fantasies. So he’s worked for the filmmaker Michael Moore on Bowling for Columbine and he’s
set up an innovative website where bullied kids can communicate with each other and learn that
the answer isn’t to kill. “It’s to use your mind and make things better.”
Brooks, like me, does not see the shooters as people who are a world apart from everyone
else. His friend Dylan Klebold, he says, was once a regular kid from a fine home with loving,
involved parents. In fact, he warns, “We can just sit back and call the shooters ‘sick monsters,
completely different from us.’... Or we can accept that there are more Erics and Dylans out
there, who are slowly being driven... down the same path.”
Even if a victim doesn’t have a fixed mindset to begin with, prolonged bullying can instill
it. Especially if others stand by and do nothing, or even join in. Victims say that when they’re
taunted and demeaned and no one comes to their defense, they start to believe they deserve it.
They start to judge themselves and to think that they are inferior.
Bullies judge. Victims take it in. Sometimes it remains inside and can lead to depression
and suicide. Sometimes it explodes into violence.
What Can Be Done?
Individual children can’t usually stop the bullies, especially when the bullies attract a
group of supporters. But the school can—by changing the school mindset.
School cultures often promote, or at least accept, the fixed mindset. They accept that
some kids feel superior to others and feel entitled to pick on them. They also consider some kids
to be misfits whom they can do little to help.
But some schools have created a dramatic reduction in bullying by fighting the
atmosphere of judgment and creating one of collaboration and self-improvement. Stan Davis, a
therapist, school counselor, and consultant, has developed an anti-bullying program that works.
Building on the work of Dan Olweus, a researcher in Norway, Davis’s program helps bullies
change, supports victims, and empowers bystanders to come to a victim’s aid. Within a few
years, physical bullying in his school was down 93 percent and teasing was down 53 percent.
Darla, a third grader, was overweight, awkward, and a “crybaby.” She was such a prime
target that half of the class bullied her, hitting her and calling her names on a daily basis—and
winning one another’s approval for it. Several years later, because of Davis’s program, the
bullying had stopped. Darla had learned better social skills and even had friends. Then Darla
went to middle school and, after a year, came back to report what had happened. Her classmates
from elementary school had seen her through. They’d helped her make friends and protected her
from her new peers when they wanted to harass her.
Davis also gets the bullies changing. In fact, some of the kids who rushed to Darla’s
support in middle school were the same ones who had bullied her earlier. What Davis does is
this. First, while enforcing consistent discipline, he doesn’t judge the bully as a person. No
criticism is directed at traits. Instead, he makes them feel liked and welcome at school every day.
Then he praises every step in the right direction. But again, he does not praise the person;
he praises their effort. “I notice that you have been staying out of fights. That tells me you are
working on getting along with people.” You can see that Davis is leading students directly to the
growth mindset. He is helping them see their actions as part of an effort to improve. Even if the
change was not intentional on the part of the bullies, they may now try to make it so.
Stan Davis has incorporated our work on praise, criticism, and mindsets into his program,
and it has worked. This is a letter I got from him.Dear Dr. Dweck:Your research has radically
changed the way I work with students. I am already seeing positive results from my own
different use of language to give feedback to young people. Next year our whole school is
wang
(Wang)
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