By Lisa Roose-Church
DAILY PRESS & ARGUS
Someone spit on Nicole Albert as she walked the Howell High School hallways dressed in a T-shirt that read "Love who you want to love" in recognition of National Day of Silence.
Students called the then-sophomore a "lesbian," a "fag" and other names because she dared to support the day in which thousands of students nationwide bring attention to anti-lesbian and anti-gay name-calling, bullying and harassment in their schools.
"I think the fact I didn't see who did it made it worse," Albert, now a junior, said. "The person can't even stand up to me and tell me who (he or she) is. I was ashamed, but it also made me more passionate."
Albert, 16, said her peers have also teased her by calling her Annie, after the Broadway musical of the same name, because she has "big, red curly hair." This type of name-calling, she said, was more difficult to handle when she was younger because it would embarrass her.
Now, she said, "No one else has hair like me. I've become comfortable with it."
Almost 30 percent of youth in the United States — more than 5.7 million — are involved in bullying — either as a bully, a target of bullying or both, according to the National Violence Prevention Resource Center.
According to a recent University of Michigan study, heavier kids are more likely to be picked on than normal-weight peers. The study, published in the May edition of Pediatrics, analyzed bullying incidents of 821 children ages 8-11.
Nationwide, the headlines scream about children — some as young as 11 — committing suicide after enduring daily taunts and bullying at school.
Barbara Coloroso, a nationally known anti-bullying consultant, said the face of the bully 20 years ago was a "big, threatening boy" or a small one who got his henchmen to do his bidding. The bully at the time, she said, was low on self-esteem and easy to identify on the playground and in the classroom.
Today's bullies are the star athletes, the brightest students and some of the most highly confident students in the classroom, she said. They are subtle, cunning and sometimes anonymous in today's technological world.
"You can never tell a bully by how he or she looks," said Coloroso, author of "The Bully, the Bullied, and the Bystander: Breaking the Cycle of Violence."
"It's a role they're playing. Most play it to inflate their ego by deflating other human beings," she noted. "There are some bullies who are targeting other kids because they themselves were targeted."
Defining bullying
Bullying is a conscious, willful and deliberately hostile activity intended to harm, Coloroso said.
Bullying can take many forms, such as hitting and/or punching; teasing or name-calling; intimidation using gestures or social exclusion; and sending insulting messages by phone or e-mail.
Physical abuse, taunting, and exclusion of the victim from popular groups and pastimes are some symptoms of bullying in schools — and, sometimes, these incidents rise to the level of criminal charges, such as assault and battery, Coloroso said.
"The one thing that all kids who are bullied have in common is that they have been targeted," she explained. "Each one was singled out to be the object of scorn."
Bullying effects
One of the most tragic effects of bullying is the alarming number of students committing suicide.
In Texas, 13-year-old Jon Carmichael hanged himself in his family's barn March 28, after being bullied by classmates because he was small.
In April 2009, Carl Joseph Walker-Hoover of Massachusetts was 11 when he hanged himself after enduring bullying at school, including daily taunts of being gay. His mother pleaded weekly to the school to address the problem.
One of the most-recent publicized cases is that of Phoebe Prince. The 15-year-old South Hadley, Mass., student killed herself Jan. 14, after months of torment from other students who reportedly resented the girl's romantic involvement with a senior football player at her school. Even in death, her tormentors continued to mock her on Facebook.
Felony charges against six of the teens — two boys and four girls — range from statutory rape to stalking and civil-rights violations. Three other girls were charged as juveniles.
Those students allegedly harassed and bullied Prince by bumping into her, sending her
threatening text messages and calling her "Irish slut" to her face.
South Hadley District Attorney Elizabeth Scheibel said school officials failed to stop it, even though the bullying was "common knowledge" for months. Prince's mother twice complained to school staffers, and some bullying was witnessed by teachers.
The school's inaction, while not criminal, was "troubling," she said.
Lynn Parrish, interim superintendent for Howell Public Schools, said the district addresses bullying through an anti-bullying curriculum that begins in elementary school. She said the district's teachers and administration immediately address any bullying in the school with discipline that includes suspension to expulsion.
"It's a particularly cruel phenomenon in our culture today," she said.
To stop bullying, Parrish said, "will take a firm response from the adults on the spot, whether it's the adult of the bully, the parent of the bully or the teacher of the bully."
Stopping bullying
Coloroso said one of the biggest mistakes teachers and school administrators make is failing to stop the bullying. To stop it, there needs to be a "constant vigilance against cruelty," she said.
Cruelty can include what some have traditionally classified as "teasing" — for example, when one person calls another a name, such as idiot, dork or nerd.
"Bullies are dehumanizing the target; that's why verbal bullying has to be stopped in its track," Coloroso said. "The boys-will-be-boys mentality is a myth. We have to debunk that myth. Why is it OK for kids to be mean? It's not."
Teasing, she said, is something two friends do.
Taunting is what bullies do.
Teasing is two-sided and light-hearted comments, while taunting is one-sided and continuous.
Bullies will stop their behavior when they are held accountable for their actions, Coloroso said.
To do that, Coloroso suggested what she calls the three P's for schools: policy, procedures and programs.
Schools nationwide need to have strong anti-bullying policies and procedures in place that both protect the target and hold the perpetrators accountable for their bullying behavior, she said.
Michigan is one of nine states without an anti-bullying law.
For years, the Michigan Legislature has rejected bills that were designed to better protect students from harassment, but in April, the Democrat-led House Education Committee approved legislation that would require the state's schools to adopt such policies.
The legislation aimed at protecting students from harassment next goes to the full House for a vote on the floor. Supporters said the pending bills have been altered and have a better chance at passage this year.
Anti-bullying advocates also noted that schools need programs in place that teach students how to stand up for themselves and that teach a simple lesson: "No more, not here, never" to being mean and cruel.
"We need to change the script," Coloroso said. "We can hold bullies accountable. We need to let the targets know they don't have to succumb to a bully. We keep them safe and teach them how to stand up."
USA Today reporter Rick Hampson and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Contact Daily Press & Argus reporter Lisa Roose-Church at (517) 552-2846 or atlrchurch@gannett.com.
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