. For children whose only real motivations are external (i.e rewards or punishment) this can greatly increasing the threshold for what is acceptable behavior. In sufficiently large enough groups people can even feel sufficiently anonymous to the point that they have completely abandoned most of their individual sense of responsibility and accountability. When the six girls were bullying the one boy, Ariel, who was the the ringleader, may defend herself by saying, “Why am I being punished so harshly? The other girls were doing it too!” To Ariel, this was a rational defense based on her feelings at the time. She wasn’t responsible… the group was.After we consider the heightened emotional state, and the recklessness that can accompany it, the next thing to realize is the phenomenon of deindividuation. Deindividuation is when people who are part of a group experience a loss of self-awareness. Their identity, the way they view themselves and their own sense of morality, fades to become closer to what they perceive as being the group’s ethical standard. Mind you, the group normally doesn’t have an ethical standard. The default standard is usually built off some ideal image of whatever brings them together. A football team will be made of members who are trying to emulate in themselves an ideal football player. Cheerleaders are trying to create an ideal cheerleader, and act like what they imagine that girl to be. Rather than make their own decisions as they normally would as if they were alone, within the context they act as they believe that ideal would act, or as often is the case, they defer to the individual within the group who best personifies the group’s ideal. In the worst case scenario, the group ethics default to a minimum that any of them would do publically in effect, setting a new low for what is acceptable behavior.In this way, groups change what we view as acceptable. When one child sees another make a certain choice, if he or she doesn’t have a firm moral and ethical foundation, they are apt to repeat it. In this way, behaviors that are usually seen as unacceptable suddenly become so when others in the group are doing it. In the case of a gang, the ideal is someone who uses aggression and fear to get what they want, so a group of boys who might find joy playing video games, singing, or carving miniature horses from pieces of driftwood, when put together become a lethal cadre of violence when what makes them individuals fades away into the group ethic.The following video shows what, to me, can only be an act of insanity brought on by mob mentality. Watch at your own discretion, but if you’d rather not, know that it shows a group of young men, perhaps boys, ruthless beating another similarly aged male with a brutality I have to assume they couldn’t have achieved on their own. In it, we see each attempting to one up the next with ever more devastating blows as they attempt to each surpass the last in how hard they kick or stomp. One boy, even after the victim had fallen unconscious raised his still limp head and punched the victim in the face.I feel the event is a radical display of mob mentality in action as I believe it would be nearly impossible to create the environment where any of these kids would have committed what could easily be considered second degree murder, if they were alone instead of as a group. In the presence of the group, the boys lost control of their emotions, their individual morality deteriorated to that which was acceptable to the group, and where any one of them may have weighed the consequences of their actions, together that responsibility was deferred to the group. The fact that they did this in full knowledge of bystanders capable to serve as witnesses and even video suggests to me that the impulsivity was so strong that either they had each completely lost touch with reality and the consequences of their actions, or that they completely given themselves over to the anonymous Group’s, (with a big “g”) desire to sow fear in others.What this tells us about common school yard bullying is that groups of kids can quickly become groups of bullies if one is among them who sets the tone. It isn’t that being in a group causes a bully to arise, but can make the problem of bullying compound when bullying is allowed within a culture.The VictimsMy life taught me that the victim has a role to play in their own victimization. Those who would refer to this mentality as “victim blaming” simply don’t understand that speaking in terms of philosophy doesn’t solve anything, at least if you are the target of bullying. “You can’t blame the victim. You have to teach bullies not to bully” misses the point and shows a profound ignorance of the motives of bullies. You can tell a bully not to bully and most will never learn the lesson. Bullies are selfish by nature. They may already know that what they are doing is wrong, but if it doesn’t hurt them, they aren’t going to stop just because we told them hurting others is wrong. They’re bullies. They want to hurt others. That said, victims need to start proactively defending themselves if they actually wish to avoid their own future suffering, rather than stand on the moral high ground before they dangle from a homemade noose. The next section hopes to focus on victims, why they are victimized specifically, and what they can do to avoid the abuse.On Not Fitting In - The Social DisfunctionalsBullies seek to gain the highest points in their own self-created hierarchies by dominating others into positions that is subservient to themselves. The easiest way to do this is to find someone naturally at a disadvantage and force them into a position of absolute weakness, first to establish their own dominance, and second to send a message to all those around them of their willingness to do harm to others.The victim, in this case, is someone who has stood out from some societal norm they have not observed that was obvious to others, but something they are unaware of. As with kids with autism, sometimes it is very hard to be aware of the many intricate rules of social behavior expected of you, but as the rest of us can remember, it isn’t easy for anyone. Being poor or ugly can get you a ticket to loserdom, as can being too far on either end of an spectrum, i.e. people get made fun of for being too smart or too stupid, too tall or too short, too fat or too thin. Racism and classism can also contribute, flowing not only top to bottom, but in all directions. I even recently answered a question from a kid who was picked on at school because of his name. Often, there is simply nothing that a kid can do to not stick out. Being a kid sucks.Perhaps the best example I have seen on the subject of social dysfunction leading to taunting and harassment comes from Stephen King. The author of the book Carrie describes in his book On Writing a girl he grew up with in high school who served as part of his inspiration for his fictitious teenager who was bullied to the point of horrifying madness.“Dodie and her brother Bill wore the same stuff every day for the first year and half of High School; black pants and short sleeve checked sports shirt for him, a long black skirt, grey knee socks, and a sleeveless white blouse for her. Some of my readers may not believe I am being literal when I say “every day” but those who grew up in country towns during the 50’s and 60’s know that I am. In the Durham of my childhood, life wore little or any make up. I went to school with kids who wore the same neck dirt for months. Kids whose skin festered with sores and rashes. Kids with the eerie dried apple doll faces that results from untreated burns. Kids who were sent to school with stones in their dinner buckets and nothing but air in their thermoses. It wasn’t Arcadia. For the most part, it was Dogpatch with no sense of humor.Dodie and Bill Franklin got on alright at Durham Elementary, but High School meant a much bigger town, and for children like Dodie and Bill, Lisbon Falls meant ridicule and ruin. We watched in amusement and horror as Bill’s sports shirt faded and began to unravel from the short sleeves up. He replaced a missing button with a paperclip. Tape, carefully colored black with a crayon to match his pants, appeared over a rip behind one knee. Dodie’s sleeveless white blouse began to grow yellow with wear, age, and accumulated sweat stains. As it grew thinner, the straps of her bra showed through more and more clearly. The other girls made fun of her; at first behind her back and then to her face. Teasing became taunting. The boys weren’t a part of it. We had Bill to take care of. Yes, I helped. Not a whole lot, but… I was there.Dodie had it worse, I think. The girls didn’t just laugh at Dodie. They hated her, too. Dodie was everything they were afraid of.After Christmas vacation of our sophomore year, Dodie came back to school resplendent. The dowdy old black skirt had been replaced by a cranberry colored one that stopped at her knees, instead of halfway down her shins. The tatty knee socks had been replaced by nylon stockings which looked pretty good because she had finally shaved the luxurian mat of black hair off her legs. The ancient sleeveless blouse had given way to a soft wool sweater. She’d even had a permanent.Dodie was a girl transformed and you could see by her face that she knew it. I had no idea if she’d saved for those new clothes, if they were given to her for Christmas by her parents, or if she went through a hell of begging that finally bore dividends.It doesn’t matter because mere clothes change nothing. The teasing that day was worse than ever. Her peers had no intention of letting her out of the box they’d put her in. She was punished for even trying to break free.I had several classes with her and was able to observe Dodie’s ruination at first hand. I saw her smile fade, saw the light in her eyes first dim, and then go out. By the end of the day she was the girl she’d been before Christmas vacation - a doe faced, freckle cheeked wraith, scurrying through the halls with her eyes down and her books clasped to her chest. She wore the new skirt and sweater the next day, and the next day, and the next. When the school year ended, she was still wearing them although by then the weather was much too hot for wool and there were always beads of sweat at her temples and on her upper lip. The home permanent wasn’t repeated and the new clothes took on a matted, dispirited look, but the teasing had dropped back to its pre-Christmas levels and the taunting stopped entirely.Someone made a break for the fense and had to be knocked back down. That was all. Once the escape was foiled and the entire company of prisoners was accounted for, life could go back to normal.… Dodie was dead by the time I started writing Carrie.Dodie committed suicide, for those who are curious. Her example demonstrates in far better words than I could tell, how a person who stands out in the wrong ways can face unrelenting social ostracism, even after they’ve corrected the behavior. The fact is first impressions matter as they help to define a social order that is reaffirming. In the case of Dodie, even after she got nicer clothes, she was punished for trying to break the social order.What could Dodie have done to escape the abuse? Very little, in all honesty. She was born very poor and her parents, explained earlier in the book, were dysfunctionally eccentric. They didn’t teach her how to adjust well to society and social norms. She wasn’t especially brilliant or unique, and showed no discernable great talent that could help her shine against the others or break away from the life of Durham. So she was weird and there was little that was going to fix that in the real world. Even after she fixed the outward appearance (the image of poverty which she thought was the reason for her being an outsider) she was still cut off at the knees. Those of my generation, raised in the 1990’s may remember the movie “She’s All That”. I’d like to ask those who have seen both movies, which one had the more realistic ending? Which story seems more like life, the story where the obviously gorgeous Rachael Leigh Cook suddenly wearing contacts and sticking on a dress becomes loved and accepted by the popular clique and the rest of her school overnight, or the story of Dodie Franklin being devastated that her new clothes were not enough to bring her new friends. Let’s explore.Oliver Emberton wrote a brilliant piece a few years back, Why is neediness such a repulsive characteristic? In that answer, Oliver recreated a brilliant social experiment that attempted to demonstrate why people of similar social status always gravitated to one another, be that popular people finding and grouping together, or unpopular people doing the same. The first time I saw this experiment demonstrated was on a documentary about the nature of sex appeal, but the premise works in this case as well. Go ahead and watch this two minute video to get the idea he was working off of.That idea, clearly stated, explained everything about growing up for me, and probably you too. What Oliver did was that he expanded on the idea and made it relevant for everything beyond pairing up, like with dating.Consider your popular kids.If the Game of Thrones series were called the Song of Zits and Kisses, you see that child behavior, wherein each competes for prestige among all others works the same way as in the video. The only way that it is different is that it isn’t stratified along a one for one dichotomy of boys and girls. In the world of popularity, groups attempt to form where they achieve the most attention from the subjective best group of people.People will lower their expectations when rebuffed, and raise them when surrounded. If every single person you meet wants to pair with you, you'll probably never settle for less than a ten.My first observation would be that if everyone were to attempt to create as single group, they would try to maximize the attention they gained from everyone else. Right? Love, love, love everywhere. That runs into a problem, though. People only have a certain bandwidth for close relationships. Some very social types can have many acquaintances, but even they can only handle the stress of a few close friends. For children, this creates cliques, or those tight groups of friends.Because of the social bandwidth issue, the challenge isn’t to bring in the largest number of friends into the circle. That would be unmanageable. Instead, the challenge is create the highest average value for the circle you are in where everyone’s needs are fulfilled. For that reason, cliques, especially very aggressive cliques, will seek to recruit those kids with high social standing, and to expel those with lower standing. Remember that rumor about you sophmore year? It could be that that was someone attempting to get you knocked out of the in group, either to get in themselves or to see you ostracized.Oliver continues to explain exactly why it sucks to be on the low end of the ladder of social worth.…if someone is desperate to be with you, chances are they think you're better than they are. They may be utterly wrong, but that's what they're conveying.Conversely, if someone is aloof with their affections, they probably think they can do better. They may also be wrong, but in both cases we're wired to interpret this as feedback on our own attractiveness. You're trying to guess the number on your head, and their feedback is all you have.You can't help being influenced by this, and it's one reason why 'playing it cool' is such an attractive trait, even if it's such an easily contrived one. Being needy essentially says "you're so much better than me, please pick me". Not a great sales pitch.Neediness is repulsive because we've evolved to recognise it as a bad signal. It's like a fear of spiders or scorpions: a primal instinct which protects our best interests, even if we don't understand why.Now, consider that kid who wants really bad to be in the inner circle. They’ll do anything to get in. They will change themselves. Change the clothes they wear. Change the things they like. Change the way they look. They’ll start going by “Anthony”, their middle name, rather than “Cole”, their first name, or even “Elli” rather than Gabrielle. They’ll even change their friends to stand out to the popular groups of kids. These are kids who desperately want to improve their social standing because they need to be recognized as having value by others, even to the point that they abandon everything about who they are in the process. The greater the value of the groups she can be associated with, the greater her perceived value to others, and by extension, the greater her own sense of self-worth. I’m not saying your friend wasn’t a giant B for ditching you for the hott girls at the movies, but at least now you recognize how to do that, she either very sad about herself (victim-bully), or was just a terrible person (pure bully).That said, a person who is willing to do all that to achieve social standing has conveyed a message already to everyone around.“You’re better than me. I want you to like me.”It’s needy and it’s desperate. As Oliver stated already, neediness is repulsive because, for those popular girls to admit the new entry, the one who has already admitted through her own actions that she is inferior, they actually have to decrease their own average ranking to do so, and thereby damaging their own social standing. Eww! Gross. I’m pretty sure that King had the answer right when he talked about the girl who inspired Carrie.The girls didn’t just laugh at Dodie. They hated her, too. Dodie was everything they were afraid of.She attempted to transform herself overnight. She was poor, but was able to get hold of beautiful and stylish new clothes and a new look. How did the mean girls react? Did they graciously accept Dodie Franklin into their fold? No, they were horrible to her. Dodie didn’t possess the many other qualities of the “10 crowd” that made them want to be around her. Under the facade, she was still just the timid, isolated, and vulnerable girl she was before. But now here she was dressing nice and wanting attention as if she deserved it. She was pretending to be a 10. If people like her could be popular just by changing their outfits, it completely devalued the system on which their sense of self-worth was built. That was unforgivable.More so than this, it made clear her intentions. She did want to infiltrate the popular crowd and she thought she could do it. That desire was her weakness and was what the popular girls used to destroy her, solidifying their value and the definition of what it meant to be a 10, as well as establishing that a 1, was always a 1, and must never be anything but a 1, if a 10 is to mean anything.The social outcast represents something that bullies are terrified of, someone who is not welcome and does not fit into their defined system for success. For that weirdo to be successful is to throw the bully’s entire universe into question, or more dangerously, to unsettle the established order they have built to hold power. A bully will target them to reestablish their place of dominance, and to make certain that their ideals and values are dominant. For that reason, those who stand out must be targeted, they must be punished, and they must be made an example of. This is how a bully keeps control.So what is the practical advice for victims? There are several.First, a victim has to be socially conscious of the norms around them. The common narrative is that you should “just be you”, “be free”, and “don’t let anyone judge you,” but often this is said by incredibly lucky teenagers on TV who are unnaturally and unattainably beautiful, thanks to ridiculous genetics and a team of make-up artists and personal trainers, while wearing designer labels given to them for free in spite of having more money before they were 18 than the rest of us will see in our lifetimes. It’s a bit hypocritical on its best day. For kids in school, or really anyone, you have to be on the lookout to know what the values of others around you are and be able to adapt to them. Unless you want to be a martyr for all of society’s ills, it’s important to know when to pick your battles and when to adapt. This isn’t asking kids to define themselves based on the flippant whims of bullies, but to be aware of the environment they are in. It’s knowing the difference between formal, casual, and party dressed events. It’s knowing that a girl who is crying is probably not in the mood for you to ask her out. It’s knowing that you don’t wear stripes with polka dots, and that bathing or not is never a matter of self-expression. Bathing, like so many other social conventions, is an obligation. This discernment is necessary at every stage of their lives and it is time we stop criminalizing the process of common sense.While I agree that individuality is important, being the victim of bullying has lasting psychological consequences too. Parents and adults need to understand the value of their child’s individuality and reasonably weigh if those clothes or that hair is something that will help them actually express themselves, or just stand out in a manner that will embarrass them later.(BTW, you can express yourself much better with words, such as through creative writing, than you can with a completely subjective choice of clothes. With words you can control exactly what another person thinks, and control what they think of you. With clothes, no one agrees what they means, so while you or your child thinks they are communicating that they are cool and edgy, the rest of the world just thinks they are douchebags and that their parents don’t have enough courage or common sense to teach them class. So rather than give them a credit card at Hot Topic, why not encourage creative writing for self-expression, because Stephen King doesn’t need to wear douchy pants around his ankles or sport a “faux hawk” to express his thoughts.)Most people would consider this entire section to be a long way of saying, “You will never be better than you are right now, don’t even try.” But it isn’t. It’s just acknowledging some hard truths that wise kids will learn from. There are many ways to improve your social standing, but most of them won’t leave you feeling satisfied. Some are ruthless and if you knew ahead of time what you had to do to become popular now, you might not want to make that shift. If I could say one thing, it would be never to let yourself get desperate for someone’s affection who doesn’t want it. That is what makes bullies so powerful.Instead, just work to make yourself a better person by correcting the things about yourself you don’t like, because that’s the smart thing to do. You don’t like the way you look? Do something about it. You don’t think you’re smart enough? Read books about topics that matter. You think you are fat? Work out and eat better. You have loser friends? Invest into helping them reach their goals (Side note, losers have friends with no goals. If your friends have no goals for their own lives, run away fast.) If you can steadily improve yourself, and your friends are steadily improving themselves and all of you are helping each other improve one another, then you’ve done some pretty impressive things.Magically, silently, and amazingly, you and your whole friend group improved their ranking in that terrible, terrible place we call life. Each of you is more valuable at your school and your community and all of you are more desired by others. Why? Because you all put work into improving yourselves and it paid off. What’s more? While you might not be the new 10 crowd, you redefined the direction of what a 10 should be. You broke off from the mold and said that the direction you’re going can also lead to a 10. What’s this going to do to the 10’s. Oh, it’s going to piss them off so bad because now it means less to even be a 10, and they are going to make your life hell for it. You’re not desperate for their love, attention, or approval. Why? Because you are surrounded by people you define as being cool. And that is what they were afraid of in the first place. You being desperate made the bullies powerful. When you’re not, you cut them off at the knees.Besides that, once you learn how to improve others by helping them set and reach their own goals, as well as how to improve the standing and influence of your whole group, you’ve gained a skill that makes you a 10 in every single clique in the adult world - Leadership. I’m serious, that is the exact definition of leadership. It isn’t “being cool” or “being well liked” and then bossing people around. Making people believe they can be better, making them want to be better, and then making that happen for them is the definition of leadership. Once you have leadership, you’ll be one of the most desired people not just at school, but the world.From this point I’m going to attempt to isolate a few specific cases that I think really exemplify certain behaviors that invite bullying. These victim “types” are by no means universal and in many ways, can overlap with one another, or not at all represent why a person is being bullied in the first place. That said, these are certain victim archetypes that I feel, if we learn to understand and recognize, can greatly lead to our understanding of bullying and why it happens and how to prevent it from happening to ourselves or others.1) The ClownA subset of social dysfunctionals are the clowns. Clowns are those people who are fully aware that what they are doing is not in line with what is considered normal, but they do it for the perceived social capital they get from the attention. These are the kids who act stupid when others are laughing at them, do whatever the bully tells them to, and act a fool for any form of attention they can get. They attempt to escape the loneliness of the teenage years by cashing in their dignity and self-respect.My wife and I knew a kid at the school where we grew up. We’ll call this one Doug. Actually we are going to call him “Lala”. Lala earned his nickname because an older kid saw him every day just staring off “into Lala land.” It stuck. Lala was his identity until he changed schools.Lala was unique among the Freshmen class. It didn’t take long for him to be the focus of every ridiculing moment. He stood in stark contrast to every ideal that a student might have for themselves. He read a lot, but wasn’t the brightest, perhaps of average intellect, but absolutely no social intelligence, and he was also very overweight. If the world acted as it does in books, maybe he… no, he really had no clue as to how to negotiate the social framework of High School. Up to this point, he would have just fit into the social dysfunctional category and suffered all the indignities associated with that. Lala, however, took it much further.Lala, I assume, needed the attention. Perhaps he took the lesson many young people get that, “You have to kill them with kindness,” or “They can either be laughing at you, or laughing with you,” to a point beyond reason. When he started noticing people laughing at him, he turned it around, focused on the source of that the ridicule and then amplified it. If he was too fat, he would dance around giggling his everything. If he was too stupid, he would say something completely nonsensical in hopes to confuse everyone. I remember that he would, time and time again, do a trick where he would take a pencil, place it eraser side down into his belly button, then suck in his gut to where the fat would fold in around the pencil. Then he would quickly forcibly relax his belly, propelling the pencil out and across the room. Oh, how the people would laugh. It was obvious to everyone that they weren’t laughing with him, though. Even Lala, I bet. They were very clearly laughing at him. You knew that Lala had to be aware of this too, but he kept trying to make the others happy.People like Lala take on the role of fool with the hopes of making everyone love them. They attempt to make the mean kids laugh so much that they like him legitimately. What they don’t understand is that these people only love them in the way that you love a good joke - not a great joke, but a good one. You hear it a few times. It makes you laugh, but then you get bored with it. With a joke, there is nothing wrong with getting bored. With a human, though…Secondly, the people who were most apt to laugh at Lala were the types who one would least likely ever love him. In fact, they were the least likely to ever love anyone. These people were the cruel people who lacked the ability to empathize with how much he didn’t want to be the butt of every joke. They were the people who egged him on to greater and greater feats of humiliation. They were the bullies. Nothing he would ever do, certainly not providing them joy through his own disgraces, would ever make them love him. As bullies, they are the types to use him being complicit that he was going along with what they demand to rationalize and excuse their own cruelty away.If I were to experience a kid with this problem, I would give him this advice.People who take pleasure in your acts of humility to them are not your friends. Furthermore, you don’t want them as friends. Friends don’t want their friends to feel ashamed. Friends want to be around cool people who make them feel cooler by being around you. If you are the center of every person’s mockery, is there anyone who feels like they are cooler by being your friend? No. Nobody wants to be friends with that sort of person because it makes them afraid of being made fun of too. So the people who you are trying to make your friends, are really just nasty people who want to take advantage of you, and the people who really should be your friends avoid you too, not because they are mean, but because they are too nice to be mean to you, but also too afraid of absorbing the mockery you bring to yourself.What you should do is to use the sense you have for what makes people laugh and stop performing for those nasty people. They are going to be angry with you, and they will make it worse for you in the short term, but eventually, they will grow bored with attacking someone who doesn’t react to them. Then, after you have laid low for a bit, you can start building relationships with good people. Take your ability to make people laugh and use that, but don’t do it in a way that accentuates all the things about you that are embarrassing. No one should be forced to shoot pencils out of their gut to get friends, but there is nothing wrong with telling a friend a joke that in no way humiliates you and makes them happy too. There are some people who have gained an awful lot of friends by doing that.Those mean people will come around from time to time to harass you and make you feel stupid around your new friends because they want you to know their place. They think they should own you and are angry that you would abandon their attention for someone else. Remember, their whole way of viewing themselves depend on you wanting them. That’s what happens when we make relationships with terrible people. So, take the punches or fight back, but never give in to their demands. You can’t let people own you, especially people who are too terrible to actually appreciate the happiness you can give them or who will ever care for you.2) The PrickThe prick is the person who, for whatever reason, invites harassment because they have become such an aggressive and distasteful person, that others just love to hate them. If I had to guess, I fit into this category as a kid.I was smart as a kid… like, really smart. I wasn’t ridiculous genius smart, but a very high performing combination of better than average genes, better than average parenting, and just enough hardship to give a kid focus, but not so much to make them fall asleep reading in class. It was obvious to the other kids too. I always got the highest grades and never had to try in Elementary or Middle School. I was 99th percentile in every national placement test and was tested gifted in every opportunity the school could test me. I was just smarter than the other kids and they knew it.Of course, no one liked that fact, though. Intelligence is a form of unforgivable inequity that isn’t tolerated in schools, at least by the kids. In retrospect, there isn’t really a clear reason why. I mean, none of us are born equal. While that may be true in some metaphysical and theological senses, in Middle School and other political realms, it is a ridiculous falsehood. There are some kids who are athletic, some are rolly pollies; some kids are rich, and some are dirt poor; and some kids who are just naturally beautiful, where others spend hours attempting to remove the unibrow from their acne scars. A writer I enjoy, Ben Shapiro, often says, “I loved basketball, but the world isn’t wrong because there is simply no place for a 5′8” jewish kid on the varsity basketball team.” I’ll add to that in that at the school I work at now, there is a sixth grader who looks like a 17 year old professional model. If you look at her and then pull out my sixth grade yearbook in hopes of saying to me that all people were created equal, I would have told you to take your nonsense and shove it in my neckrolls.Life just isn’t fair and that’s that. It isn’t even fair the blessings we get. We aren’t all good at one special thing. Some kids, especially the hard working ones, are awesome at many things. Some are even born wealthy, athletic, smart, good looking, and able to work really, really hard; genetic lottery kids. Then there are those others, those dreadful, dreadfully unlucky others. The point is, we aren’t all born equal. I was born with a good brain. I’ve always been thankful of that, but few others appreciated it.The thing about inequality, especially unearned inequality, is that it breeds resentment in those who aren’t blessed in each of the ways you are. It doesn’t matter if that kid is athletic, rich, and Zoolander good looking. People want more. When that person sees that you have something that he simply can’t have, can’t get up earlier to primp in the morning, can’t work out more, can’t really do anything about, they get jealous. Perhaps the rationalization for smart kids is that they have been told all their lives, in front of everyone, that they will have an awesome life… so it didn’t matter that we were butt ugly, unathletic, and social misfits. Assumed potential greatness is something everyone can agree would hurt if you missed out on it. It doesn’t mean I did anything wrong, though. I can just understand why someone would have been jealous of that particular quality more.But, jealousy leads to some very negative things. Jealous people often become contemptuous. Those who feel contempt for another person are dangerous. They have, in their own mind, rationalized that you are something inferior or someone who deserves to be hated. It doesn’t have to be rational, but they have rationalized it. Perhaps they feel that you don’t deserve this right, or this privilege, or this status because you haven’t done something they have. Once thinking like that happens, you’re not in a safe place. From that point, they really don’t suffer so much when they are mean to you. That is dehumanization, and it has been the justification for everything from bullying to genocide.It works the other way around, too. I’m not saying smart kids are never jealous enough to be hurtful, but often we do suffer a certain handicap to cruelty. Having a better brain often makes you very sensitive, and not just the type of sensitive where you can’t stop crying about every one of the social ills that have befallen this unfortunate existence, but actual sensitivity to what is going on around them. They are aware more of their surroundings including the emotions of others, like pain, suffering, or even joy. They may be able to see it, but just don’t know how to act on it, or they may be too engrossed in their own thoughts than what is going on. But when they look, they see much more than they are given credit, and especially when they caused it. This is why so many of the smartest people you know fight so hard against injustice and why a person with absolutely no intelligences can manage to cause so much injustice in the world. That type of person finds it very hard to hurt others, because they simply feel it so much more.That said, it doesn’t mean they can’t become coarse and even contemptuous themselves. It was easy to be smart and to see your worth clearly outlined in the report cards, so when the other kids make fun of you for one your faults, it’s really easy to just say, “Yeah, well I’m smart and you’re dumb.”Just as a piece of advice, never say that. It proves just how stupid you really are, socially anyway. It isn’t that it isn’t true. Even children can understand the difference between qualitative and quantitative data when all you need to know is the difference between an A and an F. Sure, they may be handsome, but somewhere out there, there might be someone who thinks that I am cuter. Handsome is subjective. Fractions are not. Math is not. Spelling is not. They have correct answers and the data shows that I get more correct answers than you do. The odd thing is, just making the statement, “I’m smart and you’re dumb,” has never produced the outcome of, “Oh. I see. You are correct, sir.” So never do it, because this happens.When you make someone feel inferior, they hate you. They act out towards you. The problem with the types of people like me is that they have that pride and fight back. That’s a problem because people like me develop a hard, abrasive outer shell where they sort of expect the abuse. They are quick to react negatively and hurtfully. Sadly, they often expect someone to be abusive where no abuse is given. This is harmful to relationships and isolates people from others who would otherwise make great friends and never judge you for being smart.My wife, also a teacher, shared an example when she found out I was writing about this phenomena in bullying. She had a student last year, Elon, who was really brilliant. He went to a private school where he was bullied and then transferred to ours. At lunch one day, my wife overheard a conversation with Elon and another boy, Fred. Fred was always sweet and kind to the other classmates, always helping out the teachers, making kids laugh (the good way) and generally well liked by everyone. Fred was a legitimately good kid. On this day, Fred was talking to Elon and made a joke, completely benign and not hurtful. As I said, Jennie was listening herself. Elon mistook the intent, reacted out and stabbed back at Fred with a verbal retort that was completely unnecessary. Fred reacted as if to say, “Whoa. That’s not what I meant at all,” and left the situation. Elon was left alone at that point for no other reason than that he reacted wrongly in a situation where there was no threat to him.These types invite bullying because they feed a lot of the mentalities that empower bullies. A prick is rude and aggressive, arrogant and condescending, qualities no one likes, but which are usually distributed out against in all directions. Pricks aren’t out to use cruelty for gains like a bully does, so they don’t get anything out of it besides being left alone. This makes them isolated and weak. A bully will pounce on those who are alone and especially those who aren’t well liked. It allows them a rare opportunity to be a sort of hero. I mean, when you were mean to the nicest girl in school who just said, “Hey,” by being suspicious and wondering what her scheme was to get at you, then you’ve taken that intelligence of yours and overloaded your common sense. You’ve also made it so that no one will stand up for you ever. Brilliant, you’re the one person who could make a terrible bully like Ariel look like Captain America coming in to save the day.The advice I would give to this kid is really invest time into learning people. Try to use their smarts to know the behaviors of a good people and the behaviors of people they need to stay away from. You have to develop the intelligence to not confuse the two. Lastly, they need to value their God given natural talents and realize that the root cause the aggression of others really is exactly what Mama always told you… they’re jealous, and the more you succeed the more jealous they’ll get. That is, until you have perfected your skull sauce so much that you are a truly valuable person. Just being smart never paid anyone’s bills. You have to be smart and useful for people to stick up for you. For most of us, this happens after college when we start businesses, cure diseases, become politicians, write novels, or help mold future generations with our brilliance, wisdom, and breadth of knowledge… while the bully struggles to make ends meet as an assistant coach when he realized his athletics acumen was mediocre at best. Trust me, I work with that guy.Bystanders.My story about being bullied ended rather dramatically. I was always able to defend myself, I had a bit of martial arts training and wasn’t physically afraid of my bully. I was instead held back by a code of ethics in my family that said I couldn’t start fights, no matter what. So I was just stuck being miserable after a year of abuse. After that year of constant taunting, it was made clear to me, though, that any consequences I might receive from getting into a fight were not greater than suffering the constant assaults on my self-esteem. Interestingly, my bully had no idea I knew martial arts, and I punched him in the mouth… repeatedly.It’s a fun story about conquering your fears that I feel everyone who has ever had a problem with bullying should read. That said, after my bout with Andy, I did something very safe because I had a new set of fears to deal with. I enjoyed the increased social status that came with being a seventh grader who measurably beat down an eighth grader, as well as sending the message that I was no longer “the one” to pick on. How did I use this new found status? Did I fight for the oppressed and rid my school of bullying? No. Not at all. No way. Do you think I would be that stupid? No, I sat back, and though I felt bad to see it in others, I just sat quietly when I saw bullying happen to them. Cruel as it was, I better not to lower my status by associating with those lower than me. Am I right? I’ve already suffered that pain, and now all I could say was, sucks to be you.At that point, I became a bystander. Bystanders are those who see, but do nothing. They don’t stand up, and they don’t tell anyone else either. They let it happen. That’s what I was. I was someone who just sat back. I wanted to help. I really, really did, but in the end, I didn’t have the courage to anymore. A few years later, I ended up joining the Marines, so it seems odd to me that I didn’t have the courage to stand up to a few kids for being mean. Maybe going to war had something to do with overcoming those fears, or maybe it had something to do with atonement or perhaps just finally get a chance to do right, but it was definitely my chance to no longer be a bystander, because deep down I knew, that as a bystander, I was someone who could have helped others, but didn’t.Millions of kids, far more than actually experience bullying as the victim or the antagonist, exist as a type of bystander to the events, just like I did. Everyone has a story about seeing bullying, but few of us did anything about it, or even knew what to do. At least now people are becoming aware of not just being a bystander to being as a potential solution to the problem.Recently there has been a big campaign to not just be a bystander when we see bullying. Websites where kids are encouraged to pledge not to be a bystander have been created complete with videos, promotional ads, and lots and lots of guilt. So that makes me wonder, if all this training exists, why is it that when I went to do research for this post, all I could find on bystanders who stood up… were adults?I really don’t think that well funded ad campaigns and school lectures get to the root of the problem any more than the sexual abstinence pledges of my childhood. Statistically speaking those of us who made the pledges waited a little longer, but we still had sex. The training gave us the knowledge that premarital sex was wrong, or at least dangerous, but that guilt impulse wasn’t enough that it truly made us overcome the factors that caused us to decide to have sex anyway. The same thing is happening with bullying and bystander behavior. The dominant practices are that we can cure all social ills through education and awareness. This is insanely wrong. It isn’t that kids aren’t aware that bullying is wrong. It is that reasons they don’t stop it is that the knowledge of its wrongness is not enough to overcome the perceived benefits of the behavior. There is a reason that the only people who stood up against the children where adults who didn’t know them. That’s what we really need to understand and tackle if we want to end bullying.Loss of AcceptanceIn my case, the fear was that I would lose the precious little respect I had now that I wasn’t considered the school pushover. It wasn’t a conscious decision to distance myself from those who attracted negative attention, but I believe it was a reflexive one. Thinking back to the weird calculus mentioned above of social measurement, a part of me was trying to maintain the purity of “my brand” by avoiding having it brought down by those who were obviously now having it harder than me, though not in such arrogant terms or even consciously. It needs to be said at this point that, as arrogant as saying “My Brand” may sound, that’s what it was. And even though it was it was only three amebas north of Pond Scum. Pond Scum had it way worse than I did. Pond Scum was sitting alone over around the corner where he thought no one would see him and who would, therefore, not think that any of the rest of us would think to say bad things about him. I was terrified to be Pond Scum. For that reason, I desperately protected my three amebas, because in my mind, they were all I had to protect me from being like him.It was cruel to let whatever happened to the Lala’s of the world happen, but I think that we have to understand how terrifying it is to risk yourself to stop it. Is that an incredibly selfish thing to say? Yeah. Can you imagine anyone more selfish than a fourteen year old kid who’s afraid?Fear of the BullyMany people, some who have been victims, some who just don’t want to be the target next, stay quiet out of fear. Bullies are bullies for a reason. They want to scare and intimidate others to get their way. It should be known that most acts of bullying take place in front of non-victim witnesses. The goal is to be seen exerting authority or force to those witnesses. Call it efficiency. They don’t have to specifically target you for you to get the message that they are dangerous.This fear can manifest when the bystander realizes that in every way he say the bully torment his victim, there is little to protect him from the same deadly treatment as well. They may face taunting, teasing, ostracism, or even the threat of physical violence. I can imagine the worst case scenario being that they would become the new focus of the bully’s ridicule. It is one thing to simply be ugly, but to attempt to defy me? This must be dealt with.Bystanders have to face the facts that bullies are mean, and bullies are scary. That’s why they are bullies! Having their life made easy by people being afraid of them is sort of their tactic for survival. That said, bystanders also need to realize that most people aren’t like bullies. They don’t have that part of their brains that are broken towards understanding human empathy. Most people do. That means that most people don’t like the things they do, but don’t say anything because they feel the same way you do. Once all of them realize this along with you, that bully just lost a lot of power.Fear of the VictimThis one is counterintuitive, but I want you to think back to growing up. Did you ever have someone come to your defense and all you could feel was a sensation of humiliation or shame for having needed help? I did.I hated getting help for being the loser. It was just another reminder that you’re a loser that you need help. I remember this one time with a bully, his name was… what are we on? “G”? His name was Gouchebag. Gouchebag was the town problem child. It wasn’t a cute sort of deviance like on a 50’s sitcom. He was a legitimate menace and a danger. As a teacher looking back, I would probably say the same thing and that we should expel him as soon as throw him literally under the bus. He was an eighth grader who should have been in tenth, but he picked on sixth graders, such as myself. He brought knives to school and there were times he was so stoned out he literally fell out of his seat in the middle of class.I remember this one day where he was beating me up, forcing my face into the pavement and he was too strong for me to resist. He was mocking and taunting in front of the whole school. Why? I don’t know, it was probably because I was a prick (remember?) After he had got bored of the game he left me on the sidewalk, humiliated. I remember then two eighth grade girls who came over to nurse and console. They were real saints, but I was ungrateful. I didn’t say anything mean to them, thankfully, but I really resented them helping me. I really resented needing the help. Having the two mother me and tell me that Gouchebag was such a jerk did nothing to heal the emotional damage of the moment. I’m really glad I didn’t tell them that, because it might have prevented the two from being the good people that they were.More so than this, a lot of times, and I see this with guys more than girls, you might get the response upon finally doing something to stop what you are seeing these words:“I don’t need your help!”Now realize what just happened. You’ve overcome your crippling fear of social anxiety, placed another person’s needs above your own, risked the wrath of the bully yourself, and even risked your own social standing for this lowly creature we call the victim. Then what transpired? You were rejected for it… publically.Now the consequences of all that are many fold, as I have shown. You risk the bully’s rebuke later, but also, a clear message has been sent to everyone that not even the loser needs you. You are so needy that this person rejects your offer of support in their greatest time of need. Now, if you were once at a 5, you’ve dropped in the social standing at that moment to even less than the bullied victim, because not even a 2 wants what you are offering.In the realm of childhood social psychology, this a massive blow to self-esteem and if you have ever seen it, it is one of the real consequences you factor in before you think to yourself, “Is it worth it?” and “What about if…?”If it ever happens to you, you’ve also received the very clear message that it is never worth it again to help out someone again.The CultureWhen I say “The Culture” I am not saying American Culture, but the local culture of the school. Each are a bit different with a different set of cultural norms and values and a lot goes to into that. Socio-economic spectrum, diversity - both cultural and ideological, educational philosophies of the educators, ext. That said, each school has to develop policies according to the kids they are given. No one size-fits-all solutions exist. For that reason, many schools stress a no-tolerance policy on bullying (kind of like my generation’s abstinence pledges,) while others look at bullying as something that a child needs to learn to handle on their own. Fortunately for most of us today, there has been so much academic focus on the problems of teen suicide and violence related to bullying, that the old belief prevalent when I was young, “It builds character,” has all but died out.That said, if we look at the combination of all of these factors, children watching other children will do as they do. If they see kids sticking up to bullying, they won’t accept it either. If they see everyone keeping their head down, looking away, and not saying anything, it has a cultural amplification effect that will bring others to act in line as well. Frankly, late night TV is filled with people who fought the system, stood against the flow, and never let anyone keep them down. Enough cliches? That’s because it’s cliche, and it also isn’t normal. It just isn’t normal to be the odd person acting against the norms of everyone around you, be that for better or worse. That is why people who resist are called the heroes.That’s where the school comes in. It’s hard to be a hero, but if you make an environment where heroes aren’t needed, well… that solves the problem too. It’s really a teacher’s job to set what the culture should look like.I’ll use my classrooms as an example of a bully resistant atmosphere. Instead of rules, I focus on character and leadership traits which guide their choices in my class. The way I do this is through the use of themes. A theme is a short essay, about three paragraphs in length. They are essentially punitive writing assignments to make children think about their actions while also working on their English skills. They just so happen to be based off the Marine Corps’ 14 Leadership Traits. Kids hate them, but it makes them better people. I can drop a punishment down for absolutely anything that a child does that doesn’t meet my standard of behavior, and one of my favorites, was “Loyalty.”If I see someone say something hateful, I’ll usually throw a loyalty at them, meaning they owe me an essay on what loyalty means, how they didn’t show loyalty, and what they should have done to show loyalty in the first place. It’s amazing how quickly children behave when cruelty is punished. Once, I even punished a whole class with a “courage” when no one stood up to someone else who was being bullied. It’s fascinating, also, how quickly children can turn into righteous police over the forces of injustice when you show them that you expect them to do it.That said, bullying is actually not tolerated in my classroom (though many wouldn’t be that far off to consider me the bully, but they would be wrong… I’m a prick.) That said, my classes are calm and safe environments for students, where they feel free to express themselves without fear of being mocked, at least while I am around. What’s more, they get to have fun in a way that they learn and I don’t walk around all day saying to myself what terrible kids I have, because in my classroom, if nowhere else, they are good kids.This isn’t always the case. I remember growing up the dripping apathy from educators towards the sorts of things I fight so hard to fix in kids. As I said, we were still deep in the era of “getting picked on builds character” before schools started being held responsible when children shot up the place. One such teacher, Coach Herbert, would just sit around doing nothing. This isn’t only relating to bullying, I never remember him teaching us anything at all. He always bragged about being a member of MENSA, but never actually teaching, I kind of just wonder if he believed he could make us learn through osmosis, as if being around him would simply make us educated. That is beside the point. He’s also a superintendent now, but that is also beside the point… (Damn you Oklahoma education system!)In Coach Herbert’s class, I sat a few seats behind Doug. You remember Doug? Lala. Well, Lala did what Lala did. He did stupid things that brought him negative attention. Unfortunately for him, two of my other classmates, we’ll call them Kael and Jack, were horribly cruel to Doug.It was strange for me, I’d never known them to be like that, but they were horrible to Doug. I guess this had something to do with the two feeding off each other and overdosing on the first hits of testosterone their young bodies were now producing in the Spring of our youth. I remember day after day they would taunt him. I honestly remember no lessons of the class, but I sure remember Doug’s constant stream of humiliation. I remember hearing something terrible and would always wonder why Coach Herbert would just sit there. I still have no answer for that. Being a teacher who happens to also be a Marine, I have something of a holy view of discipline. I believe that if you don’t discipline them, you don’t love them. You either don’t believe they can be better or you simply don’t care enough to bother. In the worst place, you are nice to them because you need their love or you are too weak to have their respect. See my section on why neediness is so loathsome to understand why I rate these people as worthless educators. If you don’t discipline them, you’re a coward who doesn’t love your children. That’s just my personal philosophy, but might explain why I will always be a bit resentful that Herbert did such a poor job.It sent the message that that sort of treatment was acceptable. More so than this, it told every student in the room that doing nothing about it was acceptable too. Every second he sat there doing nothing, he made it very clear, “Our culture does nothing.” He helped to make a generation of cowards, as well as a generation of Dougs.There was one girl though, Myka. Myka is her real name. I wanted to use her real name because she did something very brave. She still stood up in the midst of that environment. In a moment of frustration, she blurted out from the back of the classroom, “Would you two just leave him alone!” It wasn’t a question. I remember being so relieved that someone finally said it, but I didn’t do anything to help. I never told her I was proud of her, or that I admired her for it. And she suffered all the problems I said she would. The two made fun of her, but I really don’t think she cared. She was awesome. She’s an actress right now and Myka, if you ever happen upon this little write up, here’s a special message just for you.Other ConsiderationsThe truth about bullying, and especially where children are involved, is that there are many things you need to know and understand. Beyond what I already mentioned, there are so many other realms we would need to explore too if we wanted to even scratch the surface of what contributes to bullying in schools; what it is, what it means, and how it affects school aged kids today. For that reason, I wanted to add this last section to cover as many bases as I felt were missed in the rest of the essay.Online bullyingBullying has taken a turn. We often confuse or conflate the term “school bullying” with “childhood bullying”. While once they would have been synonymous or at least only subtly different, today, they are growing into very different realms. As much as I write about it, bullying, at least in its classic forms myself and probably everyone else reading this remembers has shifted away from the schools and towards a place ungovernable by the rest of us. In fact, I see less violence in the schools and less of the social manipulation than what we experienced. Myself being only 30, that says that quite a lot has happened for the positive in the last 12 years. That said, I recently gave an answer to the question, why do bullies rarely bully outside of school? which talks about the fact that bullying has, in many ways, shifted away from the purview of the schools, and well outside of their ability to control.Bullying happens all the time on social media and in the streets. You should do some searches for #TBR or To Be Rude. There you will see pictures and videos of kids being absolutely terrible to one another as a sort of contest in cruelty.As for why you ask why it doesn’t happen so much, that is for two reasons.1) The bullied have a place to escape to. If you have ever wondered why so many kids become reclusive during the after school hours, you should probably look to many of the kids roaming the streets. This isn’t to say that anyone who still plays outside is a bully, but if you had the simple choice to hide at home on the X-box or risk a confrontation with the jerk from school, what are you really going to choose.2) We just don’t see it. Apps like Snapchat allow for completely untraceable messaging to people within your network. This allows abuse in the form of hateful messages sent privately that the bully can control if the message will delete before the victim can tell. Quite honestly, it’s an evil app for parents. This version of hatefulness denies the victim evidence often necessary to bring about repercussions as the victim suffers the burden of proof. If the proof deleted automatically after being viewed, not much can be done in a fair society.Another way is anonymity. Kids create false accounts and track down people they know. They’ll harass them with inside knowledge that a stranger shouldn’t have access to. They might continue with attacks trying to insult the individual all the way to coercing them to hurt themselves or commit suicide. Usually blocking does little good as the bully can just create a new anonymous sock-puppet account. Without some clever defenses like having the service ban an offending user’s entire IP address, the only recourse the victim usually has is to abandon their whole social network, including their real world friends.That said, it isn’t that it isn’t happening. We just don’t see it because the modern methods of teenage bullying happen behind closed doors in the dark places of the internet behind anonymity and posts that no one can prove happened.All the same psychology still applies, but is important for readers to really understand that bullying doesn’t just happen at school anymore. Once, that was the only place kids could meet and organize in large numbers. Now, an even larger playground has formed where they and all their friends, as well as all their friends, and an extended network of friends meet and gather with no parental or adult supervision, whatsoever. More so than this, the sheer concept of supervision is challenged in these communities, and because of this, they have become predatory feeding grounds for children that adults, especially those of us in the schools, have almost no power to do anything about.Overuse of “bullying”Further conflating the issue of bullying, is a lack of knowledge about what bullying actually is. As I have said before, the definition I am going with and the one that most professionals would agree to is this:Bullying - the deliberate, premeditated, and continuous abuse of a specific individual over a period of time.As teachers, we take cases of perceived or accused bullying seriously. That said, there are many cases where what someone reports as bullying, really isn’t. In many of these cases, I don’t fault the child for this, but that it is more a symptom of kids being drilled into them that bullying is bad, and then making the mistakes of anything where one kid is mean or upsets another is bullying. Some examples.Teasing isn’t bullying. Children (as well as me with my good friend Travis Gurley) will poke fun at each other. (I mean, come on. His name is Gurley!) One author I once read said that there can be no humor without someone’s suffering and anyone who has ever watched anything by George Carlin is likely to sympathize with the sentiment. That said, teasing, the rare or infrequent joke at your expense, is not bullying.“Being mean” isn’t bullying. This is just a kid having a bad day and not handling it very well. Acting like a jerk or being pissy is not bullying. If they are treating everyone the same way, then it is specific to you. If it also isn’t over a prolonged time, such as a few days or weeks, then it isn’t bullying.Taunting isn’t even bullying. Taunting isn’t even bullying when it only happens once. That isn’t to say that one extreme event of many children laughing at you and calling you names isn’t traumatizing, but it isn’t bullying. Bullying is when someone attempts to make taunting you a regular occurrence, and you as an individual.Lastly, saying something you disagree with isn’t bullying. It may be hurtful to hear that your ideas aren’t universal, and it may feel like bullying where they challenge you all day long. It isn’t. It is just them being impassioned enough stand by what they believe. If they are willing to debate with you openly and not silence you from having an opinion, then they aren’t bullying. Suck it up, buttercup. In a free democracy, they aren’t bullying. They are just making the world a better place. What is bullying, however, is trying to silence them because you disagree. We’ve seen this recently on many college campuses, where opinions are labeled as racist, sexist, bigoted, or stupid. Oddly enough, if you listen to many of them, they care just about minorities, they just think the current ideas don’t help that much. That’s the purpose to disagreements, and more importantly, the purpose of college, but these people are being out and disinvited from the universities because people find the ideas so repugnant. I’ve listened to many of these speakers. As someone who has been to war twice and has written numerous papers on everything from terrorism to bullying, anyone that considers that hate speech must live in an awesome country. This has gotten so bad, that people have even arranged “safe spaces” for students to retreat to if they feel as if they may suffer post-traumatic stress from what they are hearing. Once again… war veteran, here. You’ve lost your minds. As I said, saying something you disagree with, isn’t bullying. Trying to silence others is.Bullying is taken very seriously, but given our experience, one of the biggest obstacles in combatting it, is diagnosing when bullying has, and has not occurred. The seriousness this has given, and the ease with which it can be confused or misused has led to an even more frustrating problem for teachers.Bullies using BullyingNo good write-up on bullying could be complete without a reference to the 2004, pre-Lohan collapse, Mean Girls. Remember that scene where Rachel McAdams’ character went crazy towards the end and made that whole book filled with terrible pages with all sorts of terrible things about everyone in the school … including herself? How did she use that?Besides starting a school wide insurrection, she used it to pose as a victim of bullying.Frankly, this isn’t that uncommon. It’s a symptom of our education system trying, and trying very hard, to correct itself and make kids safe. For years, the common knowledge was to suck it up and that a little abuse built character. The idea was that a kid was expected to endure it, and learn how to deal with people they didn’t agree with. We’ve learned, however, that much the opposite is the truth. Bullying can, and often does, have long and painful effects on its victims. With that new knowledge, schools started pulling out every stop to combat bullying.While, of course, this was a good thing, bullies, being the general psychopathic opportunists that many of them are, saw the weakness in the new system. They saw a few common elements that could be manipulated.Firstly, a school that does not take bullying seriously can face serious consequences. Given the amount of popular narrative given to this topic (as an example, imagine how much bullying was talked about when we were kids in mainstream media) schools are expected to be working hard to fight it. That said, any case that looks like bullying (see my point above about the overuse of the term) than it puts them at risks of not doing what they can to prevent childhood abuse, suicide, and the massacres.Parents are bad about this and can act as agents to ensure that their children receive special treatment. It’s hard not to believe your kids when something like bullying comes up. It’s even harder to believe that your kid is the Devil. An even worse case is the slow news day when the issue is brought forward to the news. Perception is reality and often the schools are framed unfairly when selective narratives and faulty information make for better news. I have a friend who is a principal at a local school and she has said on occasion that her greatest fear is winding up on the evening news. Events such as this can result in teachers or administrators being fired, and people know this. This power is only conflated when individuals become aware of their own new found powers of social media.I’m going to speak for a second about social media. I’ve had several works over the years that went viral for one reason or another. I’ve also been hired as a writer to counter a differing article that when viral. There, the news organization got in some hot water when an article they published went viral for all the wrong the reasons. They republished a post from a personal blog which stated that Vietnam Prisoner of War flag was racist. From that, thousands of shares to veterans groups outraged a lot of people. When I wrote my article, on the same site, that mostly rebuked the original, I found something odd about it. Most of the comments directed to my post believed mine was the same original article. They didn’t even read it. It made me aware of just how much press the original article really was getting and how very little my second article in response was going to do. What I learned about social media from that is that whoever controls the original narrative owns the story in its entirety, and no attempts to provide a differing, or even truer, account of the story will ever see the light of day.Why does this happen and why is it relevant to bullying specifically? Media goes viral for three basic reasons.1) It surprises us. The following is a great video to showcase this element of surprise being used to make a point. You should only need to watch the first 10 seconds to see what I mean.For this to work, you have to appeal to someone sense of humor, outrage, or empathy. A kid posts a story about abuse will achieve this. Outrage and empathy can cause many to believe the story to be true. Victimhood is often not required to justify its stance, and who really questions a poor little kid? (You all should. They are liars.), and the story is shared out.2) Critical buy in. Once someone major sees and shares the content, they echo it out to thousands, perhaps millions. This turns the incident into a spectacle.3) It starts a conversation. I should say, That specific telling of the event starts a conversation. Once you have people talking about it, more people who did not have access have to see this thing everyone is talking about so that they can remain relevant (remember our lessons of social calculus at play.) The problem with the conversation is that the only source of information on the matter is from one side of the story. We only get the alleged victim’s point of view, or even their lie, and only view the context through that narrow filter of often very selective information. Over time, the echo chamber effect leads to a point where, when a differing view of the story does arise, it is completely rejected by the mainstream. Think about what happens when you hear the same thing from everyone. It has a self-validating nature until eventually, it is fact and anyone who questions the narrative is anything a racist, homophobe, sexist, Trump Supporter, hates dogs, hates kids, or is completely stupid. I mean everybody knows what happened here.None of this is new. Bullies have used lying for years to get what they want, but they have never had access to an audience in the way we do directly. Schools, as much as they would like to never admit, know this well. For that reason, they’ve unwittingly fallen victim to a few very poor behaviors where justice is concerned.Victims receive special treatment. Victims often do not suffer a strict burden of proof, which means that a well constructed lie places the responsibility for proof of innocence on the accused. This is a violation of the nature of due process, but given the risks schools face, common.Bullies are made an example of. Given the stance that schools need to present to ensure that a culture of bullying doesn’t exist, anyone who is caught is given very harsh punishments. Normally, I have no problem with this, but where the policy is misused to give power to actual bullying, we have an obvious problem.For all of these reasons, smart bullies can try to use the system to bully others. It’s ironic and tragic, but not something that I believe should surprise anyone. Bullies are people who know how to use leverage to overpower others and dominate them. A system where not only the practice, but also the perception that bullying will never be tolerated exists has natural holes which bullies can exploit. I don’t blame teachers or schools for this. I do sort of blame the media for being lazy, but mostly I place the blame where it lies… with the bullies who at such a young age, have already mastered the art of manipulation.Thanks for reading! I’m glad I was afforded the opportunity to get a lot off my chest by my good friend Kyler Murray about something that I have given much thought over my adult life. If you have any comments or follow on questions, I’ll do my best to answer them in the comments section below.For more answers like this check out Who is Jon Davis? - Anecdotes and Misadventures of the Would Be Giant and follow my blog War Elephant for more new content. Everything I write is completely independent research and is supported by fan and follower pledges. Please consider showing your support directly by visiting my Patreon support page here: Help Jon Davis in writing Military Novels, Articles, and Essays.Footnotes[1] Pure bullies: Cool, confident, and socially-adept[2] Why Mobs Behave Badly — It's The Brain's Fault

Q. Is the Teachers College at Columbia University a good school?Yelp: an unorthodox rating of Teachers College - Columbia University from the students’ perspective, near unanimous voicing of disappointment and major problems. Unexpected for such a storied and renown institution, with distinguished alumni.Followed by two more conventional rankings/general info.Ranking: TCCU #7.Teachers College, Columbia UniversityColleges & Universities525 W 120th StNew York, NY 10027Phone number: (212) 678-3000Business website: tc.columbia.eduRecommended Reviews Teachers College - Columbia University.Dan T. New York, NY 1/2/2010 Listed in Awwww yeah: The Heights, Schools “Excellent educationally but much to improve--facilities/etc. should align with tuition to alleviate the faculty and student disillusionment for the cost of the education and services rendered.”Mike O. Brooklyn, NY 3/29/2014 One of the oldest and best ed schools in the country. Faculty are great. Students are bright and hardworking. Spent a year and a half here getting my M.A. as a Literacy Specialist and had a great, unforgettable experience.L L. New York, NY 8/7/2014 I know Yelp is not the greatest place to rate a school, but I have to say that I was totally disappointed by TC. First of all, if you just want Columbia on your degree paper, go for it, because TC is probably one of the easiest (and maybe the cheapest) ways to achieve this.Now I will talk about why I was disappointed. One of the common things people complain about is the faculty-student ratio. It's true. It matters because your advisor won't have that much time to try to guide you and even listen to you! It depends on people of course, but at least mine literally told me she didn't have time (during her office hours!!) to help me choose classes. Faculty-student ratio also matters because it is very hard to have in-depth discussions in a classroom with more than 50 people who are just trying to say something to show they are "participating".Their career services are also inadequate, and especially poor when it comes to international students who are already a large community at the school. No one even keeps a record of which employers would hire international students, because "it is not required by the US government". Since when an Ivy League school does not offer anything more than what is required by the US government?The quality of the peers is questionable. I am not sure how much the admissions threshold has been lowered within the last few years. All I know is that I got to see fewer and fewer people that are really competent. What bothered me the most is that some of its programs (including mine) are not academically rigorous at all. I've known people who pretty much didn't do anything in a term-long group project and could easily get an A. I've known people who copied other people's homework and could easily pass. Sometimes the professors might not have known what was going on, but sometimes they knew and they didn't care.Again, different people come out of TC with totally different experiences. I had those bad ones because I happened to meet certain people, happened to work with certain people, and happened to take certain classes. However, I am definitely not the only person who felt much disappointed. Talk to as many current students or recent grads as you can before deciding to attend TC, get an insight of where TC is heading towards, think thoroughly what you want and see what and how TC can provide, otherwise you will regret spending your time and money there.Craig B. Philadelphia PA 10/1/2011 Just spend a week at Teacher's College and you'll have a decent handle on what's wrong with education in this country. Here you are smack in the center of the Hogwarts for teachers, but it's really just an opportunity to hand over A LOT of money to get Columbia University listed on your resume. It should be criminal because these are teachers that we are talking about. At least if Teachers College actually imparted something useful that can be used to improve the quality of education in this country, but this is just a pure money grab.- Most of your classes have a minimum of 30+ students. Some have more than 50. Go look on the TC web site to see the number of students enrolled in classes under "Class Schedule". This is hardly graduate education. You're just being given articles to read and papers to write. Little to no class discussion. In graduate school, you should expect classes that have a max of 15.- Most of what you get from these articles is pretty basic and things that you will learn after you have taught for about two years. In two years no one is going to care that you went to Columbia; they are going to care what type of teacher you are, and you won't get that at TC.A good number of classes are taught by graduate students and adjuncts, in some programs more than half. It's something of a bait and switch because you think that your classes, especially required classes, will be taught by faculty, but really they aren't. Do the math. At about $4,000 per class, TC takes in about $150,000 for some classes and pays the adjunct maybe $4,000 to teach it. For example, here is Professor Joanna Williams trying to claim that she teaches a class in Educational Psychology when, in fact, she never teaches a class in Educational Psychology: tc.columbia.edu/academic…In fact here she even says "I teach a master's-level course in educational psychology" (1:52) when, again, a grad student or adjunct teaches the class. It's just deceptive. The administration knows about this. They are too busy counting your money to care. tc.columbia.edu/hud/inde…Faculty+Interviews- If you do get a class with an actual professor, it's pretty much read to you from the same yellowed paper that the professor has used for decades. Not a lot of adaptation or creativity goes into the programs.- Also do the math: you are charged for three credit hours, but most classes only meet for for about two hours.- TC accepts a massive number of students for the MA programs and herds them through. You will not have a problem being accepted because pretty much every application is accepted. This is to help pay for the PhD students. But many of the PhD students can't get work.One of the few respected programs, and one actually with any real rigor, is Organizational Leadership. Yet TC is one of the most dysfunctional bureaucratic environments that you'll find yourself in. Try dealing with the registrar, paying a bill, or getting your e-mail set up. People refer you to someone else and that person will refer you back to the first person. I was in one class that had a janitorial closet in the back and janitors would walk in and through the classroom during class time with ladders and other pieces of heavy equipment. In one case I applied for and was granted an extension by the registrar. Then later the registrar came back and said that I had an issue because I had no extension. I showed the registrar her own letter, signed by her, that clearly stated the extension and the terms of the extension, and that still wasn't enough. She said that she needed to meet with a special committee. This is very common. Most students can tell you a story like this.In the end TC graduates teachers who are burdened under a massive amount of debt. Try to pay that off on a teachers salary. I'm sure some of the students believe that they got a decent education, but they don't really have something impressive to compare their TC experience to. They think that TC is normal. Hope that they don't emulate it in their own classrooms.I've written all of this because supporting teachers is very important, and two months after you start classes at TC this is what you are going to wish that someone had told you when you were looking at graduate programs.If gold will rust, what will iron do?Erin M. Manhattan, NY 3/14/2011 Wow. I realize it has a good reputation, but honestly, it shouldn't. This is by far the worst school I've ever attended. Overpriced. Zero support from faculty or the administration. In fact, not only will they not help you, but they will build roadblocks to prevent you from accomplishing what you need to do. Poor classes, most of which are taught by graduate students. Some of the graduate students are fine, but why am I paying so much for my fellow students to teach me? Getting my doctorate there managed to make me less marketable, and to make it even harder to find a job. Well, all in all, it was a horrible experience and I will never recommend it to anyone.Zuleika R. Clifton, NJ 12/14/2016 Way overpriced for the quality of education it provides. Will take forever to process things (fasfa, petsa video,etc). You never get a reply back from emails. Also, majority of PhD grad students teach MA students rather than real professors. You get all of this for a huge amount of debt. In my opinion, it will take your whole life to pay the debt of teachers college if u become a teacher. Nowadays jobs are very scarce and tough to get. So make a wise decision. My friend got in here with a 3.1 GPA so it's not competitive.Lindsay S. New York, NY 11/23/201425 check-ins Not amused by my program.Teachers College Columbia University leverages the RingCentral cloud communications platformMarina S. Staten Island, NY 10/6/2014 Expensive, but it's a private school in the US, just like any other. The PhD students got a lot of attention from a few professors, which was very noticeable to us, the MA students. Sometimes we felt a bit ignored. I give as much as 3/5, because I got a Master's degree and that helped me get a job which I couldn't get without it.The professors are very knowledgeable, on the most part. We had a problem only with one instructor who hadn't even had a Master's Degree and was teaching a lab course strictly from slides with no additional information. (We know how to use basic Word and Excel. but we spent a few weeks worth of classes reading slides about it).In general, I learned a lot and I really enjoyed the course work. My concentration was in Motor Learning and Control (Bio Behavioral Sciences). I also met many wonderful people who were in the same or in related MA and PhD programs.I just would have liked it more if we (MA students) got a bit more attention from the few important professors in the program.Katya R. New York, NY 6/30/2013 I did an orientation as was considering a Master's there.The teacher to student ratios are quite large and from all my research this is far from a rigorous program.It seems like a veritable diploma mill where the basis for the transaction is very expensive classes in return for a Columbia branded resume (with not what one would expect at a master's level in between). If you fail out of this program, it is because you never showed up for class or the tests, ever.The very high acceptance rate supports this. Columbia has turned a very needed program into a cash cow. This model has been playing out in many of the MS level classes at TC and at the university at large.This is the Harvard Extension School (being very, very kind here to Columbia by even offering that associative reference) equivalent in a teaching program.Buyer beware, and do your own due diligence before you apply (since the above is more or less common knowledge).Tiffany C. Manhattan, NY 12/1/2011 Updated review The school is great! With all the money they have they should be able to remodel the place a little. I love the vintage look, but some of the classrooms need to be re-done. the programs here are great and so are the professors. I wish it cost less money to go there, but i guess you have to pay for a good education. The area around is nice, definitely one of the quieter places in the city.Sam W. Hoboken, NJ 4/21/2012 Want an Ivy League degree barely worth the paper it's printed on? Then TC is for you.This place is an utter racket of criminally high tuition, mediocre to laughable instruction, flimsy joke degrees that will ensure our national education system is staffed by dim layabouts for a long time to come.I can't wait for the National Council on Teacher Quality to drill TC into the ground this fall.Tanya L. Boston, MA 4/10/2011 I really want to rate my graduate school higher. I am grateful the education graduate school of Columbia University admitted me with just a 3.3 undergraduate GPA and gave me the opportunity to get a Master's degree here.I am really appreciative I got a small minority scholarship for working on the academic journal, CICE (Current Issues in Comparative Education) at Teachers College. I would try and get my doctorate here, but the school does not fully fund doctoral students sadly.However, I thought the academic advising system was particularly bad in the department of International and Transcultural studies, as it is TC's policy to pair you up with a professor as your advisor. My former professor could care less about advising me. When she agreed to advise my thesis over the summer, she later flaked out on me when I got an impersonal, mass email from the department head mentioning that she was leaving to take another job in DC. My advisor couldn't even take 10 minutes to write a personal adieu to her advisees, or to say goodbye? Absolutely pathetic.Fortunately, this negative advisory experience was counteracted by a Teachers College faculty member who took me on last minute to help me graduate in 1 year time. In addition, I had several professors that were very good at teaching: Terosky and Hatch come to mind as great.However, I am disheartened by the school itself, because it doesn't seem to value hiring it's own alumni. I would love to work for TC, but I have not been one of the chosen ones. There are non-alumni working in its alumni affairs office and career services offices, and although I'm sure they do an decent jobs, there are alumni out there like me that would give our left arm to work for our alma mater and are not given interviews.Teachers College library itself is absolutely gorgeous: 3 floors of plush chairs and pretty wood desks. I found Teachers College to have enjoyable areas of study. The bookstore employees were always helpful, too.Another qualm I have is the career services center attitude that because I have a Columbia University degree that I will find full-time work soon. Au contraire: being Ivy League in this economy doesn't necessarily mean anything. You cannot advise Teachers College alumni to have hope through reliance on being affiliated with a well respected school. Furthermore, the alumni database the career center touts needs to be built up A LOT more because it is barely searchable as is.Diandra D. Pelham, NY 5/31/2011 I had the BEST time in graduate school ... to the point where I wish elementary, middle, high school and college could have been similar. I love the professors here. The buildings are clean, the classrooms well lit and ventilated. The surrounding neighborhood is perfect for students to let off steam or grab a drink after a grueling day of studying or attending lectures.I was fortunate to receive two strategically located student teacher placements, as well as an on-campus job, which made my intensive year program at TC manageable and enjoyable.My classmates and I typically didn't finish our last class until 10 pm (classes didn't start until 5 because all of us student taught during the day). Nonetheless, professors were always available to talk or answer questions whenever (and I do mean WHENEVER) we had them.We would frequently go to West End (before it became Havana Central- RIP) for drinks and food and stumble home discussing how we could use Gardner's Theory of Multiple Intelligences to determine what alcohol said about our respective personalities. The good 'ol days ...I've gone back to the UWS sporadically to visit with some professors (one was even a guest at my wedding) and see the neighborhood, but truthfully, I'm due for another visit very soon.Elizabeth N. Irvine, CA 2/23/2013 The professors are great and so are the students! The Library and Thorndike are the newer or remodel places in comparison to Thompson, Grace Dodge, HM, and more that need some remodeling. I also love the dinning hall that seems so classic and fancy for a University cafeteria.A B. Boston, MA 6/26/2010 I LOVE TC. I know I am spending WAY too much money here and my loans are adding up, but I am getting a degree that will get me any job in the future (well not 'any' but, within reason). I think if you want to be just a regular education teacher you should not go here because of the expense. But if you are looking for a more specialized degree (special ed, ABA, speech pathology, etc) then this is a GREAT place to go.Paul W. Stamford, CT 3/20/2007 Since no teacher's college can teach a prospective teacher how to teach, either don't teach or find a less expensive way to get the same PC drivel elsewhere. Otherwise, great place to live, and lots of perks in the neighborhood. We lived for four years and I did two masters.Ashley D. Paris, France 4/22/2009 TC is expensive. The education programs are excellent from what I've heard. The psychology departments are good, but the large enrollment of the M.A. programs lend a "degree mill" sense I don't care for. Organizational psychology gets the best bang for the buck - I'm not sure the M.A. in clinical psych would be worth the price. I attend at a discount, but I would consider the cost (as well as living in NYC) very carefully before coming. That being said, I really enjoy my particular program (M.A. Organizational Psychology) and am very happy I have come.About TCABOUT TCACADEMICSADMISSION & AIDSTUDENTSFACULTY & RESEARCHAbout TC At a GlanceAbout TCTimelineA Legacy of InnovatorsDiversity & CommunityOffices and AdministrationOur Students, at a GlanceThere are 5023 students enrolled at Teachers College. Approximately 77 percent are women, and among US Citizens, 13.3 percent are African American, 14.6 percent are Asian American, 13.5 percent are Hispanic / Latino/a, and 3.5 percent have identified with two or more ethnicities. The student body is composed of 20.2 percent international students from eighty-four different countries and nearly 80 percent domestic students from all fifty states and the District of Columbia.College Profile 2016-2017Total enrollment: 5023New Degree Students: 17621398 Fall Enrollment364 Summer EnrollmentDegree LevelMasters: 3624 / 72.2%Doctoral: 1302 / 25.9%Non-degree: 97 / 1.9%StudentsFull-time: 1484 / 29.5%Part time: 3539 / 70.5%Gender Diversity of Matriculated StudentsFemale: 3868 / 77%Male: 1105 / 22%No Answer: 50 / 1%Among Domestic Students Only (Excludes International, Other and Unknown)African-American: 516 / 13.3%Asian-American: 564 / 14.6%Latino/a: 522 / 13.5%Native American: 7 / 0.2%Two or More: 134 / 3.5%Caucasian: 2121 / 54.9%Other & Unknonwn: 143 / 2.9%Among International Students Only (Excludes Other and Unknown)International students: 1016 / 20.2%Africa: 15 / 1.5%Asia: 780 / 76.8%Canada: 46 / 4.5%Europe: 57 / 5.6%Latin America & Caribbean: 82 / 8.1%Middle East & North Africa: 36 / 3.5%Median Student Age30 yearsTeachers College, Columbia UniversityGrad SchoolAll Graduate School RankingsOverviewEducation Admissions Academics Ranking Student Body Cost Teacher PreparationScienceSocial Sciences & HumanitiesHealthU.S. News Education School CompassExpanded School ProfilesAverage GRE ScoresCertification Statistics#7 Best Education Schools2017 Quick StatsAddress525 W. 120th StreetNew York, NY 10027Students1,713 enrolled (full-time)3,207 enrolled (part-time)Tuition$1,454 per credit (full-time)$1,454 per credit (part-time)Education School OverviewThe education school at Teachers College, Columbia University has a rolling application deadline. The application fee for the education program at Teachers College, Columbia University is $65. Its tuition is full-time: $1,454 per credit and part-time: $1,454 per credit. The Teachers College, Columbia University graduate education program has 150 full-time faculty on staff with a 4.6:1 ratio of full-time equivalent doctoral students to full-time faculty.Programs and Specialties#2 Tie Curriculum and Instruction#5 Education Policy#6 Educational Administration and Supervision, in Educational Psychology#2 Elementary Teacher Education, in Higher Education Administration#6 Secondary Teacher Education, in Special EducationAdmissionsApplication deadline rollingApplication fee $65Director of Admissions David EstrellaTOEFL and/or IELTS required for international studentsAcademicsFull-time faculty (tenured or tenure-track) 150Student-faculty ratio 4.6:1Degree programs offeredPrograms/courses offered inStudent BodyTotal enrollment (full-time) 1,713Gender distribution (full-time) Male (23.1%) Female (76.9%)CostTuition full-time: $1,454 per credit part-time: $1,454 per creditRequired fees $856 per yearTeacher PreparationStudents who took an assessment to become a certified or licensed teacher during 2014-2015 216Education School Overview details based on 2015 dataAlumniMuhammad Fadhel al-Jamali, Prime Minister of Iraq (17 September 1953 – 29 April 1954)Charles Alston (1931), artistHafizullah Amin, President of AfghanistanNahas Gideon Angula (MA, EdM), Prime Minister of NamibiaMary Antin (1902), author of the immigrant experienceMichael Apple, professor of Educational Policy Studies, University of WisconsinWilliam Ayers, elementary education theorist, founder of Weather Underground, and professor at University of Illinois, ChicagoSarah Bavly, nutrition education pioneer in IsraelAbby Barry Bergman, science educator, author, school administratorJohn Seiler Brubacher, educational philosopher; professor at YaleDonald Byrd, jazz and fusion trumpet player; music educatorBetty Castor, politician and President of the University of South FloridaChiang Menglin President, Peking University, Minister of Education, Republic of ChinaShirley Chisholm, first African American woman elected to Congress, and former US Presidential candidateNorman Cousins, editor, peace activistElla Cara Deloria (1915), Yankton Sioux ethnologistEdward C. Elliott, educational researcher and president of Purdue UniversityAlbert Ellis, cognitive behavioral therapistEdward Fitzpatrick, president of Mount Mary College and noted expert on conscription during World War I and World War IIClarence Gaines (M.A. 1950), Hall of Fame basketball coach, Winston-Salem State UniversityGordon Gee (Ed.D. 1972), President of Ohio State UniversityTsuruko Haraguchi (Ph.D. 1912), psychologistAndy Holt (Ph.D. 1937), president of University of TennesseeSeymour Itzkoff, Professor Emeritus of Education and Child Study, Smith CollegeGeorge Ivany (M.A. 1962), President of the University of SaskatchewanThomas Kean (M.A. 1963), former Governor of New JerseyMaude Kerns (M.A. 1906), pioneering abstract artist and teacher[32]H. S. S. Lawrence (M.A. 1950, Ed.D. 1950), Indian educationistLee Huan, former Minister of Education and Premier of the Republic of ChinaMosei Lin (Ph.D. 1929), Taiwanese academic and educator; first Taiwanese to receive a Ph.D. degreeJohn C. McAdams, associate professor of political science at Marquette UniversityAgnes Martin (B.A. 1942), artistRollo May, existential psychologistChester Earl Merrow, educator, U.S. Representative from New HampshireRichard P. Mills, former Commissioner of Education for both Vermont and New York StatesJerome T. Murphy, Dean Emeritus at the Harvard Graduate School of EducationGeorgia O'Keeffe, American artistThomas S. Popkewitz (M.A. 1964), professor of Curriculum Theory at the University of Wisconsin-MadisonNeil Postman (M.A. 1955, Ed.D. 1958), cultural criticCaroline Pratt (educator), progressive educator, founder of City and Country School (Bachelor of Pedagogy, 1894)Thomas Granville Pullen Jr. President University of Baltimore, Maryland State Superintendent of EducationRobert Bruce Raup (Ph.D. 1926), Professor Emeritus, Philosophy of Education, and critic of the American Education systemHenrietta Rodman (1904), teacher, feminist activistCarl Rogers (M.A. 1928, Ph.D. 1931), psychologistMartha E. Rogers (M.A. in public health nursing 1945), nursing theorist, creator of Science of unitary human beingsMiriam Roth, Israeli writer and scholar of children's books, kindergarten teacher, and educatorAdolph Rupp, Hall of Fame basketball coach, University of KentuckyWilliam Schuman (B.S. 1935, M.A. 1937), composer, former president of the Juilliard School of Music and of Lincoln Center for the Performing ArtsJames Monroe Smith, president of Louisiana State University, 1930–1939Karl Struss (B.A. 1912), photographer and cinematographer; pioneer in 3D filmsBobby Susser (M.A. 1987), children's songwriter, record producer, performerTao Xingzhi, Chinese educator and political activistEdward Thorndike, psychologistRobert L. Thorndike (M.A. 1932, Ph.D. 1935), psychologistMerryl Tisch, educator, Chancellor, New York State Board of RegentsMinnie Vautrin, (M.A. 1919), educator and missionary.Ruth Westheimer (Ed.D. 1970), sex therapistFloyd Wilcox (M.A. 1920), third president of Shimer CollegeJohn Davis Williams, Chancellor of the University of Mississippi (1946 to 1968)Zhang Boling (1917), Founder and president, National Nankai University, Tianjin, ChinaBest Education SchoolsRanked in 2016 | Best Education Schools Rankings MethodologyA teacher must first be a student, and graduate education program rankings can help you find the right classroom. With the U.S. News rankings of the top education schools, narrow your search by location, tuition, school size and test scores.Rank School name Tuition Total enrollment#1 Stanford University Stanford, CA $45,729 per year (FT) 373#2 Tie Harvard University Cambridge, MA $43,280 per year (FT) 891#2 Tie Johns Hopkins University Baltimore, MD $1,000 per credit (FT) 2,161#4 University of Wisconsin—​Madison Madison, WI$11,870 per year (in-state, FT); $25,197 per year (out-of-state, FT) 1,030#5 Vanderbilt University (Peabody) Nashville, TN $1,818 per credit (FT) 908#6 University of Pennsylvania Philadelphia, PA $47,364 per year (FT) 1,140#7 Teachers College, Columbia University New York, NY $1,454 per credit (FT) 4,920#8 Tie Northwestern University Evanston, IL $48,624 per year (FT) 318#8 Tie University of Washington Seattle, WA$16,536 per year (in-state, FT); $29,742 per year (out-of-state, FT) 938#10 University of Texas—​Austin Austin, TX $8,402 per year (in-state, FT); $16,338 per year (out-of-state, FT) 1,025#11 University of California—​Los Angeles Los Angeles, CA$11,220 per year (in-state, FT); $26,322 per year (out-of-state, FT) 686#12 Tie University of Michigan—​Ann Arbor Ann Arbor, MI$21,040 per year (in-state, FT); $42,530 per year (out-of-state,FT) 524#12 Tie University of Oregon Eugene, OR$16,032 per year (in-state, FT); $22,752 per year (out-of-state,FT) 592#14 Arizona State University Phoenix, AZ$10,610 per year (in-state,FT); $27,086 per year (out-of-state,FT) 2,627#15 Tie Michigan State University East Lansing, MI$705 per credit (in-state, FT); $1,353 per credit (out-of-state, FT) 1,862#15 Tie New York University (Steinhardt) New York, NY $36,912 per year (FT) 3,117#15 Tie University of Kansas Lawrence, KS$378 per credit (in-state, FT); $881 per credit (out-of-state, FT) 1,209#18 Tie Ohio State University Columbus, OH$11,560 per year (in-state, FT); $31,032 per year (out-of-state, FT) 989#18 Tie University of California—​Berkeley Berkeley, CA$11,220 per year (in-state, FT); $26,322 per credit (out-of-state, FT) 343#20 University of Minnesota—​Twin Cities Minneapolis, MN$15,844 per year (in-state, full-time); $24,508 per year (out-of-state, full-time) 1,861#21 Tie University of Southern California (Rossier) Los Angeles, CA$1,666 per credit (full-time) 1,866#21 Tie University of Virginia (Curry) Charlottesville, VA$14,856 per year (in-state, FT); $24,288 per year (out-of-state, FT) 937#23 Tie Boston College (Lynch) Chestnut Hill, MA $1,310 per credit (FT) 793#23 Tie University of Illinois—​Urbana-​Champaign Champaign, IL$12,060 per year (in-state, FT); $26,058 per year (out-of-state, FT) 792#25 University of California—​Irvine Irvine, CA$11,220 per year (in-state, FT); $26,322 per year (out-of-state, FT) 274

Recitation of the pledge of allegiance is very common in American schools, but no student can be required to participate, in keeping with a decision of the U.S. Supreme Court in West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette (1943). Ever since then, any student who wants to opt out of saying the pledge, or of even standing for the pledge, must be allowed to do so.About twenty states have laws requiring the pledge in the public schools, but nearly all of these also mention the opt-out. Most other states have laws providing for the “opportunity” to say the pledge, or similarly vague language. Only about four apparently don’t mention it at all: Hawaii, Iowa, Vermont, and Wyoming.So the pledge is very common, but not required.Here is a rundown on state laws that is available on the Internet. It looks pretty authoritative, but I am not able to verify its accuracy:State Statutes Regarding the Pledge of Allegiance1.Alabama, Ala.Code 1975 § 16-43-5 “…The State Board of Education shall afford all students attending public kindergarten, primary and secondary schools the opportunity each school day to voluntarily recite the pledge of allegiance to the United States Flag.”2.Alaska, AS § 14.03.130 “The governing body shall require that the pledge of allegiance be recited regularly, as determined by the governing body….A school district shall inform all affected persons at the school of their right not to participate in the pledge of allegiance.”3.Arizona A.R.S. § 15-506 “School districts and charter schools shall: Set aside a specific time each day for those students who wish to recite the pledge of allegiance to the United States flag”4.Arkansas, A.C.A. § 6-16-108 “The State Board of Education shall adopt a policy to require that public school students in grades kindergarten through twelve (K-12) participate in a daily recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance during the first class of each school day. …The policy shall provide that no student shall be compelled to recite the Pledge of Allegiance if the student or the student's parent or legal guardian objects to the student's participating in the exercise on religious, philosophical, or other grounds.”5.California, West's Ann.Cal.Educ.Code § 52720 “In every public elementary school each day during the school year at the beginning of the first regularly scheduled class or activity period at which the majority of the pupils of the school normally begin the schoolday, there shall be conducted appropriate patriotic exercises. The giving of the Pledge of Allegiance to the Flag of the United States of America shall satisfy the requirements of this section.”6.Colorado, C.R.S.A. § 22-1-106 “Each school district shall provide an opportunity each school day for willing students to recite the pledge of allegiance in public elementary and secondary educational institutions. Any person not wishing to participate in the recitation of the pledge of allegiance shall be exempt from reciting the pledge of allegiance and need not participate.”7.Connecticut, C.G.S.A. § 10-230 “Each local and regional board of education shall develop a policy to ensure that time is available each school day for students in the schools under its jurisdiction to recite the "Pledge of Allegiance".”8.Delaware, Del.C. § 4105 “In the opening exercises of every free public school each morning, the teachers and pupils assembled shall salute and pledge allegiance to the American flag as follows:”9.Florida, West's F.S.A. § 1003.44 “The pledge of allegiance to the flag shall be recited at the beginning of the day in each public elementary, middle, and high school in the state. Each student shall be informed by posting a notice in a conspicuous place that the student has the right not to participate in reciting the pledge.” *See Frazier ex rel. Frazier v. Winn, C.A.11 (Fla.)2008, 535 F.3d 127910.Georgia, Ga. Code Ann., § 20-2-310 “Each student in the public schools of this state shall be afforded the opportunity to recite the Pledge of Allegiance to the flag of the United States of America during each school day.”11.Idaho, I.C. § 33-1602 “Every public school shall offer the pledge of allegiance or the national anthem in grades one (1) through twelve (12) at the beginning of each school day.”12.Illinois, 105 ILCS 5/27-3 “The Pledge of Allegiance shall be recited each school day by pupils in elementary and secondary educational institutions supported or maintained in whole or in part by public funds.”13.Indiana, IC 20-30-5-0.5 “The governing body of each school corporation shall provide a daily opportunity for students of the school corporation to voluntarily recite the Pledge of Allegiance in each classroom or on school grounds.”14.Kansas, K.S.A. 72-5308. “The state board of education shall prepare for the use of the public schools a program providing for patriotic exercises the board deems to be expedient, under such instructions as may best meet the varied requirements of the different grades in such schools. The program of patriotic observation of every school district shall include: (1) A daily recitation of the pledge of allegiance to the flag of the United States of America”15.Kentucky, KRS § 158.175 “The board of education of each school district shall establish a policy and develop procedures whereby the pupils in each elementary and secondary school may participate in the pledge of allegiance to the flag of the United States at the commencement of each school day.”16.*Louisiana, LSA-R.S. 17:2115 “Each parish and city school board in the state shall also permit the proper authorities of each school to allow the opportunity for group recitation of the "Pledge of Allegiance to the Flag". Such recitation shall occur at the commencement of the first class of each day in all grades and in all public schools.”17.Maine, 20-A M.R.S.A. § 4010 “A school administrative unit shall allow every student enrolled in the school administrative unit the opportunity to recite the Pledge of Allegiance at some point during a school day in which students are required to attend. A school administrative unit may not require a student to recite the Pledge of Allegiance.”18.Maryland, MD Code, Education § 7-105 “Each county board shall: Require all students and teachers in charge to stand and face the flag and while standing give an approved salute and recite in unison the pledge of allegiance as follows: “I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.”… Any student or teacher who wishes to be excused from the requirements of subsection (c)(3) of this section shall be excused.”19.Massachusetts, M.G.L.A. 71 § 69 “Each teacher at the commencement of the first class of each day in all grades in all public schools shall lead the class in a group recitation of the "Pledge of Allegiance to the Flag".”20.Michigan, M.C.L.A. 380.1347a “Beginning with the 2013-2014 school year, the board of a school district or intermediate school district or board of directors of a public school academy shall ensure that an opportunity to recite the pledge of allegiance to the flag of the United States is offered each school day to all public school pupils in each public school it operates.”21.Minnesota, M.S.A. § 121A.11 “All public and charter school students shall recite the Pledge of Allegiance to the flag of the United States of America one or more times each week. school district or charter school that has a student handbook or school policy guide must include a statement that anyone who does not wish to participate in reciting the Pledge of Allegiance for any personal reasons may elect not to do so and that students must respect another person's right to make that choice.”22.Mississippi, Miss. Code Ann. § 37-13-7 “The pledge of allegiance to the Mississippi flag shall be taught in the public schools of this state, along with the pledge of allegiance to the United States flag.”23.Missouri, V.A.M.S. 171.021 “Every school in this state which is supported in whole or in part by public moneys shall ensure that the Pledge of Allegiance to the flag of the United States of America is recited in at least one scheduled class of every pupil enrolled in that school no less often than once per week. No student shall be required to recite the Pledge of Allegiance.”24.Montana, MCA 20-7-133 “Except as provided in subsection (4), the pledge of allegiance to the flag of the United States of America must be recited in all public schools of the state.”25.Nevada, N.R.S. 389.040 “Each public school shall set aside appropriate time at the beginning of each school day for pupils to pledge their allegiance to the flag of the United States.”26.New Hampshire, N.H. Rev. Stat. § 194:15-c “A school district shall authorize a period of time during the school day for the recitation of the pledge of allegiance. Pupil participation in the recitation of the pledge of allegiance shall be voluntary.”27.New Jersey, N.J.S.A. 18A:36-3 “Every board of education shall: Require the pupils in each school in the district on every school day to salute the United States flag and repeat the following pledge of allegiance to the flag.”28.New Mexico, N. M. S. A. 1978, § 22-5-4.5 “Local school boards shall provide that the pledge of allegiance shall be recited daily in each public school in the school district according to regulations adopted by the state board [department].”29.New York, McKinney's Education Law § 802 “It shall be the duty of the commissioner to prepare, for the use of the public schools of the state, a program providing for a salute to the flag and a daily pledge of allegiance to the flag, and instruction in its correct use and display which shall include, as a minimum, specific instruction regarding respect for the flag of the United States of America, its display and use as provided by federal statute and regulation and such other patriotic exercises as may be deemed by him to be expedient, under such regulations and instructions as may best meet the varied requirements of the different grades in such schools.”30.North Carolina, N.C.G.S.A. § 116-69.1 “The school shall (i) display the United States and North Carolina flags in each classroom when available, (ii) require the recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance on a daily basis, and (iii) provide instruction on the meaning and historical origins of the flag and the Pledge of Allegiance.” The school shall not compel any person to stand, salute the flag, or recite the Pledge of Allegiance. If flags are donated or are otherwise available, flags shall be displayed in each classroom.31.*North Dakota, NDCC, 15.1-19-03.1 “A school board may authorize the voluntary recitation of the pledge of allegiance by a teacher or one or more students at the beginning of each schoolday. A student may not be required to recite the pledge of allegiance, stand during the recitation of the pledge of allegiance, or salute the American flag.”32.*Ohio, R.C. § 3313.602 “The board of education of each city, local, exempted village, and joint vocational school district shall adopt a policy specifying whether or not oral recitation of the pledge of allegiance to the flag shall be a part of the school's program and, if so, establishing a time and manner for the recitation.”33.Oklahoma, 70 http://Okl.St.Ann. § 24-106 “Students are authorized to recite, at the beginning of each school day, the pledge of allegiance to the flag of the United States of America as enumerated at 36 U.S.C., Section 172. Each student shall be informed by posting a notice in a conspicuous place that students not wishing to participate in the pledge shall not be required to do so.”34.Oregon HB 3014 (2013)35.Pennsylvania, 24 P.S. § 7-771 “All supervising officers and teachers in charge of public, private or parochial schools shall cause the Flag of the United States of America to be displayed in every classroom during the hours of each school day and shall provide for the recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance or the national anthem at the beginning of each school day” *see Circle Schools v. Pappert, 381 F.3d 172, 173+, 191 Ed. Law Rep. 629, 629+ (3rd Cir.(Pa.) Aug 19, 2004) (NO. 03-3285) regarding private schools36.Rhode Island, Gen.Laws § 16-22-11. “All public schools, commencing with preprimary school through and including high school, shall commence each day with the following pledge: “I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.”…Any person not wishing to participate in the “pledge of allegiance” is exempt from participation and need not participate in the pledge.”37.South Carolina, Code 1976 § 59-1-455 “Beginning with the 1991-92 school year, all public school students, commencing with grades kindergarten through and including high school, shall during the course of each school day's activities at a specific time which must be designated by the local school say the Pledge of Allegiance”38.*South Dakota, SDCL § 13-24-17.2 “The right to recite the pledge of allegiance to the flag of the United States shall not be limited or infringed upon, and the national anthem may be sung during any school day or school event.”39.Tennessee, T. C. A. § 49-6-1001 “Each board of education shall require the daily recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance in each classroom in the school system in which a flag is displayed.”40.Texas, V.T.C.A., Education Code § 25.082 “The board of trustees of each school district and the governing board of each open-enrollment charter school shall require students, once during each school day at each campus , to recite:(1) the pledge of allegiance to the United States flag in accordance with 4 U.S.C. Section 4.”41.Utah, U.C.A. 1953 § 53A-13-101.6 “The pledge of allegiance to the flag shall be recited once at the beginning of each day in each public school classroom in the state, led by a student in the classroom, as assigned by the classroom teacher on a rotating basis.”42.Virginia, VA Code Ann. § 22.1-202 “Each school board shall require the daily recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance in each classroom of the school division and shall ensure that the flag of the United States is in place in each such classroom”43.Washington, West's RCWA 28A.230.140 “The board of directors of every school district shall cause a United States flag being in good condition to be displayed during school hours upon or near every public school plant, except during inclement weather. They shall cause appropriate flag exercises to be held in each classroom at the beginning of the school day, and in every school at the opening of all school assemblies, at which exercises those pupils so desiring shall recite the following salute to the flag: “I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all”. Students not reciting the pledge shall maintain a respectful silence. The salute to the flag or the national anthem shall be rendered immediately preceding interschool events when feasible.”44.West Virginia, W. Va. Code, § 18-5-15b “Every instructional day in the public schools of this state shall be commenced with a pledge of allegiance to the flag of the United States. Pupils who do not wish to participate in this exercise shall be excused from making such pledge.”45.Wisconsin, W.S.A. 118.06 “Every public school shall offer the pledge of allegiance or the national anthem in grades one to 12 each school day. Every private school shall offer the pledge of allegiance or the national anthem in grades one to 12 each school day unless the governing body of the private school determines that the requirement conflicts with the school's religious doctrines. No pupil may be compelled, against the pupil's objections or those of the pupil's parents or guardian, to recite the pledge or to sing the anthem.”