1. “Bullies” 1
by
Nancy Knight
zxg
Bullies
1. Innocence and Ignorance
One day in the spring of 2001, I was sitting at my computer desk. I stared
at the sheets of paper scattered in front of me. A ribbon of letters and
punctuation marks stretched like a banner across the top of each page:
http://us.geocities.yahoo.com//gb/view?member=daveknightisgay. I knew
the last four words, daveknightisgay, were a lie meant to humiliate him. The
insult could have been just another childish prank—except that it was a
website, available for the whole world to see.
There was a photograph of my son, David, at fifteen years old, on the
first page. He was wearing a baseball cap. I turned to the next page. “Tell
your friends what you think of Dave Knight!” it said. I glanced over the lines
of text that pretended to introduce each contributor: J, Maveric, FU, Cpt.
David Knight, ur mother, and dogg. The name of the school my children had
been attending was printed above each entry: Pearson. I started to read
those comments one more time, courting the pain they caused; as if with
the suffering, I could purge myself of the guilt of inadequacy. I am his
mother. I couldn’t protect him. Am I a failure?
***
"dirty fagget get somes friends and then take a shower and get ur
mother some glasses"; "stop using date rape on little boyz and then takin
them in the back of ur car. your dirt and so is ur sister..."; "dave is the
biggest fucked up fag i have ever met! his mom was on something bad when
she had him. U think ur so tough dave but ur not ur a flaming homo"; "Why

2. “Bullies” 2
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Nancy Knight
don*t you get a real car...how come your mom doesn*t drive? Oh yea she is
blind. Hahahahahah"; "FAG!!! cum guzzling queer"; "dave ur such a fag, its
unbelievable fuck...ur a ugly gay loser who has no life/friends...u rev ur
engine and look really gay, o well i gess some ppl never learn (ie. dave
knight) u fuckin f"; "come rape me daviD"
***
I had been trying to get it stopped for months. David and my husband,
Michael, had tried to help. Months went by. I finally turned to the internet
and searched for words like internet abuse and harassment. I spent days
looking for defamation cases. A dog breeder had successfully sued someone
for posting lies on the internet about the quality of her puppies.
Eventually, I found an article about a large corporation based in
Chicago, which had successfully sued several former employees who had
slandered some of its executives online. I phoned the company’s office in
Canada, and then their legal department in Chicago. Their lawyer referred
me to the law firm that had handled their case.
I finished reading those hate filled words. Then, I picked up the phone.
In an instant, I was speaking to a lawyer. “I need your help. There’s a
website about my son. The service provider won’t take it down. The police
and the school haven’t helped.”
“Could you send the website address to me?” he asked.
“Um, I’m not sure. It’s just that it’s not very nice. It’s horrible
actually.”
“That’s ok,” he reassured, “I don’t mind. I need to know exactly what
we’re discussing here.” I went to my computer. “Ok, I’ve got it,” he emailed
back. Then, we were talking on the phone again. “Could I speak to David,
please?”
I called David and handed the telephone to him. A moment later, he
hung up and turned to me. He began twisting his upper lip with his thumb
and forefinger, the way he always did when he was nervous or afraid. He
was looking at me, waiting for some sign of possible trouble. “Mom, he
wants me to write about all the stuff that happened.”
“I know, David. You can do it,” I said. He had been bullied for eight
years. Where could he possibly begin? I wondered.

3. “Bullies” 3
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Nancy Knight
David got started right away. He sat at his computer for hours that
evening and wrote out a history of constant psychological and physical
torment. He emailed several pages of hurt and despair to Mr. Arthur: “I
have tried hard to think of specific examples and events of this abuse. I can
remember the phrases and words used against me, but they have occurred
so frequently that I have trouble remembering specific instances. By
frequently, I mean on an almost daily basis. Sometimes, maybe three, four,
or five times per day.”
We scheduled a meeting with Mr. Arthur and the following Friday
Michael and I drove from our home in Kilbride, Ontario, to the lawyer’s office
in Hamilton, about thirty kilometres away. We parked in a parking lot near
the red brick building, a renovated remnant of the city’s past near the
downtown core. I grew up in Hamilton and throughout my childhood, I was
careful to avoid that neighbourhood of worn out commercial and light
industrial buildings. That day, they looked upmarket with recently sand-
blasted exteriors and a strikingly modern glassed atrium.
We took the elevator to the third floor where Mr. Arthur greeted us. His
expression showed a slight disappointment. “Where’s David?” he asked.
“We’d like to meet with you first, before we bring David in,” I answered.
He must surely understand that we’d be sheltering our son, I thought.
He introduced us to Courtney, the young, vibrant lawyer who would be
handling our case. They led us into a large meeting room. It took us more
than two hours to explain what our lives had been like.
“David has been picked on at school for years and now there’s this
website. The emotional and physical abuse has been getting worse over
time. The impact on our family has been unbearable.
“David has stomach aches and headaches. He often doesn’t sleep at
night. Michael and I have been losing sleep, too. We’ve all missed a lot of
dinners. It’s been difficult to make social plans when we never know when
our children will come home hurt or when the house will be vandalized.
Michael and I have been arguing about all this. We’re suffering financially,
too.” I paused.
“I work in the information technology industry. I get paid by the hour.
There’ve been meetings at the school and I’ve had to take the kids to the
hospital a couple of times this year,” Michael added.
I began again. “Our daughter, Katie, has really had a hard time, too.
She was picked on because she’s David’s sister. We had to take Katie out of
school. She hadn’t finished all of her grade ten credits but she started

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Nancy Knight
acting out and we were worried she’d get into more trouble than she’d
already been getting into.
“David’s grades are suffering, too, and the stakes are high. He wants to
get into the Royal Military College and the Canadian Air Force. He wants to
fly F18 Hornets but he thinks he’ll be lucky if he makes it into a community
college. He’s been injured so many times over the years. The school
probably can’t stop it even if they finally did try. It’s so severe and so
generalized now. He’s already been assaulted several times this year.”
The following week, we were back in the lawyer’s office with David. In
yet another brightly lit room, the two lawyers patiently explained several
parts of Canadian legislation. One section in the Criminal Code of Canada
addressed the “duty of care” that requires those with whom we entrust our
children to act as a prudent and just parent would. “There’s a lot happening
right now with regards to bullying, and this website is definitely libellous,”
Mr. Arthur said.
I didn’t know anything about bullying. I had only a vague notion of
what the word meant. There had been a lot of mean kids in Hamilton while I
was growing up there in the 1950’s and 60’s. I’d even been picked on. But
the only bullies I thought I knew were cartoon characters. Even as an adult,
I thought youth violence was something that happened in big American
cities, not in Canada.
The conversation quickly moved on. Mr. Arthur asked us what we
wanted to accomplish. “Vindication for David,” said Michael, “He’s a good
kid and he didn’t deserve the treatment he got.”
“I want to make sure it never happens to any other kid,” David said.
“Correcting the systemic failings that allowed this to happen,” the
lawyers reworded David’s request into legal jargon.
“An apology, too,” we all agreed.
“How will we get their attention? They’ll think it’s just another lawsuit,
but, though money’s not important, if we ask for a lot of it, they’ll certainly
pay attention,” I volunteered.
As we walked back to the parking lot, I considered the seriousness of
what lay ahead. This is going to cost a lot of money, I thought. It was also
going to change our lives.

5. “Bullies” 5
by
Nancy Knight
During the next few weeks, we struggled to remember and document
details of every incident of harassment and every assault, every meeting,
letter and phone call to school administrators and staff, police and
government. We went to the big drawer in the study and the cardboard
storage boxes in the basement to get the report cards, the notes, the police
reports and all the victim impact statements we’d given to them. Over the
next few days, we told Courtney everything that had happened to us and
answered her many questions.
Courtney sent us the first draft of the statement of claim at the
beginning of the holiday weekend. We searched through all of our notes
again. We relived our memories of each incident, confirmed the times and
places, and made sure even the smallest detail was correct.
Later, Courtney asked David and Katie to write about their memories.
Michael and I wrote our stories in heart breaking detail in chronologies that
were dozens of pages long. As time went on, we kept adding to the pages
as our memories came flooding back.
***
Six years later, I gathered all of this together with hundreds of pages of
court documents. It’s all spread out on the floor of the small study in our
Toronto apartment. The legal documents are sorted into coiled binders with
legal titles printed on their front pages like Statement of Defence, Affidavit
of Documents, and Request to Admit. Within those documents, there are
the board of education policies and procedures, and the notes of school
administrators and the superintendent.
We had learned a lot during those years when our children attended
public school about how local boards of education function. They have a
responsibility to interpret and implement the provincial Education Act that
affects our children and their education. Criminal law, provincial law, privacy
law, and even municipal bylaws, individually and together, impact what
happens in schools.
I’ve spent years, organizing and combining all of this information into a
narrative about the day to day lives of our children at school. As I worked, I
was often overwhelmed by the magnitude of the violence and suffering my

6. “Bullies” 6
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Nancy Knight
children had been experiencing everyday at school. I’ve been driven to
complete this task by the knowledge that thousands of children are going
through what my children experienced—every, single day.
How naive Michael and I had been. As parents, we plodded on. We
tried to support and protect David and Katie by working co-operatively
within the system, only to find that the system: school, community, and law
enforcement, could not or would not help us.
Over time, the bullying became more frightening. Trying to get it
stopped became more frustrating. Year after year, in an escalating cycle of
abuse, our children suffered. We gathered strength and courage. We
became more assertive and involved. But those who could make a
difference chose to look the other way.
By the time we withdrew first our daughter, and then our son, from
high school in 2002, I had asked at least seven teachers, eight school
counsellors and school staff, three vice-principals, four principals, two
superintendents, two board of education staff, four parents of some of the
bullies, one director of education, one ministry of education employee, one
trustee, the privacy commissioner’s office, and several police officers, to
help. They all knew our children were being bullied. I know they knew
because I told them in person, phoned them, or wrote letters or emails.
Eventually I realized that the school principals were the ones who could have
made things happen, but didn’t.
Over the next many years, I read everything I could about bullying,
youth violence, and teenage suicide. [ I learned even more at the national
conferences on bullying held in Ottawa and presented by Child and Youth
Friendly Ottawa (CAYFO). There, experts from all over the world shared
their knowledge of this tragic subject. ]
I wanted to understand what words like bully, victim, bullying and
cyber-bullying mean. I looked up some definitions [in the AskOxford English
Dictionary on the internet. I had some fun looking up the word bully and
was surprised and amused to find that the word bully was once a term of
endearment. It probably originated from the Dutch word boele (bull as in
male cow). I like this use of the word in a piece of old English literature
titled: Thre Lawes published in 1538: Though she be sumwhat olde, it is
myne owne swete bullye. Later on in the 1500’s, the meaning of the word
took a drastic turn and a bully became: ]

7. “Bullies” 7
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Nancy Knight
“A tyrannical coward who makes himself a terror to the weak, a person who
deliberately intimidates or persecutes those who are weaker,” one entry
read.
[ All too often, bullies and victims are our own sweet and precious
children. Though all children instinctively seek acceptance, approval, and
love, bullies are children who have learned inappropriate ways to gain what
they think is the attention they so desperately need.
Bullies fail to learn appropriate negotiating and leadership skills. Yet
these are children who could otherwise become good leaders. If left
unchecked, bullying evolves over time. I witnessed this from the misdeeds
of youthful urchins to the intimidating and threatening battles for power of
teenagers and adults. Bullies often get into trouble with the law. Little
bullies become big bullies in the workplace and at home with their own
partners and children. Thus the bullying cycle begins again.
Victims are the unfortunate children who happen to be in the bully’s
path when the bully decides to find a target. Victims are usually isolated. In
the long term, they may suffer from low self-esteem. They may be
convinced that they somehow deserve to be bullied. They’re ashamed and
humiliated by it. They often have trouble trusting other people. Victims
usually don’t want to talk about the bullying. That’s why our daughter Katie
wouldn’t tell us what was happening to her. It was years before she
gathered the strength she needed to realize that she didn’t deserve to be
bullied and it wasn’t her fault.
Bullies and victims are not the only children who are affected by
bullying. Barbara Coldoroso, in her book: “The Bully, the Bullied and the
Bystander,” (Harper Collins, 2002) introduces us to the great multitudes of
children who are also affected by bullying. These are the children who are
forced to witness this abuse day after day. As Ms Coldoroso wrote in her
book and I observed at my children’s elementary school, bystanders learn
that bullying behaviour is acceptable if there are never any consequences for
it. They lose their natural empathy for the victim and come to believe that
some people just deserve to be bullied. They see that bullying is a way to
gain power and that the bully always wins. They become the bully’s
admiring audience, they may align themselves with the bully (and help with
the bullying), or they may become bullies themselves--because they don’t
want to become victims. After all, which one of these characters would you
rather be--the bully, the victim or the bystander?
So what is bullying? ] To me, bullying is what happens when someone
who is physically, intellectually, or socially more powerful hurts or denigrates
someone who is weaker. Bullying is not an argument between friends. It’s

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Nancy Knight
not an impulsive push or shove or even a punch, though it could be any one
or all of these things.
Bullying is a deliberate and determined plan of attack meant to lower
someone else’s status within the group while raising the prestige of the
bully. That’s why bullying almost always takes place in front of an audience
or for an audience. The bully very rarely bullies when he or she is alone.
[ In the twenty first century we have cyber-bullying. That’s a futuristic
word meaning the use of communications technology, like a computer or a
cell phone, to bully others. The psychological torment can invade the
privacy of your home and enter into every moment of your children’s lives.
You may never know it is happening. ]
Should we accept or even excuse a bully’s behaviour? I don’t believe
that would be the kind thing to do. Teaching our children appropriate ways
to build healthy relationships and modelling that behaviour for them is the
responsibility of adults. Firm, deliberate, and yet compassionate
consequences for behaviour that hurts others, are essential. This takes
commitment from parents or educators or society. Someone must do this
work. There is no other choice. Our children are paying a very high price as
this violence is allowed to continue. They are hurting themselves and each
other. The cost to society, in terms of lost potential and even the lives of
our young people, is too great.

9. “Bullies” 9
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Nancy Knight
2. The Early Days
Early on, Mr. MacIntyre, David’s grade one teacher at the privately-owned
Montessori school, asked us to meet with him. He was having difficulty with
David’s behaviour. “But if I had to choose someone to accompany me on a
long, difficult journey, it would be David,” he told us.
Katie was attending that Montessori school, too. Both children had
attended the school since they were three years old. For the majority of
those early years, Katie had been in a separate class from David’s.
Two years later, Katie, then seven years old, had been in the same
class as David for two years. She was doing fine and keeping up with her
grade two work. David was eight and in grade three. He was behind
academically and his behaviour was still a problem, Mr. MacIntyre, who was
still David’s teacher, told us. He suggested we take David to a tutoring
agency. But after we enrolled David, the owner of the Montessori school,
Mrs. Taylor, called me every week for a month. “We don’t need their help,”
she said. So we stopped taking David to the agency.
Within days, the owner of that tutoring agency sent us a note:
“David’s needs should be addressed in a determined way,” it said.
“I’m sure the Montessori teachers and Mrs. Taylor, as the owner and
administrator of the school, will take care of David,” I told Michael.
The following year, Mrs. Taylor, hired a new teacher for David’s grade
four class. There were no more holes in David’s turtleneck shirts. For years,
I had imagined that he’d been pulling on them and I hadn’t mentioned the
holes until then. “Good work, David, you’ve stopped pulling at your shirts.
Look, they don’t have holes in them anymore!”
“Mr. MacIntyre pulled my shirts. He dragged me out of reading circle.
He made the holes,” David looked down at his feet and shuffled a bit.
“Honey, why did he do that?” I asked, hoping to hide my shock. Mr.
MacIntyre had been David’s teacher for three years and for that entire time,
there had been holes in the shirts.
“I couldn’t sit still, Mom.”
“How often did that happen?”

10. “Bullies” 10
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Nancy Knight
“Always,” he said.
A month later, David told me he’d cut Darren’s hair with a pair of
scissors. Darren had been in David’s class since they were three years old.
“Darren wanted me to. He said it was funny,” David grinned.
When I phoned the administrator’s office, Mrs. Taylor told me not to
worry, “The teacher is perfectly capable of handling the class,” she said.
Soon after that, David told me he’d knocked over the room divider that
separated the work area from the reading circle. He stood up too quickly, he
said, and lost his balance. “What did the teacher do?” I asked.
“She grabbed my shoulder and took me out of the room,” he said. He
looked down at his feet again. There was a nervous tightening in my
stomach. When I spoke to Mrs. Taylor again, she said not to worry.
Soon after, we went in to see the teacher, Miss Gregory. “He’s a very
active boy,” she told us. “We need to nip this in the bud.”
Nip what in the bud? I wondered. At home, David was a great kid to
have around. He was happy, funny, and loveable. But I began to notice
things. He was more active whenever the house was filled with company.
He often did things without thinking first: he’d rush across the kitchen with
an open carton of milk in his hands and trip over his feet, sending the milk
splattering across the floor. Then, he’d carefully help to wipe it up.
I tried calling different organizations, hoping to find answers to David’s
busyness. The Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto transferred me to their
paediatric psychiatry department. “Tell your son you love him every day,”
the lady at the hospital instructed. “Tell him he’s a good little boy every
chance you get. Make sure you find something for him to do, something he
can do well, at least once a day. He’s a good boy.”
That was easy. David could build intricate models with Lego bricks.
He could draw precise pictures of airplanes, boats, and cars. But there was
also chaos. When he wasn’t playing at something he really liked, or
watching television, David was a bundle of energy—and a whirlwind of
accidents. And things weren’t getting any better at school.
I went to the phone book again. Soon, Mr. Sanders, a children’s
therapist, was sitting in our living room. David came into the room and
interrupted our conversation three times. I didn’t think of his behaviour as
disruptive but Mr. Sanders noticed. “He might be hyperactive. Let me test
him.”
Mr. Sanders spent many evenings assessing David. Months later,
Michael, David and I were at the paediatrician’s office discussing the
therapist’s reports with her. “I’ve been thinking long and hard about this,” I
told the doctor. “David’s my son and I love him, but other people find it

11. “Bullies” 11
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difficult to deal with such an active child. His behaviour is isolating him from
his peers. He’s in the middle of a game of Hide and Seek, he’s It, and he
gets distracted and just walks away, comes home and starts playing by
himself. He leaves all the kids waiting for him, still hiding in the bushes and
behind trees. They get furious. I think we need to help him.”
“Do you want to try this, David?” the paediatrician asked him after we
had discussed available medications.
“Ok,” he said. “I want to be good.”
The doctor prescribed a small, twice a day, dose of Ritalin for him.
Ritalin is an amphetamine. For most of us, it would affect us like we’d had
several cups of coffee. For a hyper-active child, the results are different.
Later in the day, we were all in the kitchen at home. We asked David
when he would like to try taking one of the pills.
“I’m ok with right now,” he said, sticking his hand out for one of the
tiny pills and reaching for the glass of water we had ready. We started
talking again. As usual, David carried the whole conversation. He was
talking quickly, trying to get as much detail about the latest airplane he’d
been reading about into as short a time period as possible. Before David
had said six sentences we became transfixed, not on what he was saying,
but on how he was saying it. His speech slowed; his sentences became
more logical and concise; he looked more relaxed.
“I feel like my brain is in a box!” he told us later with a huge smile.
The Ritalin slowed his impulses and gave him a chance to think about
what he was about to do and the potential consequences, instead of doing
something as soon as it entered his mind. Mr. Sanders worked with David
for a few months. He prepared a classroom intervention strategy for Miss
Gregory to use in the Montessori classroom. Soon, she started telling me
she’d noticed a wonderful improvement in the classroom.
But weeks later, Mrs. Taylor started calling me again. “Mrs. Knight,
we really don’t need the therapist. David chooses to misbehave. We can
handle it by ourselves.” She called me once a week for several weeks and I
was getting more agitated with each call. Why is she always trying to stop
me from helping David? I wondered. Is it the reputation of her school she’s
worried about, or my child?
The next evening, I phoned Michael who was working in Ottawa
Monday to Friday. “Mrs. Taylor keeps resisting. The therapist says she’s
giving him a hard time, too. Can you talk to her?”
“Nancy, I can’t phone her from work and talk about David in front of
everyone here.” I slammed the phone into its cradle.

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That’s when I started having trouble with my stomach. It just started
to churn and heave. Whenever I got nervous or upset the cramps came.
They pounded downwards with such fury and without warning. “I can’t go
anywhere without checking for washrooms,” I told Michael.
“Mom,” David said, “you just have to take Imodiums.”
“What are they?” I asked.
“They’re stuff you take when you have cramps or diarrhoea.” My
children had been watching more television, and more commercials, than I
had. With Michael away so much, and because I’ve had low vision for years,
I rarely had time to watch television and I never read magazines or
newspapers.
Mr. Sanders, when he came to the house to counsel David, started
suggesting I transfer both David and Katie to public school. Then, Mrs.
Taylor called me for yet another weekly conversation about not needing a
therapist. I didn’t believe her anymore. “Mrs. Taylor, send David and Katie
home. I’m taking them out of your school,” I told the administrator.
“Let me talk to Mr. Knight,” she demanded.
“He’s not available. I’m their mother. Send them home.”
“David’s a fine young boy, with concerns about his own behaviour,”
Mr. Sanders wrote in his last report. He also wrote about David’s three
requests: David wished that his behaviour would improve, he didn’t want to
be bad anymore, and he wanted to get to his work.
That summer, we took David to a psychologist. “Please test him. We
want to know where he is academically and what we have to deal with.”
“He’ll need lots of help to catch up,” she said after the tests were
done.
“That’s ok. That’s our job,” I told her.
By the time David entered public school, he was a well-behaved and
intelligent ten year old, who had already determined his own future. “I want
to fly airplanes,” he told us.
“You have to work really hard at school,” we said.
“I will!” he answered.

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Nancy Knight
3. New Beginnings
Soon after my last conversation with Mrs. Taylor, I called the local public
school and asked for a meeting with the principal. Mr. Hampton sat behind
his desk and observed me through his wire-rimmed glasses. His suit was
immaculately tailored, a dark blue pin-stripe, crisp white shirt, navy tie with
touches of powder blue and daring red. I felt awkward in my faded but
freshly laundered summer blouse and my cotton-twill skirt. I wished that I’d
had a chance in the last month or two to get my hair styled, but with all that
housework, laundry and the spring gardening to do, I kept putting it off.
“Well now, Mrs. Knight,” the principal said, “tell me about your
children. Nothing anecdotal though, please.” I watched his lips moving
somewhere in the midst of his thick, brown moustache and his full beard.
I held my breath for a moment and tried to think quickly. But I
couldn’t remember, or possibly never did know, what the word “anecdotal”
meant. I’d been a stay at home mom for nine years. I knew how to make
cookies and edible play dough, peanut butter flavoured. But I didn’t know
what that word meant. So I guessed.
“Well, my son is a sensitive boy. He cries easily when he’s upset. His
face gets red when he’s embarrassed but he’s not afraid to express an
opinion if he knows he’s right. He never gets angry at anything. David’s
very smart. We’ve had him tested by a psychologist and his scores show
he’s far above average. He’s a little impulsive for a nine year old, but he’s
taking medication for his attention problems and he’s made great
improvements with the counselling that he’s had. We’re really hoping he
can have a fresh start here at Kilbride.”
“Thank you, Mrs. Knight. That’s very enlightening, and your
daughter?”
“Oh, Katie, she’s so quiet and shy, not outgoing at all. But she’s
friendly if approached kindly. She has the most beautiful brown eyes and
when she smiles, well her smile lights up her whole face.” I was feeling
more comfortable, gesturing and smiling--a proud mom fluttering like a
productive hen. “She’s very smart too. She likes working on her own and
she’s really very organized. Her room is always tidy. Unusual for a girl only
eight years old, don’t you think?”
The principal stood up. “Please bring your children here next week so
they will have two weeks to familiarize themselves with this school before
summer break,” he said and gestured towards the door. “Make sure you
meet with David’s teacher early in the school year,” he said.

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A few days later, I walked over to Kilbride School with David and
Katie. I was filled with doubt. Am I making the right choices for my kids? I
wondered.
When we reached the main road, the crossing guard greeted us with a
huge smile. He gave a deep bow as he removed his cap—to reveal a
completely bald head! We all laughed politely. Any worries I had were
gone. David and Katie started talking about their new school. “It even has
a real gymnasium,” David said.
Katie was placed in grade four. Marina, her friend from the Montessori
school, was also starting out at Kilbride School and was in the same class.
Their new teacher was a lovely young woman with a bright disposition. She
was a perfect teacher for a shy, quiet girl like Katie.
After a holiday from Ritalin during the summer, David started taking
one pill in the morning and another at lunch. He said the medication was
helping him concentrate. Then David told me that his new teacher, Mr.
Barnett, yelled at him to pay attention and to do his work. David said that
he had felt embarrassed and cried. “Don’t worry David, we’ll have a
meeting with Mr. Barnett and explain why you might have trouble paying
attention, but you have to try hard to do your work,” I told him that day.
Within days, Michael and I met with David’s teacher. Mr. Barnett was
a young teacher—one of the best in the school, another mom told me later.
The three of us discussed the difficulties David would have because of his
ADHD and the classroom strategies Mr. Sanders had suggested. Though I
quickly realized that the teacher hadn’t read the information I’d given the
principal to put into David’s file, I knew that Mr. Barnett understood what lay
ahead. After our meeting, he helped David to focus by casually mentioning
a fact or idea to David directly or asking him a question.
He told us that David was making friends with two boys in the class.
Not surprising, I thought. David had a bright mind, an entertaining sense of
humour, a great reservoir of general knowledge, and an eagerness to share
this information with others. It was no surprise to me that his new friends,
Stanley and Aaron, were two of the smartest kids in his grade five class. I
thought that was just wonderful. What I didn’t understand, however, was
how the other children, who had been raised in the casualness of the small
hamlet and on the nearby farms, would react to David.
There would be academic challenges, too. David was behind. Mr.
Barnett suggested we ask the vice-principal to flag David’s file so that he
could get extra resource help. I phoned the school and arranged a meeting
for the end of the following week.

15. “Bullies” 15
by
Nancy Knight
Meanwhile, at home, I started to help David catch up. It was hard.
My vision hadn’t been good those last five years, but with some help from a
few workbooks, multiplication tables printed on the back of the suppertime
placemats, and a little creativity with pieces of macaroni to demonstrate long
division, David made progress.
Early that week, Katie told me that some of the boys had been calling
her names. A few days later, I asked her if the boys were still bothering
her. “No Mom, they stopped,” she looked at me as if she was the mightiest
girl in the world.
“Why do you think that is, Katie?” I inquired.
“I told Mrs. Patterson when she was helping me in the resource room
and she talked to them about it.” Mrs. Patterson, one of the school’s
resource teachers, had been giving Katie extra help with multiplication.
A day after Katie told me about that, I asked David and Katie about
the grass stains. I had first noticed the green patches on their clothing in
early fall, but because the play area behind the school was a grassy field, I
wasn’t worried at first. But David and Katie told me that some of the older
boys were pushing them. I phoned Mrs. Patterson and asked her to take
care of it. She had been able to stop the boys from hurting Katie so I
thought she would do something right away. But David was not as lucky.
I started to ask him about what had been happening at school.
He told me that weeks before, he had seen one of the older grade six
students assaulting a young child who was too small to fight back. “Pick on
somebody your own size,” David had called out to the bigger boy. The older
boy immediately left the younger child alone and turned his attention to
David. The bully and his friends soon discovered that Katie was David’s
sister and started pushing her, too.
“Who are these kids?” I asked David. But I realized that, because my
children were new to the school, they hadn’t learned the names of many of
the children, especially the older mischief makers.
I was getting worried as David continued to come home after school
with bad news, but I wasn’t sure what I should do to help. I decided to wait
for our meeting with the vice-principal, and to give David a chance to
resolve the problem in his own way. But while we were waiting, David’s
problems got worse.
“I was in the washroom,” he told me one day after school. “I finished
going and that kid who keeps pushing me was near the sinks. I asked him
how you use the towel.” I had seen the metal towel machines that were
hung on the walls in each of the school’s washrooms. Their continuous
lengths of white linen curled below each one. “Then the kid pulls the towel

16. “Bullies” 16
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Nancy Knight
all out of the box. There was a whole bunch of it on the floor. The kid
wraps it around and around his legs, all around his waist, and over his
shoulders. He put it over his head and his neck, too,” David twirled and
made circles around his body with his hands. “He was laughing,” David
added. Then his brow furrowed. He frowned. “Mrs. Patterson came in.”
“Who is this kid?” I asked David, not expecting an answer.
“His name’s Stewart Martin,” David told me. He lowered his voice in a
tone of authority. “Mrs. Patterson says, ‘Get right down to the office Stewart
Martin!’” David illustrated by pointing and shaking his finger at an imaginary
Stewart Martin. But David’s fingers reached for his upper lip and started
pulling at it. “That kid Stewart, he said, ‘I’ll get you for this.’ He’s a pretty
big guy, Mom. Why does he want to get me?”
“Some people like to blame others, because they don’t want to take
responsibility for their own behaviour,” I said. What sort of child could
Stewart Martin be? I asked myself.
I set David to work on his handwriting at the kitchen table while I
sipped a cup of tea. I imagined Mrs. Patterson, the resource teacher who
had helped Katie, and who I had spoken to about the playground assaults,
must have been working in the resource room just across from the boys’
washroom. She must have heard the laughter and rushed inside.
I started to find out more about Stewart Martin without even trying.
Rumours about him had been circulating around our community. It wasn’t
long before one of the townspeople told me one of them.
At the age of eight, Stewart walked into the small variety store that
served the tiny hamlet, pointed a pellet gun at the owner and demanded all
the money in the cash register. The owner promptly went to the phone and
called the community police officer. Stewart was taken home to his parents.
I needed only the rumours to understand that my son had somehow
attracted the attention of a troubled young man. I knew there was danger
but I had no way of knowing what to do about it. Thank goodness our
meeting with the vice-principal is in a few days, I thought. I’ll mention it to
her then.
Michael and I had that meeting with Barbara Mackenzie, the vice-
principal. We talked about the psychologist’s reports and asked her to flag
David’s file. We told her about the assaults and taunting on the playground,
too.
Mrs. Mackenzie wouldn’t agree to flag David’s file. She didn’t seem
too concerned about the playground assaults either. She wanted to see if
things would improve as David continued to take his medication, she told us.
But days later, there was another problem.

17. “Bullies” 17
by
Nancy Knight
Kilbride Public School is set back from the hamlet’s main road by an
acre of grass field. A residential street runs out from the front of the school
past several ancient maples that edge the field. The street crosses the main
road and continues south.
Jerry Woolcott, who was one of Stewart Martin’s closest friends, lived
on that street. He had already participated in much of the playground
bullying. David was by then the main target.
That afternoon, Jerry waited on the driveway, at the far side of his
house, hidden from David’s view. When David passed by, Jerry jumped onto
his miniature, but very real, motorcycle, revved up the engine, and sped
towards David. He came within six inches of David’s heels and chased him
all the way home. By the time David bolted into the house and slammed the
door behind him, he was gasping for breath.
As soon as he could explain what had happened, I phoned Barbara
Mackenzie. “He’s terrified,” I told the vice-principal after I explained what
had happened.
“I’ll look into it,” she said.
“It’s ok now, David. Mrs. Mackenzie’s going to look into it,” I told him.
But then the problems with Christine began.
Christine was taunting David on the way home. At first, I wondered if
he was bringing any of the trouble upon himself. I started walking over to
the school. Every day, as I got closer, I heard Christine’s strong, projecting
voice repeating David’s name again and again. What I heard was not gentle
teasing.
“Just ignore it,” I told David. But telling a ten year old boy to ignore
relentless taunts, when the embarrassment was obvious on his crimson-red
cheeks, was futile. By Christmas, the strain was frozen onto David’s face
every time he came into the house. Katie stopped walking home with him.
“I’ll take care of it,” Barbara Mackenzie said when I phoned her. But
Christine didn’t stop.
Things weren’t getting any better at the school either. Aaron and
Stanley, David’s new friends, were away at special enrichment classes two
days a week. That’s when David was alone. And that’s when Stewart Martin
and his friends bullied David the most.
“What are they calling you?” I asked David.
“They say things like fag, mother fucker, homo, loser...”
“Ok that’s enough.” Those were words that David had never heard
before, but they were quickly becoming a part of his everyday school
experience. The boys were starting to punch and kick him, too.

18. “Bullies” 18
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Nancy Knight
Years later, we found notes that David had written about the winter
days after there had been a snowfall: “…In the cold weather, when all of the
kids are wearing heavier clothing, they seem to think it’s safe to be more
physical. I would open the door to go outside for recess, and someone
would be waiting with a snowball or a fist to hit me with. It seemed that
every day of my life was both a physical and mental struggle just to get
through the day without cuts and scratches.”
My sense of what kind of parent I could be was quickly diminished by
the pain my children were experiencing and my inability to get it stopped.
Fearing that I was being regarded as just another worried mother, though I
was trying hard to maintain a professional relationship with the school, I
asked Michael to get involved. Michael and I started arguing fiercely about
this and the tension between us worsened. I began to wonder about
whether or not I was expecting too much of the school. Is that what school
is like these days? I asked myself. My school days were never like that. I
just could not imagine a school allowing such aggression to continue.
Just before that Christmas, I walked up to the school. Pat Hunter was
coming out of the building after her lunch hour duties as a playground
supervisor. “What’s going on and why is David getting picked on so much?”
I asked. I was hoping to get more information from her than I had been
getting from everyone else.
“It’s not a nice lunch,” she said. Frustration and anger seem to
surround her, I thought.

19. “Bullies” 19
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Nancy Knight
4. Little Weapons
When I heard the back door open and close, and the shuffling and banging
as they tossed their boots and coats onto the big wooden box in the back
hall, I’d know my children were home. I could only hope that my
exaggerated cheerfulness, when they came into the kitchen, could hide the
dread that I felt. What happened today? I’d wonder.
Katie always went right for the warm cinnamon loaf or the bite-size
peanut butter cookies in the wicker baskets on the counter. Increasingly,
without saying a word, she’d go up the stairs to her room. David usually
stood silently at the open refrigerator, looking for juice or chocolate milk.
Often, as he started to settle in, I’d notice a quick change in his posture, a
tightening across his shoulders, and a snap in his voice as he told me what
had happened that day. These after-school rituals became a constant
throughout the years the children attended public school. I became
accustomed to the daily outpourings of torment.
That winter, David came into the kitchen after school and, avoiding the
refrigerator, he walked right to me. I was standing at the kitchen sink. He
carefully placed a shiny, steel blade on the counter beside me.
“What’s that?” I asked softly.
“It’s a comb,” he said. He was studying my face, staring right into my
eyes. I knew there was more to come because my stomach started to
squeeze. I waited. There was a little tremor in his voice when he said the
words, “A kid showed it to me.”
“He showed it to you?”
“Yea he showed it to me. It was really scary. Then he went away.
But he dropped it so I ran and got it. He didn’t see me. I put it in my
pocket really fast.”
“It sounds like the boy may have threatened you with it,” I said.
“Yea, I think he threatened me.”
I looked carefully at the knife-comb. It was made of two thin shards
of shiny metal bolted together and locked at one end around a tight wire coil
so that the two sections could be jack-knifed apart to create a long, thin
blade. The last third of one end was slotted like a comb; the other end was
shaped into a sharply honed point. The last thing those kids need, are
weapons, I thought.

20. “Bullies” 20
by
Nancy Knight
The next day was cold with a strong, cutting wind. That morning, I
placed the comb into an envelope. A little after noon, I tucked it under my
arm and walked to the school. I walked past the back corner of the building,
through the broken glass, pieces of metal and old newspapers that littered
the ground around the overflowing garbage and recycle containers, and
started looking for a teacher or a principal.
The vice-principal was standing away from the school on the soft area
of the playground which stretched out from the black asphalt near the school
to the baseball diamonds and the snow covered fields beyond. She stood
like a frozen symbol of elegance in a long, fashionable cloth coat, matching
hat, gloves, and winter boots. I handed the envelope to her and explained
that David had picked its contents up and carried the knife-comb home to
me. The vice-principal looked into the envelope with obvious concern. “Oh
dear,” she said, “I will definitely look into this and do something right away.”
But months later, it seemed, she hadn’t done a thing. Nothing
changed. The taunting and the aggression at the school, and Christine’s
harassment on the way home—none of it stopped.
We were in the midst of one of the harshest winters we’d experienced
in Kilbride. The last thing I wanted to do was to walk over to the school and
back with my children. But other children from the village were starting to
follow Christine’s lead. Soon their taunting, including rude remarks and
gestures, were directed at me, too.
I phoned Christine’s mother. “Please Lorraine, just tell her to leave
him alone,” I pleaded.
When I called the school Mrs. Mackenzie’s answer was always the
same, “We’ll look into it,” “check on it,” “ask about it.”
Neither the principal nor the vice-principal would answer me when I
asked them what had been done. “We’re looking into it,” they would repeat
like an overused mantra. But the name calling and assaults at school, and
the harassment on the way home didn’t stop.
Katie was starting to withdraw. She’d go right to her room and hardly
say a word. I could see the tortured pain in my son’s eyes every time he
told me what had happened to him. Michael and I had been arguing fiercely.
It seemed that every day when he arrived home after work, I had another
report of persecution to tell him about. If he could only realized our
children’s pain, he would do something. I continued to plead with him to
talk to the school. “The school will take care of it. Stop causing trouble,” he
said.
“They’re not doing anything!” I retorted constantly. I couldn’t
understand why the school was not responding to my concerns. Maybe

21. “Bullies” 21
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Nancy Knight
Michael’s right. Maybe I am causing trouble, I thought at one point and
stopped mentioning the hurt feelings and scraped knees. But things only
got worse.
One Saturday morning Michael was sitting in the study shuffling
papers on the desk. I walked into the room. I tried to convince him to write
a letter to the school and ask them to help my children. He kept shuffling
his papers. I fell apart. I threw the cold remnants of coffee that were in the
bottom of my cup onto his papers. Some of the brown liquid splashed up
onto his clothing.
Michael fell apart too. His face went bright red. He looked like an
angry animal. He came around the desk and, with his face just inches away
from mine, he screamed at me.
I screamed back at him, “What kind of man doesn’t protect his
family?”
Michael wrote the first letter to Mr. Hampton that day.
***
Dear Mr. Hampton,
I would like to make you aware of a problem that is causing considerable
discomfort for my son David...”
***
On Monday, I placed the letter in one of Michael’s old business
envelopes, hoping that the professional looking identification of the British
company my husband once owned would lend authority to the letter inside.
I changed into my nicest blouse and a pair of dress slacks, took two
Immodium tablets, and slipped my newest spring jacket on before I left the
house. My stomach continued to cramp as I walked along the village road to
the school.
On my way, I rehearsed what I was going to say. The words I used
would need to be carefully chosen. Mr. Hampton was an intelligent man,
“...from a family of academics,” he had told me one day. Throughout my
years in public school, I had been taught to respect the adults who had
authority over me. As an adult, I admired and trusted the educators who
were responsible for the care and education of my children. I wanted to
ensure a good working relationship with them, while I sought to show an
adequate degree of assertiveness as the mother of my children. I held the
letter tightly.

22. “Bullies” 22
by
Nancy Knight
I met the principal in the secretary’s office just inside the front doors.
At that moment, I forgot everything I had rehearsed on my way over to the
school. “Here,” I said, “you’d better read this and do something about it
now.”
But nothing happened. Absolutely nothing changed. So, Michael and I
walked down the intermediate corridor and into Barbara Mackenzie’s tiny
office. We started telling her what David was going through. She didn’t
seem surprised by what we were telling her. Michael and I sat stunned as
she recommended that we enrol David in Karate lessons. “He’ll learn how to
defend himself,” she said. We left the meeting feeling completely
inadequate. We had failed to advocate for our son. The vice-principal had
promised nothing.
Pat Hunter approached us just after we got into the car. “They’re
going to be starting Parent Councils in every public school,” she said, “Now,
we wouldn’t want a say in what goes on in our school, would we?” she
added.
Oh yes we would, I thought.
It took us two weeks to find a karate instructor who we trusted to
teach our children the discipline and confidence they would need in order to
endure the increasing aggression at school without becoming aggressive
themselves.
After that, something strange started happening to me. I was getting
used to David’s daily reports of abuse. Of course, we were working hard to
get it stopped. Of course, I could feel his hurt and anger. Sometimes I
became very frightened. Sometimes, I ran out of things to say or do. My
mind couldn’t get around it anymore.
“Oh, he hit you again, did he? Well did you tell the teacher? Oh, you
did? Well that’s good,” I said, as if ending my sentence with one positive
word made everything all right.
For a while, David came home for lunch and that eased the playground
trouble. Occasionally, the harassment stopped. For a while we all felt
relaxed, went on with our everyday lives, and trusted that the school had
finally done something. But soon we were embroiled in another crisis and
the sickening fear returned. We would realize that the school hadn’t solved
the problem after all and we were crushed once again.
There was a respite from all of the taunting during the winter break.
After that short reprieve, David was hurt again. When he told me what had
happened, his eyes were wide and glaring angrily at me. Do something,
anything, they silently signalled.

23. “Bullies” 23
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Nancy Knight
“I was walking in the hall,” David told me. “Christine kicked me in the
bum. It made me fall. All the kids were laughing at me.”
“Why’d she do that?” I spluttered, stupidly. I yelled the words at him,
as if it was his fault. He took a step back, startled. As usual, I felt non-
functioning, useless. Maybe if he wasn’t so soft and sensitive these things
wouldn’t happen. Then I was ashamed of what I was thinking. I was trying
to find fault with my son, blaming him for what was happening to him,
because I felt so inadequate myself. Of course David didn’t know why. I
had no answers either. I couldn’t understand why a beautiful and popular
young girl would kick my ten year old son in the bum.
So we were in the midst of yet another sequence of heartrending
reaction, reluctantly polite communication with the school, and pitifully
insufficient words of comfort for our hurting child. There was another round
of fierce arguments with Michael, but he wrote the next letter to the
principal much quicker that second time.
***
“...David was again picked on by Christine Camden. He was called
derogatory names and kicked on the bottom. ...a very upsetting effect on
David and is making it difficult for him to concentrate on his school work.
We are already bringing him home at lunch to avoid similar occurrences with
other students....we hope by dealing with it now, it won’t continue to
escalate in the future...”
***
Again I placed the letter into an old envelope and delivered it to the
principal. “Please do something about this,” I said to him. But nothing
changed.
Finally, I began confronting Christine every day as she walked home
from school, bolder and more mean-spirited than ever. My eyesight was
just good enough. I could pick out the tall blonde from the other smaller
children.
After a few days of being told off for her bad behaviour and
embarrassed in front of her friends, she finally left David alone. Finally,
David could stay at school for lunch again, so he could spend time with
Aaron and Stanley.
That year another strange thing had been happening. David’s red
Paddington Bear hat had disappeared almost as soon as school started. The
Blue Jays baseball cap went missing. Expensive sweatshirts were lost.

24. “Bullies” 24
by
Nancy Knight
When the weather cooled, he lost winter hats every week, along with
scarves, mittens, and even a pair of winter boots.
When David told me that some of the boys were stealing his clothes, I
didn’t believe him. I thought he must have been absentmindedly misplacing
things. After all, most of the students were well dressed. Why would they
want David’s things? I wondered.
When I finally asked David’s teacher why children were taking David’s
clothes, he told me it was all a game of Capture the Flag. The flag was
usually something David was wearing that the other students promptly
ripped off of him whenever he left the school building for recess or lunch.
The children ran after one another trying to capture the flag. Of course
David spent most of the time trying to steal back his clothes before the boys
could throw them over the fence or into the garbage dumpster.
In the spring his brand new Nike baseball cap disappeared after only
one week. These losses were costing us a lot of money and I was getting
desperate. One evening, at the local team’s baseball game, I spotted one of
the other boys with a Nike baseball cap on his head. It was exactly the
same as David’s. I was sure that was David’s hat and decided to confront
the issue straight on. I walked towards the boy, ready to pounce and accuse
when I got there. But on the way, I decided I’d better be cautious.
I approached the boy’s mom and tried to sound as polite as I could.
“That’s a really nice Nike cap,” I complimented, “It’s exactly like the one we
bought our son last week. He only got to wear it a few times before it went
missing.”
“We bought it for him at the mall a couple of days ago,” the mom told
me. She looked right at me and smiled. “He’s been losing everything he
has,” she added, “We’re hoping he keeps this one a bit longer than the last
one and we told him he won’t be getting another one if this one disappears.”
Not all of the problems were that harmless or ongoing. The violence
was sometimes completely unexpected. A boy we’d never heard of, walked
up to David and, for no reason at all, took a swing at him. David ducked
fast enough to avoid being hit and then quickly punched the boy in the
stomach really hard. The other child collapsed, gasped for air, gagged, and
threw up. The two boys were taken to the office where the principal yelled
at them both.
Michael and I drove the children to school the next morning and met
the principal outside. “The other child started it,” he told us, “and justly got
the worst of it, too,” he said. He laughed as if he was telling us about a cock

25. “Bullies” 25
by
Nancy Knight
fight. “Of course, we’re supposed to have a zero-tolerance policy in effect
here,” he added with just a little more seriousness.
Later, I had a more serious talk with my son. Years later, when he
was seventeen, David wrote about this conversation: “My mom was pretty
angry. She told me that from that day on that I was never, ever under
(any) circumstances to fight back. I listened to her, and that to this day has
been the only time I ever fought back.”
Over time, David understood why this was important. School
administrators were always reluctant to discipline children for fighting.
When the aggression was reciprocated, it was impossible to get them to deal
with the perpetrator. Both children were disciplined if school administration
reacted at all.
I was also worried about the bigger bullies. The boy who hit David was
tall but slight. David was smaller. But many of the older troublemakers
bothering David were much stronger. I could only draw on my childhood
experiences for the advice I offered him.
I was fourteen years old, and on my way home from a Girl Guide
meeting. Two older girls forced me against a wall in a laneway. One held
my head down so the other could thrust her knee upward and into my face.
The incident left me partially blind in one eye and changed my life forever.
It’s difficult to concentrate on your schoolwork when you can’t see very well.
I wanted to protect my son. To avoid severe injury, the wisest thing
David could do was to concentrate on protecting himself, rather than trying
to match a larger adversary blow for blow.
“Do you want to fly airplanes, David?” I asked him.
“Yea, Mom.”
“Then protect your head and your face, honey.”
But not all dangers are the same. Some are completely unexpected. I
just couldn’t prepare my children for everything.
In late spring, David and Katie came home happy for a change. They
asked me if they could ride their bicycles. “Ok,” I said, “but stay close to
home. The roads are a bit busy right now.”
Soon they rushed into the kitchen. “Some of the older kids are at
Randy Wilson’s house. Look, he shot me!”
“How did he do that?” I said. I checked the small wound on his leg.
“They were yelling at us. Randy went inside his house. He got a pellet
gun. He hid behind his trees. I thought he was going to shoot me and I
remembered about protecting my head and my face. I was trying to ride
away and he shot me.”

26. “Bullies” 26
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Nancy Knight
I felt sick. My stomach was upset and I rushed upstairs for an
Imodium. What if they’d hit him in an eye? What kind of a place is this? I
wanted to scream.
“Who was there?” I asked him when I came back downstairs.
“Randy Wilson was there, Mom. So was Jerry Woolcott and Luke
Carellia,” he said.
I called the school. Barbara Mackenzie said she’d handle it as an after
school incident. “Leave it with me,” she said. I bet, I thought. I called the
police.
About two hours later, an officer was sitting at our kitchen table
looking at the wound on David’s leg. He asked David who was involved.
When David told him that Randy Wilson had shot him, the officer frowned.
He looked at the wound again. “That doesn’t look like a pellet gun injury to
me,” he said.
I assured him it was. “I believe my son,” I said.
“Listen,” he said, “Mr. Wilson is a member of the emergency response
team here in Kilbride. I could be helping out at a fire with him and other
guys from this community. I’m not going to say a word about this one.” He
got up and left.
I kept David home from school the next day and took him to our
doctor’s office in Burlington. “What does that look like?” I asked him.
“It looks like a wound caused by a projectile travelling at high
velocity,” he told me.
“Like a pellet gun injury?” I asked.
“Yes, but listen, you’ve probably done all you can about this,” he said.
When we returned home, I called the school. Mrs. Mackenzie said she
was looking into it. Empty words, I thought. Is this really all I can do?
I was angry. I’m not going to wait for you any more, I thought as I
hung up and reached for the police department phone number again.
Another police officer was at our door a couple of hours later.
“That looks like a pellet gun wound,” he said. He furrowed his
forehead and tensed his jaw. “Who did this?” he asked David. Minutes later
he left for Randy’s house and was back in our kitchen about an hour after
that.
“Mr. Wilson says there’s never been a pellet gun in his house and
Randy said he was just hiding in the trees and having a pee.”
“Is that all you can do about this?” I stared at him. “Those boys have
been harassing my son for months and now they’re turning our
neighbourhood into a duck shoot, and now you’re telling me this is all you
can do?” I wiped tears off of my cheeks.

27. “Bullies” 27
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Nancy Knight
“Are you all right ma’am? Listen that’s all I can do. If there’s
anything else wrong here though just let me know.”
No you fool, I thought. But I was silent. It’s just that my poor child is
getting battered and no one will do a thing about it!
After I had reluctantly sent David and Katie back to school, I phoned
the principal’s office to find out what they were planning to do.
“We’re looking into it,” was all the vice-principal would say later when
she returned my call.

28. “Bullies” 28
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Nancy Knight
5. Excuses
David and many of his classmates were eleven years old and still very small.
But class 6-7 was a split class, which meant that though David was in grade
six, he would be together with some of the older grade seven students who
had been bullying him the year before. At least one of the boys who had
been there when David was shot with the pellet gun was in that class, too.
News of the pellet gun incident was spreading. The local children
weren’t as interested in the fact that David was shot as they were about the
fact that we had called the police. Most of the intermediate and senior
students were already fiercely taunting David about “calling the cops”. Well,
the school wasn’t doing anything to address the problem; I thought when I
heard about the rumour from a little fellow in grade four.
Michael and I had been trying to figure out why we weren’t getting a
response to our concerns. I looked through the Kilbride School Handbook.
Its instructions were clear. Parents were to mention any problems or
concerns to the teacher first, and then, if the issue was not resolved, they
were to inform the principal. There were no further instructions that told us
what to do if the school administration didn’t solve the problem. Maybe we
should solicit the teacher’s help early, Michael and I agreed. We prepared a
letter for him and tried to make it as clear and complete as we could. We
wanted to discuss David’s academic challenges as well as the peer
aggression issue.
Our meeting with David’s new teacher, Mr. O’Leary, was on the same
day as Katie’s tenth birthday. We would rush into town after the meeting to
buy a birthday cake in time for a late dinner. We handed Mr. O’Leary the
letter. He read it carefully.
“...Peer harassment – This is particularly worrisome to David. It
greatly affects the quality of his school work. Please document cases of
physical harassment so that we can take any steps necessary to solve it...”
We gave Mr. O’Leary some literature about helping David in the
classroom. “I’ve got at least four other kids like this in the class,” he said.
“Have you mentioned this to school administration?” he asked us.
“Yes,” we both said.
“You should mention it again,” he added as he arranged the notes we
gave him into a neat pile.

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Soon, David came home with some news. “Mr. Hampton’s going to
get a rifle, Mom.” He didn’t often use that tiny little voice of his those days
but right then he was sounding like a toddler. Why on earth would David be
aware of that? I wondered.
“I heard him talking on the telephone. He asked someone when they
were going to deliver his rifle,” David said. He picked at his lip.
“It’s hunting season now honey. Maybe he’s going hunting.” David
stopped picking at his lip and took a sip of his juice.
After David and Katie went off to school, I turned on the radio. There
had been a shooting at a school just a few miles away. A young man had
walked into a secondary school and shot a teacher and a vice-principal. It
seems that someone else has gone hunting, too, I thought. I called Kilbride
school.
When Mr. Harris, the Resource teacher, answered, I was surprised.
“Mr. Harris, I just wondered if you’d heard the news today. There’s been a
school shooting. I wanted to let Mr. Hampton know.”
“Oh dear. Thanks Mrs. Knight. John isn’t here. He’s away on a retreat
but I’ll contact him and let him know. I’m sure he’ll appreciate that.”
“Listen, Mr. Harris,” I added, keeping my voice serious, “David
overheard Mr. Hampton talking on the telephone yesterday about the
delivery of a rifle. I don’t think it’s the sort of conversation the children
should be overhearing and given that David was shot with a pellet gun in
June, I think it worried him.”
“I’ll check on that,” he said.
“David’s been having a really rough time at school. The other students
are picking on him. I think he’s getting more of the abuse than he deserves.
Couldn’t you do something about it?”
“I’ll check into that as well,” he said, “and I’ll get back to you if I find
out more.”
I hung up the phone disappointed. He had given me the standard
answer anyone at the school I spoke to always gave me. Is it their way of
dismissing a concerned parent? I wondered. I decided to try talking to
Barbara Mackenzie again.
It was much easier to walk over to the school, rather than leave a
message with the secretary and risk the call not being returned, so I had
many in the hall meetings with the school’s administrators. “David’s still
getting picked on during lunch and recess,” I said. “Now listen Barbara, you
and John are telling me that there’s zero tolerance for fighting, but you’re
not doing much about all the abuse David’s getting. Why are things so
difficult on that playground?”

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She spoke in a whisper, “There’s just not enough supervision and not
enough money to hire anyone for the job.”
“Then I’ll come and help,” I said. “My eyesight isn’t that great, but I’ll
try.” I imagined myself coming to the rescue of a suffering schoolyard,
somehow able to arrest the raging tide of violence.
Soon, I was helping out at the school as a volunteer lunch supervisor.
I helped in the classrooms, in the halls, and on the playground, almost every
day. I started to discover what was happening inside our public school.
And Michael and I continued to try to get extra help for David. We
asked Barbara Mackenzie to flag David’s file. His report cards were reflecting
the difficulty he was having organizing his work.
“David is progressing,” she explained, “His grades are acceptable.
There’s no reason for extra help or identification.”
“But he’s not reaching his potential. He’s a brighter child than his
grades reflect,” I tried again with no success. We mentioned the abuse
again, too, but we knew we were on our own.
I started searching for a tutor and decided to hire the girl next door.
She was a bit older than David, and an excellent student. With her help,
and the better notes he was taking with the laptop Mr. Barnett had
suggested we buy the year before, David’s work started to improve. But the
violence on the playground did not.
It was clear that the principal and vice-principal knew there were
problems with student behaviour. One day, Mr. Hampton gave me two
newsletters. The articles inside were about the relationship between an
abuser and his or her victim: The Cycle of Abuse. Another day, on the
playground, Mr. Hampton moaned, “You know, Mrs. Knight, there are some
weeks when at least one hundred students are sent to my office.” Days
later, he explained that some of the children were so difficult to handle that
he and other staff members were sent on a conflict resolution course to
learn how to deal with them. “You’ll soon get to know the few children who
cause the most trouble,” he said. I already knew who some of them were
because they’d been hurting David.
Later, the principal explained, “Mrs. Knight, as employees of the board
we are required to maintain the strictest confidence about everything
concerning the school and the children within it. Though this officially
applies to employees only, I would request that, as a volunteer, you
maintain the same standards.”
“The only way to survive around here is to keep your mouth shut,” Pat
Hunter told me later as we supervised the playground together. I was
slowly getting the message. Everyone knew that there were children at the

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school who were troubled and dangerous but no one was supposed to talk
about them.
My first experiences on the playground were harrowing. There were
several fights during each lunch hour, with accompanying injuries --usually
caused by the same students day after day. That playground wasn’t
anything like the playground scenes I remembered from my childhood.
In all my years attending public school, I never once felt unsafe. I was
shy, yet I always felt welcome on the playground. The games we played
were inclusive. They required co-operation and teamwork.
We quickly and efficiently learned games, songs, crafts—and
behaviour--from each other. There was a communications web of current
events and safety warnings, sometimes brutally accurate, sometimes
horrifically wrong: Dirty Joe was hanging out in the alleyway behind the
school; don’t kiss anyone with a cold sore; a little girl was killed when she
tripped and fell under a bus, so be careful; and if you eat too many apples
you’ll throw up. The city-wide newspaper couldn’t have done a better job.
Misinformation, prejudice, fear, and hate also swirled around a school
under the radar of adults who, I suspect, may have been the source of much
of it. Those were dangerous times for gay teachers, d.p.’s, yips, krauts,
ukes and niggers. Adult debates, repeated through children’s mouths, could
spread like an insidious and unchecked evil. Without the benefit of objective
and rational information and debate, we learned about fear and loathing as
rapidly as the games we played.
Though mostly unaware of these youthful communications, our
teachers seemed to be constantly present, a reassuring and clear reminder
that we should behave. A child who misbehaved would find himself or
herself carrying a note home which had to be signed and brought back to
the teacher. Our parents were willing to back the teacher up every time.
Our teachers treated us with respect. Not once was I ever spoken to rudely
or in a way that made me uncomfortable.
Later, as we got older, there were many incentives for good behaviour.
A happy teacher often organized extra privileges, and special excursions.
These privileges were withdrawn and cancelled at a moment’s notice if
behaviour was not up to expectations—for the entire class. Peer pressure to
behave could be very powerful when an interesting day away from the
classroom was at stake.
At Kilbride School, everything seemed so different. School just wasn’t
as nice as it used to be. No wonder David’s having such a difficult time, I

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thought as I walked around the playground. Surely there must be some
way to deal with the few individuals who are causing so much turmoil and
hurt, I considered.
The next time I found John Hampton and Barbara Mackenzie together
in the principal’s office, I asked them if I could speak with them. “I’m
concerned. Such a small group of students really are causing much of the
trouble on the playground,” I said. “Surely you know them, too. You must
know it’s like a free for all out there every recess. There must be something
that will help.”
John Hampton became agitated. “Mrs. Knight, what do you mean?”
“I’m concerned about the level of aggression on the playground and I
want to know what’s being done and what can be done to stop it,” I said.
“Mrs. Knight, why are you here?” he growled and then added, “Why
don’t you just leave?” John’s candidness during our earlier conversations had
disappeared. I started to cry as I left the office and walked home.
Later that day, John phoned to apologize and ask me to go back to
help. It took me a week. My stomach was upset whenever I started to think
about heading over to the school and I had to take a couple of Imodium to
settle it before I could leave the house.
It wasn’t long before I went to the principal again. Desperate to stop
the bullying, I pleaded for any help available. I wasn’t really surprised at his
answer.
“Mrs. Knight,” he said in his most knowledgeable teaching voice, “I live
in a home that was built years ago by my parents in a farming community
similar to this one. Whenever someone new moves into a home that had
been inhabited for years by one of the families that first farmed the land,
local people still refer to that house as the McArthur’s place, or the Kramer’s
place. It is very difficult to meld into a small, rural community like this one.”
I tried again with Mr. Harris, the resource teacher I had talked to
about the rifle. “Katie’s okay. Her best friend is here with her from their
previous school. David’s met two friends from outside of the community,
but they’re all having a lot of trouble fitting in with the local kids, or rather,
getting many of the local kids to stop bullying them. Is there anything you
can do?” I asked.
“Yes actually, Mrs. Knight, I’m thinking of starting up a small social
group for the children who are new arrivals to the school. Leave it with me
and I’ll get back to you.”
Weeks later, I met Mr. Harris in the hallway again. “Any news about
that social group?” I asked him. He didn’t stop to talk. He just shook his
head and walked on.

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When I started hearing Tyler Harvey’s name, I realized that the new
kids might not be the ones David needed as friends anyway. Tyler Harvey
was one of those new arrivals. He was a short but well muscled fellow, and
very quick on his feet. He made a bold entry onto the scene by tackling the
other boys at lunch. At first, Tyler didn’t have a good idea which students
were easy targets and which ones to leave alone. Of course, the better
fighters immediately put Tyler in his place. This left just a few potential
victims--including David, still one of the smallest boys in his class. Tyler
Harvey was assaulting David relentlessly every recess, tackling him from
behind, or diving head first into his stomach.
“David, why don’t you ask Sensei Deluca to teach you some defensive
moves?” I suggested before his next karate lesson.
“David’s not a punching bag,” Brian Deluca told us a few days later.
“We know Brian, but the school won’t do anything.”
I tried Mr. Hampton again. “David’s being picked on constantly.”
“You know Mrs. Knight,” he replied, “My own son is also having
difficulty at the school he attends. He has been taking medication which has
made him gain weight. It’s worrying, I’m sure, that David is having
difficulty making friends.”
“He’s not having trouble making friends. He has two good friends in
his class. They’re the boys who go to brainers. It’s the local kids who are
beating him up and constantly harassing him.”
But the principal was more interested in the term I used to describe
the students who went off to their special classes. “Brainers?” he said,
raising his eyebrows.
“Yes, that’s what the children call the gifted students. The enrichment
class has isolated those children from their peers. I’m surprised no one has
considered the repercussions whenever people, and children, are categorized
and separated from one another. David has befriended two of them. When
the three boys are together, they’re ostracized as a group, but when David’s
by himself, he gets bullied.” The principal looked thoughtful for a moment
and then he walked into his office and closed the door.
At karate lessons, Brian taught David how to defend himself against
the kicks and punches of daily playground activity. But soon I was
mentioning it to the vice-principal again. “Barbara, if this continues I’m
going to have to give David permission to fight back,” I told her.
“David would certainly not be allowed to hit anyone!” She was
actually quite right. Defensive manoeuvres would protect my son.
Over time David became quite adept at raising a knee or an elbow to
thwart the onward attack of a rushing Tyler Harvey whose own force was to

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be the cause of his own injury. Tyler would eventually learn that David’s
bones were a lot harder than he was. Sadly, Tyler would eventually look for
a more vulnerable target. At the end of that school year his family moved
away. Unfortunately though, Tyler was only one small part of the problem.
Mr. Hampton,” I said to the principal in my most assertive voice as he
stood at his office door. He was a rather short man but looked taller in his
usual well-tailored suit and striped tie. “Surely there’s got to be some help
you can offer my son. There’s no way he should be treated so horribly and
no way these kids should be allowed to behave the way they’re behaving.
Don’t you have something you can offer us?”
John went to the large filing cabinet in the corner of his office and
removed one of the multi-layered requisition forms from the top of it. He
sat down at his desk and began filling it in. “Mary Lou Gibson will call you in
a few days,” he said.
Mary Lou Gibson was soon sitting at the kitchen table with me and we
were discussing my children. Her first advice was baffling. “Try letting his
hair grow longer,” she told me one day, “and he should really stop wearing
those track pants. A nice pair of blue jeans would look much better on him.
He needs to work on his tidiness, too. He often looks a bit dishevelled.” As
soon as we could, we went shopping and we began to fix our son. Strange
advice though, I thought, since the other kids aren’t dressed that much
better.

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6. Parents
For a fledgling Parent Council, that first year, we were doing well. A few
well-organized and knowledgeable moms had helped initiate the first
meetings: red binders filled with information about parent councils, meeting
procedures, and copies of government and board policies and procedures
were included. We began to read up on Robert’s Rules of Order.
The Parent Council meetings went well at first, but the objections
started coming in: Why didn’t everyone get a red binder rather than just the
parents who had signed up and put their names up for election? The
meetings were too formal and it was difficult to follow the Rules of Order.
Besides, some said, why do we have to follow the rules the government had
set down for the councils anyway?
Committees were formed. I had signed up for the Safe Schools
Committee and some of us had added a few touches to the school’s Code of
Conduct to make it unique to our school community: we added the name of
the town to the board’s already adequate document.
Mary Lou soon told me that she’d be visiting David’s class once a week
to explain and emphasize the expected behaviour and the listed
consequences for behaviour that was unacceptable. “We’re hoping we can
stop much of the harassment towards David by working with the whole
class.” So the Code of Conduct leaflets were distributed to each student
and for about three or four weeks, once a week, Mary Lou spoke to the
class.
But nothing changed for David and much of the abuse got worse. I
reported Stewart Martin’s behaviour. “Some of the other children are giving
David a hard time, too,” I said to John. “What about the Code of Conduct?
Doesn’t that mean anything?” Why’s he shaking his head? I wondered.
The next Safe Schools meeting was held in the room at the back of the
library. There were several parents in attendance and later on, John and
Barbara dropped in and stayed while we discussed the work we were doing.

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I spoke up. “I’d like to mention the amount of aggression and the
injuries that are happening on the playground. It’s getting worse over time
and I wonder if parents have any idea how difficult things are.”
“Mrs. Knight, what on earth do you mean? There are no issues
concerning aggression here!” John had raised his voice, his face was red.
His forehead furrowed into an angry twist.
“There certainly is a problem,” I persisted. “And I think it needs to be
addressed in some way. A few children at this school are causing major
problems because of their unchecked behaviour.” I tried to stay relaxed and
confident. There was total silence in the room. I could hear the breathing of
the other mothers. Not one spoke up.
“All of the children in this school are doing just fine and I would
appreciate it if you would be silent, right now!” he shouted at me. I glared
back at him as he and Barbara quickly left the room.
I pleaded with Terry. Terry Noble was a paid lunch supervisor and a
tornado of energy and authority. “They don’t do anything about anything,”
she often observed as she led another injured student into the school.
“It’s like bringing the injured in from a war zone,” we both said to John
one day.
“Whenever I call parents to tell them about their children’s injuries,
they usually ask me why I’m bothering them. They tell me injuries are just
part of a child’s life and we’re supposed to take care of it,” he explained.
Barbara McKenzie had a similar view. “Parents are never home during
the day and if I was to try to call for everything that happened, I’d be on the
telephone all evening,” she said.
“Please Terry, if you come to one of our meetings and tell the other
moms just what’s going on here, maybe they’ll believe me. I can’t persuade
anyone as long as John and Barbara keep denying anything’s wrong!”
The next meeting was the following week and Terry was there with
me. “You know, the behaviour of the kids on the playground is atrocious. It
may be difficult for you to understand how ordinarily nice children can be so
aggressive at school but the behaviour has been allowed for so long, they
are all getting out of control,” she said.
One week later, one of the moms joined me on the playground. “But
Nancy, everything looks just fine to me,” she said.

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“Yes, on the surface it does, but every day there are fights and
injuries. We report the misbehaviour but no one does anything about it.
The principal never gives out any consequences and the Code of Conduct is
just a joke.” She looked doubtful.
Another day on the playground, I was talking to Katie’s math teacher.
“The school’s administration never seems to do anything about the
harassment and beatings David is getting,” I said to her. She didn’t say a
word.
“Mrs. Knight,” the principal spoke to me quietly soon after the
committee meeting, “I do not like to be embarrassed in a public forum.”
About the same time, the vice-principal saw me in the hall. “We’re not
allowed to refer to the children in any way, especially in a public meeting,”
she said.
Still later, the principal spoke to me again. “Mrs. Knight, if we were to
openly refer to anything that occurred here at the school, or even alluded to
the fact that any situation may have happened, it could be understood, in a
small community like this, to be confirmation that a rumour is true. We
don’t want to risk the reputations of our children, staff, or the school,” he
told me.
“Then you have to deal with the problems on your own, but deal with
them,” I replied.
“Why won’t they do anything?” I asked Mary Lou next time I saw her.
“You know, some parents want some children to be expelled from
school for every little thing,” Mary Lou replied.
“We want the abuse to stop. Why won’t the principal do anything to
help David? He accuses me of being negative every time I mention there’s a
problem. It’s like hitting a brick wall every time the subject of behaviour
comes up.”
“Oh it’s just John,” Mary Lou explained with a toss of her head, “I’ve
worked with him for years and I pretty well know how to get to him. It’s
just that he doesn’t consider you part of the family!”
During one lunch hour, after the halls emptied, I saw Terry standing
near the office door. There was a group of older boys huddled together in
the senior hallway near the science room. I could hear one of the kids
saying, “Maybe he won’t look like such a fag.”

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Terry rushed towards the group, angrily gesturing the kids towards the
door and yelling, “Five on one isn’t fair!” The boys scattered, leaving David
on the floor, shaking with fright. I hurried after Terry and gave David a hug.
“Are you alright David?” I said. I asked him if he wanted to go home or was
he ok to go outside. “I’m ok,” he said, “I’ll go outside.” On the way out, he
told me what had happened.
The five boys surrounded David and pushed him to the floor. One of
them took out the metal stud that was in his ear and tried to stick it into
David’s ear lobe while the other boys laughed and held David down.
Terry walked outside with us. I looked for John so I could tell him
what had happened but never saw him. “I told John what happened to
David,” Terry said later that afternoon, “but I bet he doesn’t do anything
about it. He never does.” She shook her head.
Soon after that, things started happening in the change room next to
the gymnasium. Mrs. Ravemsberg was the gym teacher. Her energy
seemed to vitalize the entire school. Her thick brown hair was often tied up
high behind her head and, though she was not a tall young woman, the
bobbing ponytail could be seen from all directions as she led her students
around the gymnasium or over the grounds of the school.
The boys’ change room was a particularly dangerous place. The
young, female teacher rarely went inside. After class one day, one of the
boys took David’s aerosol can of deodorant away from him. Another boy
held a cigarette lighter close to the spray and used it and the deodorant can
as a flame thrower. One of the older students ran out of the room and
came back with the teacher. Mrs. Ravemsbirg asked David what had just
happened and David told the truth. The older boy stared at him and smiled.
Mrs. Ravemsberg gave the boys a lecture about safety but David slowly
realized he had been set up and was going to be accused of ratting on his
classmates.
Outside of school, at their karate and piano lessons, Katie and David
did well. None of the other children from the school who were the same age
attended Karate and the music lessons were individual sessions. We hoped
that outside of school, on the baseball team, the boys would get along.
In early spring, the baseball practices started up again. That year, the
league was divided into the ‘A’ team and the ‘B’ team which was unofficially

39. “Bullies” 39
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designated the losing team. David was hoping that the pressure to win
would not be as great and that the weaker players would be given more
opportunities to try out the more exciting positions, like first base and
pitcher, so David stayed on the ‘B’ team.
Unfortunately, it wasn’t long before we received a call one evening
before David got home from a practice. David was being picked on, one of
the coaches said. He told us that during that evening’s practice, the boys
teased, insulted and bashed David constantly. There was too much
negativity, he told the other coaches. It had just become too much. He
packed up and left in disgust and he took his son with him. He had offered
David a ride home but David wanted to stay. “The kids are allowed to do
the same at school,” the ex-coach told Michael. That was the last year
David wanted to play baseball.
Yet it seemed that the children weren’t the only ones who were out of
control. The early spring sun was starting to heat up the playground and
during one lunch hour the children had left their jackets inside the school.
They seemed energized and excited about the freedom the light clothing
gave them. I had reached the dome-shaped climber that stood like the
skeleton of an ancient reptile on the far eastern edge of the field. I was
standing close to the skeleton and facing towards the chain link perimeter
fence as I distributed animal stickers to a group of boys.
One of them, a young fellow with a mop of curly brown hair, sucked in
a quick, gasping breath and stared wide-eyed at something behind me. I
turned around fast. A petite woman with blonde hair was walking away from
me in the direction of the school. A young boy walked along beside her.
The woman’s hand was around the boy’s arm. I turned to the other boys.
“Who is that?” I said.
“It’s Mrs. Sutton! She’s got Steven! Is she allowed to grab him like
that?” one of the boys stammered. All of them were now nervously
bouncing around and staying closer to me.
“No she’s not, but it’ll be all right. I’ll go see what’s up. You guys stay
here and stay together!” I said. I followed Mrs. Sutton and Steven. “That’s
not your child you know!’ I called after her.

40. “Bullies” 40
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“No one else does anything around here!” she shrieked. She was too
far away by then for me to catch up before she disappeared into the crowd
of children near the school.
I was walking right towards Pat Hunter who was standing, as she
usually did, near the edge of the blacktop. “What on earth happened, Pat?
Why was Mrs. Sutton dragging Steven off like that? Do you know where she
went with him?” I asked.
“She was talking to me a minute ago. She’s mad as hell. She says
the kids have been picking on her son and she’s getting fed up. ‘No one else
does anything,’ she said.” Pat rolled her eyes upwards.
“Why did you let her loose?” I asked. I didn’t wait for an answer.
Just as I took a few steps around Pat, Mrs. Mackenzie came towards
me. “What happened?” she pleaded.
“Barbara, Mrs. Sutton just assaulted Steven. The other children are
really upset. Pat tells me she let her go over to the boys!” I explained
rapidly.
No one said another word. That evening though, Steven’s mom,
Linda, phoned me. She had my phone number from the baseball team’s
contact list. She spoke in a gentle but quivering voice. “Hi Nancy, it’s Linda
here,” she began politely. “Do you know anything about what happened to
Steven today? We’ve phoned the school but they won’t tell us a thing. Mrs.
Sutton’s nails have punctured his skin.”
I told her everything. “The school probably won’t do anything,” I told
her.
“We’re going to call the police right now,” Linda said.
When I walked past the principal’s office the next day, he called to me,
“Mrs. Knight, could you please come in for a moment?” I went into his office
and watched him close the door. I didn’t sit down. “I’m wondering if you
would be so kind as to fill this police report in for us, please.” I tried not to
glare at him.

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“Yes certainly. I’ll return it tomorrow,” I said. That evening I called
Linda. “I’m assuming the police are laying charges because I’ve been given
a report. I’ll fill it out and return it to the school tomorrow,” I told her.
“Thank you very much, Nancy. I’d appreciate it if you kept this quiet.”
“Yes, of course,” I said. I wondered why the news of our call to the
police about the pellet gun had spread so quickly. Of course, I thought,
those boys and their parents wouldn’t have kept any confidences. “Would
the principal tell you anything?” I asked. “Pat Hunter saw more than I did.
They may have found out more from her.”
“I spoke to John again this morning. He wouldn’t say a thing. They
never do. We had to ask the police to lay charges. Thanks to your
information, we could get something done ourselves,” she said.
I received a Subpoena to Appear form a few months later. Almost a
year after Mrs. Sutton walked onto the playground, Michael and I were
sitting in the Burlington court house with Steven’s parents, Linda and
Richard. We listened to Mrs. Sutton plead guilty to assaulting Steven on the
playground and later, as we drank our coffee at the nearby Tim Horton’s, we
wondered why the school administration was so remiss in taking action.
In a way, I agreed with the judge who had told the quiet courtroom
that adults should let children solve their own disagreements and that adults
can often make things worse.
But children do not have the same moral and ethical restraints on their
behaviour and I’d often seen minor disagreements escalate into injurious
battles. I puzzled for a while about where the fine line should be drawn
between allowing our children to work things out for themselves, and
protecting them from each other.

42. “Bullies” 42
by
Nancy Knight
Dear Parents,
Our children will share a common experience while they are at school
together. For much of their day, they’ll be supervised by their teacher in a
well-organized and disciplined classroom. They’ll also spend time on the
playground during lunch and recesses. Often, there will be as few as three
or four adults watching out for hundreds of children.
During those unstructured times, our children will learn strategies that
they’ll take with them into adulthood. In the best of all worlds, they’d learn
positive negotiating skills, co-operate, and be respectful of each other. Yet
the few adults on that playground will not be able to teach them how to
accomplish this. Whatever social skills they have will be learned while they
are with their families, while they’re watching television, or, more likely,
from each other. It doesn’t take long for children to learn that a quick shove
or a mean word can cause tears and earn an extra turn at the game. If
there are no adults to intervene, the behaviour reinforces itself.
You need to know if your child is bullying mine. We’ll need to act
quickly to stop it. But please understand how difficult it must be for me to
tell you that it’s happening. I’m hoping we can help them both. Perhaps,
we can prevent a never-ending cycle of abuse. They might even become
friends.
We could gather support amongst the greater school community and
convince school administrators to take bullying seriously. We can set a good
example by being respectful of each other at parent council meetings and
when we meet up elsewhere. Let’s start early, and work together to make
our school a safe and happy place.
Yours truly,
Another parent

43. “Bullies” 43
by
Nancy Knight