During my schooling years I went to a Rudolf Steiner school. It was a private school, which under normal circumstances my parents could never have afforded for us to attend, however this particular one had been established in a deprived area in order to try and bring this form of education to families which wouldn't normally have been able to afford it. You could pay a set price, or a percentage of your income, whichever was cheaper.
So there were children there from all walks of life. In fact the only common theme with the children attending is that the families had enough of an open mind to want an alternative form of education. There were children who were failing in the state education system and getting in trouble, there were the natural, hippy, flower power types and there was even a lad in our class whose family owned a manor house. It was a veritable melting pot where everyone was accepted for who they were.
The reason I bring this up is because so often I hear from people that bullying is an inevitable part of school life; yet I never experienced this. I'm a redhead and I wore glasses to see the blackboard, a typical target for schoolyard bullying I believe, but I was never bullied. Don't get me wrong, there were occasionally kids who tried bullying, usually newcomers to the school. They were generally ostracised until they decided to play nice. There was a group mentality which didn't accept bullying.
Another thing I never came across at school was racism. It wasn't even a concept I'd encountered until our teacher read us a story about someone in America, back in the 60s maybe, who coloured his skin to see what it was like to live as a black. I was amazed that people would even be treated so differently just because of the colour of their skin and was grateful that this racism thing no longer happened. It was quite a while before I discovered that it did still exist!
We only really had one family at the school for any length of time that might be called black. They were a mixed family with one with one parent of black African decent and the other I think was from Pakistan. Looking back I now wonder if the reason they sent their children to this school was for them to not have to experience the problem that some children of mixed ethnicity have of not being accepted into either culture. Well they certainly didn't have any problems, that I was aware of, fitting in at the melting pot that was our school.
A fascinating story I heard about was a troop of baboons being documented in the wild. They typically have a hierarchy where the leaders are the aggressive males and they are the ones that get to breed and get first dibs on any food. This particular troop came across some bins one day which had bad meat in them and the aggressive males of course barged in to get it all. They died from botulism poisoning leaving the troop with the non aggressive males. The females became so content with these males treating them so much more respectfully and gently, that if any aggressive male tried to come in from outside, they would see him off. Having experienced a new way of doing things, they choose not to go back to the traditional hierarchy.
It seems to me that the acceptance of certain behaviours is what perpetuates them and then we in turn teach them to our own offspring. Most behaviours aren't instinctive they are learnt. A child may very well snatch a toy from another child, just because they want it. If they are taught that its not an acceptable thing to do, this behaviour stops quite quickly, however, if it's allowed by everyone around them it will be seen as acceptable and continue. Discrimination, on the other hand, is taught. A child won't automatically hate someone whose skin is different or who is a different gender. That seed has to be planted.
So is bullying inevitable?
Only if we allow it to be.
You can also find us on:
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/minismallholding/
Facebook: https://m.facebook.com/minismallholding/
YouTube: https://m.youtube.com/channel/UCBwcsmyIkW_hIEJdLUSd44g
