As I was scrubbing down the ellipticals at the gym where I work, a news report about a girl who had committed suicide was playing on the TV.
Apparently, the girl had been depressed for quite sometime. She had written that she was upset because her parents were recently divorced, she had moved to the US from Ireland and she was bullied by kids at school. There is an investigation going on right now about whether the teachers should be held responsible for her death.
Warning: Although I am three years away from having my own classroom, I am about to go on a bit of a teacher rant.
Bullying is serious. It needs to be treated as such. It takes children who are often already in a vulnerable position and pushes them closer to the edge. What we call “bullying” is really abuse and it needs to be treated that seriously.
HOWEVER, while the bullying may have taken place in part at school, and while there are certainly teachers who don’t genuinely invest in the lives of their students, I am awed at the fact that when a girl commits suicide it is the fault of the teachers.
What about the parents who just split up? What about the mother who uprooted her daughter and moved her to a different country altogether? What about the parents who didn’t know their daughter well enough to recognize that she was upset?
What about the parents of those children who were bullying her? Who weren’t involved in their kids lives enough to know what hell they were putting another child through?
What about the coaches and school psychologists and social workers and neighbors and community leaders who are okay with a school and community where bullying is common?
What about the business world where adults bully other adults and companies bully other companies? What about an international community where it is okay for countries to bully other countries?
Perhaps the teachers are to blame in part too. Maybe there were clues in her assignments or behavior that weren’t followed up on. Maybe the teachers themselves contributed to the problem by making her feel less understood or accepted in some way…
But maybe the teachers had 30+ students in their classroom using 15 year old text books and were working 80 hours a week trying to prepare for class and be the best teacher possible. And maybe like so many teachers, her’s spent their lunch and prep time and after school hours helping students with school and life. And maybe in that situation, the teachers did all that they could.
Maybe, if we start looking at parent involvement in students lives, and social change, and more funding for schools to help struggling teachers, maybe if we start expecting teachers to educate and support our kids rather than raising them- maybe if we start looking at these things as life or death issues for teens like this girl, then this sort of thing wouldn’t happen.
Perhaps if we recognize that you and I, who don’t know this girl or her family or her school, are partly responsible for her death because we allow discrimination, bullying, underfunded schools and bad parenting to be the norm, then the next girl who is hurting might have enough support to make it.
