Yesterday, a "school bullying" news rushed to the top of the hot search:
According to a Weibo post posted by celebrity Hao Shaowen's wife, her third-grade daughter secretly told her something, which made her parents "surprised and scared".
When she relayed her child's experience to the school, the school said that it was a "game between friends", which made the parents very angry and "caused secondary harm to the child", and chose to speak out on Weibo.
Both sides have their own opinions, and the police have intervened in the investigation
The jury is still inconclusive and the final outcome of the investigation is awaited
Scroll down to read the full Weibo article
Although the results of the survey have not yet been released, because the child is studying in an international school with a tuition fee of more than 200,000 yuan, it has set off a discussion on the Internet:
Why spend so much money and go to a school that "pays attention to every child", but still encounter bullying?
As a veteran of the industry, I would like to tell you a heavy truth:
Even in the elite private schools of the West, which we envy, school bullying is widespread and has not been eliminated with the development of whole-person education.
And, from physical bullying and willfully isolated social bullying, to identity bullying based on gender identity, to cyberbullying, children face bullying that is increasingly insidious and difficult for adults to detect.
This hidden corner is shocking.
Bullying that shook the United States
The time is back to April 30, 2022.
A 17-year-old boy, Jach Reid, stuffed a Bible into his shorts pocket and put a note for his parents in his pocket to check a Google document containing his desperate experiences.
Then, Jack took his own life in his dorm room.
■ Jack, who is only 17 years old
Why did Jack commit suicide?
In the fall of 2020, Jack came to Lawrence Weil, the most well-known private school in New Jersey, to study in Grade 10.
This school is the oldest private boarding high school, only a short 5-minute drive from Princeton University, with excellent academic performance, known as the "Princeton Preparatory School", with tuition and room and board costs as high as 76,000 US dollars (about 543,000 yuan) a year.
When he first arrived at the school, everything went smoothly and Jacn was on the Principal's Honor List.
It wasn't until the spring of 2021 that rumors about Jack spread for no reason that he was a rapist, and more and more classmates began to scold him in private.
At the end of the summer vacation that year, Jack returned to school and was elected head of the house, but the rumors did not stop, only to increase the hostility of more classmates towards him.
Rumors have shifted from offline to online –
Anonymous rape allegations about Jack spread quickly, and when the students exchanged gifts at Christmas, Jack even received a whistle to prevent rape and a book on how to make friends.
Wave after wave of bullying, visible and invisible, began to knock Jack down.
When he came home for Christmas, he became withdrawn and asked his parents, "Will all this be gone?"
■ Jack and his parents
Jack's mom is a clinical psychologist and understands the dangers of school bullying.
They actively contacted the school and asked the school to intervene. The school issued a statement that "these claims are unverified" and expelled a student who participated in spreading rumors.
The school never said publicly that the rumor that Jack was a rapist was completely false.
Perhaps, the school's ambiguous attitude did not attract the attention of the student who spread rumors and participated in the bullying, and when the expelled student went to the dormitory to pack his luggage, someone held a farewell ceremony for him.
It was this ritual that became the last straw that crushed Jack-
Some blamed Jack for making a fuss that led to his classmates' expulsion, and the school's boarding administrators did not provide Jack with adequate protection and attention.
Back in his dorm, Jack told his friends, "I can't go through this again" and committed suicide.
■ Jack's parents appealed in an interview with ABC TV: This happened to our son, and it could happen to other children, and we and the school must take bullying and cyberbullying more seriously.
Jack's parents said they were in psychotherapy until the child committed suicide, but he did not disclose any suicidal thoughts to the psychiatrist or show any underlying risk factors.
Even the last words he said to his parents before he died were: "Dad, I feel better, I love you".
It was the loss of a life that made Lawrenceville realize the seriousness of the situation.
They authorized the law firm to open an investigation into Jack's death and negotiated a settlement with Jack's parents, issuing a statement publicly acknowledging that "the school was aware that Jack was being bullied by other students, but regrettably failed to fulfill its obligation to protect Jack."
The school has also committed to a range of corrective actions, including the appointment of a new dean, a focus on mental health issues, and the establishment of a foundation for the prevention of bullying.
But no matter how you make up for it, a 17-year-old excellent big boy left the world prematurely because of the cruel bullying of his peers and a series of omissions and inaction from the school.
■A statement on the school's website acknowledges that bullying and unkind behavior, as well as actions taken or not taken by the school, may have contributed to Jack's death.
Bullying in the happiest country
Incomparably similar bullying incidents are being staged in elite private schools around the world.
In June 2020, Soma Sara, a British girl who graduated from one of the UK's top schools, Wycombe Abbey School, shared her experience of Rape Culture.
What is the culture of rape in school bullying?
This includes sexual harassment, assault, and sexual shaming. For example, a 13-year-old girl was forced to post nude photos to male classmates to be graded, Asian women were insulted to look like "heroines of adult films", and various forms of sexual harassment at parties.
In a short period of time, more than 50,000 complaints about sexual violence poured out on Sara's Everyone's Invited, involving major universities.
There has also been a campaign against school bullying across the UK.
Let's turn our attention from the UK to Denmark, the number one country in Northern Europe.
In the media, the best thing about Danish schools is that they teach children to care for others, recognize emotions, and promote empathy and morality. Ironically, at Denmark's most famous private boarding school, there is a horrific amount of serious bullying.
In May 2022, Danish TV2 aired a documentary interviewing more than 50 alumni of Herlufsholm, the most prestigious private boarding school in the region.
They accused the school of inaction and creating an environment that nurtured bullying, resulting in frequent surprise attacks in the middle of the night by younger students, and even sexual abuse of another student in front of a group of classmates.
Some alumni said that the culture of the school is destructive, oppressive, and exclusive to the lower grades."
The school has always been the first choice of the Danish royal family and the elite, and its tuition fee is $6,000-$20,000 per year in Denmark, a country where education is largely free.
After the incident, Danish Prince Christian quickly transferred schools, and the royal family also issued a statement saying that they were "deeply shocked".
■The Prince of Denmark wears the uniform of the Herlufsholm School
Two days after the documentary aired, the Danish prime minister dismissed the principal for calling the abuse unforgivable. At the same time, the Danish Board of Education released a detailed investigation report urging schools to repay the funds received from the government.
But interestingly, the principal not only did not agree to return the funds, but also thought that the school culture was fine, and that it was "just a subculture of some students" (is it the same logic as "it's just a game of friends"?).
In fact, this is not the first time the school has been exposed to a bullying scandal.
After digging deeply, some media revealed that not only have there been multiple rape cases, but also parents have submitted a video showing that a junior student was forced to drink the urine of an older student, and a student was suffocated and dragged to the floor.
■Elite private schools in Sweden and Chicago have also been exposed to serious bullying
The faint light of hidden corners
In the age of the internet, forms of bullying are diversifying and becoming secretive.
From physical bullying and social bullying in deliberate isolation, to identity bullying based on gender identity, to cyberbullying, it is becoming increasingly insidious and difficult for adults to detect.
At the same time, there are cultural and individual differences in the different understandings of the word "bullying".
For example, in the eyes of some people, the requirements made by seniors to juniors are not bullying, but just a kind of "authoritative discipline". Some people think that bullying is only if physical harm is caused, and everything else is "think too much about yourself, just ignore them".
However, some studies have found that:
Physical bullying does not cause a serious psychological crisis as imagined, but invisible identity bullying, social bullying and cyberbullying, which are more likely to make children have suicidal thoughts and self-harm.
■ The Korean drama "Dark Glory" tells the story of a girl who has been bullied for many years of revenge.
Because bullying is mixed with insults and rumors, which will cause devastating harm to the victims, they are worried that after telling their elders, it will lead to the "victim's guilt theory" -
Why are you being the one who is bullying? What must you have done wrong?
As a result, they are more inclined to remain silent and not take the initiative to tell the school and parents. One unfavorable factor after another has become a major mountain that overwhelms the victimized children.
Elite private schools also have special characteristics.
Psychoanalyst Joy Shaverian wrote a book, "Boarding School Syndrome: The Psychological Trauma of the 'Privileged' Child", in which an elite tradition in wealthy circles and the upper echelons of society was to send children to elite private schools, which was considered a privileged path.
Children may not want to leave their parents prematurely, but they have no way or right to feel and express pain. So, in the process of adjusting to their new life, they suffer from "boarding school syndrome" and develop a suit of armor to hide their vulnerability.
They display extreme self-defensiveness, hide their emotions, pretend to be mature, assert their opinions, and maintain their strong image by dominating and oppressing the weak, so that they are not easily bullied and ridiculed.
Perhaps there are some more hidden reasons -
Misalignment of power between teachers and students.
In elite private schools, many students and parents do not see teachers as educators, but as service providers who pay high salaries, which leads to a series of misalignments:
For individual students, the school is the one who dominates the power, but for some teachers, some students are the ones who really have the power, which leads to the teacher's reluctance or reluctance to act.
I remember a teacher friend once told me that this may represent some of the reasons why "teachers are difficult to act":
When I wanted to intervene, some classmates said that I was not qualified: you are just a person who is supported by our tuition, what qualifications do you have to educate me?
For students, the harm of bullying comes not only from minors, but also from the blindness, partiality and inaction of adults.
Obviously, this cannot be solved by the child alone.
A 2023 study from the Australian Catholic University found that teachers can create an "anti-bullying atmosphere" that is much more effective than changing the behavior of individual students.
The feeling of being listened to and supported by teachers will lead to students supporting each other and less interpersonal conflict, and when a student is being bullied, they will be more courageous in facing the bullying and seek help from adults, and more classmates will stand up for him.
A "loving" school makes children feel valued and respected, and there is no longer a competitive atmosphere between each other, making the campus a benign system, and making visible and invisible bullying lose the soil to take root.
Fortunately, more and more parents are realizing that a good education is not only about further education, prestigious schools, and grades, but also about school management, system and culture.
And I, who wrote this article, still love the special beauty of elite private schools: we still have the possibility of discussion, there is room for change, there is a direction to work hard, and there is an opportunity to choose, isn't this where its value lies?
After entering the hidden corner, it is possible to let the bright light in.