Teacher tackles bullying with new book

Bullies better get ready to go back to school. There’s a local Grade 5 teacher who has written the book on how to deal with not just the instigators but the problem itself.

After all, it’s an age-old problem that doesn’t seem to be going away.

“I see it and work with it on a daily basis,” stated Bruce Brown. “I think most children and most young adults (and adults included) can relate.”

Last fall, the Grade 5 teacher at Neil M. Ross Catholic School published an e-book based on his own childhood experiences. Roberto, Bobby and Bruce is about three boys, each with his own bully and each with his own way of dealing with them.

“I wanted to write something that was both informative and entertaining and to possibly share some of the strategies for dealing with bullying that my friends and I attempted to use. Some were successful; some not.”

Roberto was a “meek” boy who had a passion for school and playing the trumpet in music class. One bully made the mistake of picking on him, thinking that he was an easy target. Roberto proved him wrong. When they were meant to fight after school, Roberto met with the bully in the quad and defended himself successfully. This was an act that staved off future attacks for the rest of his primary and secondary education.

Bobby was from Lebanon. He was slight and only had one kidney. He didn’t participate in a lot of physical activities out of fear for the potential for great personal harm.

“Because he was medically fragile and slight of build, he too was an easy target. He was picked on. His lunch was taken every day.”

He dealt with his bullies by making chocolate bars out of a laxative. “I thought that was brilliant,” Brown said. “They never touched his lunch after that. That was another effective strategy that didn’t rely on brawn to resolve the bully issue.”

Bruce himself played tuba. He and Roberto got to know each other through music class. He was picked on by some kids who waited for him at the end of his street every day for almost a year.

“I would try different things. I would stay home and I would feign illness, just to avoid having to deal with these people and the bullying. My parents finally figured out what I was doing and told me that I had to face my demons and deal with the bullies in whatever manner I deemed appropriate.”

He had to stand his ground and show them that he was not going to tolerate being bullied by them. He confronted them one day, intending to deal with them through reason and discussion. When they pushed him down, however, he got into a physical fight with them and that was the end of it.

Brown wrote the book to be not only educational but also fun and entertaining. Most important, he wanted to offer both kids and adults the lessons of his own experiences. He said that there were a lot of things that went wrong in his childhood, some of which were not about the bullies.

He hopes that adults these days come to change their attitudes towards those who are being bullied.

“Back when we were growing up, the rule of the day was that you simply dealt with it. You didn’t bring it home. You didn’t whine, cry or complain to your mom or your dad. The alternative to telling on a bully was to get punished at home or to get a bigger beating from the bully. We had to find ways that were effective.”

He figured that these were stories that would be worth telling to his elementary students and to junior and high school students as well. As an educator, the most important lesson, he says, is to avoid settling things out with fists.

“I don’t want to give them the impression that they should be violent whenever confronted by a bully but at the same time to realize that there are strategies that they can use that do not involve violence.”

“After exhausting all of the other non-violent strategies, bottom line, this is something that I tell my own children, that if you feel that you are in the position that your life is threatened or your safety is threatened, and you have no other option but to defend yourself, well then you defend yourself.”

He is pleased with how this book has been received so far. His next plan is to release a companion book that focuses on bullying with girls as the main characters instead of boys.