“Bullying is about rejection and belonging. It stems from the need for a place in the world and the feeling that one has been denied that need. When young people feel properly welcomed in the world, when they feel their gifts being led out, they do not feel the need to claim their place through violence or meanness. When a person bullies, or shoots his bully, it shows us that we did not provide that young person the opportunity to grow his or her gifts.
“Instead of recognising this, our emotional reaction is often to try to reclaim control, to clamp down. It is a reaction that feeds and deepens the roots of alienation in young people – roots that grab in the belly and grow through the heart until they bloom red in schools. In the United States, where I am from, we have experienced school violence at heretofore unknown levels. We have often responded in all the wrong ways and have managed to turn many of our schools into places that more closely resemble prisons than places in which the inherent gifts of each individual person are ushered into the world.”
Read the rest of this opinion piece HERE.
fleurmach 