Mean Girls Suck: Pt. 2 OR What are you going to do to prevent your child's involvement in relational aggression?

Page 39 of my was three hundred dollar, now on sale for a hundred and twenty dollars Educational Psychology textbook says that “relational aggression appears to play a more important role in peer status than does overt aggression,” and “Because popularity and aggression are related to academic engagement and later disruptive behaviors, teachers need to identify and eliminate aggressive behaviors.”

      This is the part where I WAS going to tell you about an incident that happened several years ago during a Girl Scout event.  Instead I will relate an experienced I witnessed with my own kindergartener yesterday.

     My daughter is 5-years-old.  She attended pre-school last year and started kindergarten three days ago.  Her class, a sizable group of munchkins, have been making friends and sorting themselves out while learning the ropes of school this week.  Part of the sorting out has been a strong lesson about being "exclusionary."

     My little one spent a bit of time with a couple of girls over the summer but now, with a whole class of girls, the possessiveness over who gets to be friends with who has kicked in.  The little girls jockey for position, arguing over who gets to play with whom, who gets to sit next to whom, while their teacher, an award-winning veteran who absolutely deserves sainthood, does her best to head off issues and create a happy and inclusive environment for every student.  But the woman can't do everything and parents have to reinforce lessons at home.

     Yesterday we had a serious talk about excluding other students from play.  We have a zero-tolerance policy against "mean girl" behavior at our house, regardless of age.

      Research on bullying, overt physical or covert relational, clearly shows that victims suffer emotionally, mentally, academically, socially and often end up hurting themselves or others because of their negative experiences.  How can we justify standing by and watching children get treated like dirt and made to feel worthless by their peers because we consider it “normal” or we think they’ll eventually “sort it out.”  Like a pack of social-jockeying hyenas, they will sort it out and the unfortunate underdogs will end up dead or gone. 

Unfortunately, it is incredibly difficult to spot the Mean Girl behavior but we absolutely must have a zero-tolerance policy toward it, just as we do with fighting among children.  The pricey textbook clearly states, “Given the link between relational aggression and negative outcomes, teachers should be on the lookout for instances of relational aggression and react as swiftly to these aggressive behaviors as they do to instances of overt aggression.” 

No ifs, ands or buts about it.

So.  If you are a parent, teacher, administrator or adult who works with children in some other capacity, what are you going to do the next time you hear something like this:

“Oh.  My.  God.  You totally wear the weirdest outfits to school.  Do you like wake up in the morning and take crazy pills or something?  Hahaha…  Just kidding!  Like, omigod!  Don’t be so sensitive!”

Mean Girls Suck pt.1: How covert relational aggression can play out in the world of adolescent girls.

Page 38 of my three hundred dollar Educational Psychology textbook (which, I see, is now on sale for about $70.00 cheaper than what I paid for my used copy sonofa..!) says this:  “Relational aggression refers to behaviors specifically intended to damage another child’s friendships, social status, or feelings of inclusion in a peer group.  Such behaviors include gossiping, rumor spreading, and excluding someone as a way to control them.” 

We all know this as Mean Girl behavior (although research shows that boys, despite the stereotype, participate in it as well).  We all might NOT know that it is considered bullying and it is more damaging and more pervasive than overt physical aggression.

I think most of us can remember back to middle or high school and having to deal with that girl.  Some of us were, perhaps, lucky enough to belong to the inner coterie of the Queen Bee.  By compromising ourselves only just a little we were able to avoid the worst of her nastiness.  The rest of us, particularly myself, were dead in her crosshairs.

This is the part where I relate a particularly painful episode in my life and hope that I can remain honest while protecting the innocent and guilty alike:

My middle school class consisted of about 19 kids.  Most of us had been together since kindergarten.  We knew each other and our families fairly well.  There was this one girl…  Well behaved, well-dressed, academically and athletically successful.  Her parents were well-respected as were her older and younger siblings.

She was, all told, a raging, fetid nightmare.

And she hated my guts.

I was on the fringes of girl society.  The consummate  Beta.  I wasn’t pretty, trendy or cool.  I was just smart enough, funny enough and creative enough to be a threat to the Queen Bee and because I was also known for bazaar outbursts and emotional intemperance, my legitimate complaints about her meanness were overlooked as jealousy or dramatism and I suffered, suffered, suffered.

Early in my seventh grade year the girl on whom I was most emotionally dependent called my house and said that we had to “break-up” because Queen Bee thought I was a bad influence.  After half an hour of both of us bawling our heads off, me for obvious reasons, her because she is really a very kind and good person and knew she was doing something terrible, I ended up feeling horribly sorry for my friend (who eventually recanted and apologized during the tear drenched phone call) and declared war on Queen Bee.  

Much like the Allied Forces early in World War II when faced with Nazi aggression and expansion, I had previously responded to her hideousness with conciliation and effacement.  No longer!  From then on I resolved to hate, hate, hate Queen Bee and never give her a moment’s rest for being mean to me and for putting my dear friend in such an awful position.

My zero-tolerance, scorched earth campaign predictably led to an escalation of viciousness and sniping from both sides.  Her cold war tactics involved excluding me from “secrets,” snickering, jibing, the occasional nudge in P.E. and many of my belongings ending up mysteriously “misplaced.”  

My response was open, verbal aggression.  I did not sit quietly and let her answer the questions first.  I practiced the heck out of my clarinet and began to threaten her First Chair status.  I played my guts out on the volleyball court and beat her, once or twice, during skills test.  In other words, I no longer sat quietly in my Beta role…  I openly challenged her.  And had her running scared.

Queen Bee was a clever monster.  She normally kept her tactics covert and was considered to be “such a nice girl” among the adults at school who were completely oblivious to the grand campaign occurring under their noses.  But one day…  One bright and shining day when I very nearly landed myself in a mental hospital or, at the very least, suspended…  She slipped.

That momentous day I was, to a rapt audience of our boy population of juvenile delinquents, regaling the latest round of tales featuring my notorious, not-that-much-older-than-us Uncle.   My Uncle was my link to the criminal underworld of our school.  He partied with the older brothers and friends of my classmates.  He and his closest friends (one of them is now regularly featured on a very popular Discovery Channel show involving boats) were like gods to my less-than-likely-to-succeed classmates and the fact that they all hung out at my house was a source of envy and disgust among those who could barely pretend not to be interested as I related their every move, musical choice and conversation.

Queen Bee could no longer take seeing me the center of attention.  Even that attention.  In obvious agitation she blurted, “Well!  Your uncle needs counseling!”

I know now that when time seems to slow down or stop it’s actually the result of an enormous surge of adrenaline which allows your senses, reflexes, muscles and mind to operate in hyper-drive.  At  the time it seemed like magic that I was able to levitate across the room, over desks and collapsing bodies, on a trajectory which would have driven my clawed hands directly into her astonished, fear-filled face.

After that everything went sort of black.  The next thing I remember I was struggling in the grip of the second best social studies teacher and second best music teacher in the whole wide universe, Mr. Woodworth, who was shouting at the sobbing Queen Bee, “Go to the office!  I heard the whole thing!  You can’t go around saying things like that about people’s families!”

It was the best day ever.

Queen Bee is pretty much universally remembered as a “great kid” with lots of smarts, ability and potential.  When I make a remark about how vicious she was people respond sort of half-believingly and say something along the lines of, “Well, you were such an odd child.” 

It’s annoying. 

The lesson to be learned here is that even the kids who seem like the best kids…  Perhaps especially those kids… are not always the nicest people when the grown-ups have their backs turned.  Some 60% of kids in middle school have experienced or have witnessed bullying and it most often takes the form of covert “relational aggression.”  As parents and educators we need to keep our eyes, ears and hearts open for this sort of bullying and victimization.

I will, in Part 2, relate how ignoring these events can create unhealthy patterns of abuse and victimization which can stick with a child for a lifetime.  

Parenting styles and their impact in the classroom

My handy $300.00 Educational Psychology textbook had a couple of pages devoted to the description of “parenting style” and its impact of learning and behavior in the classroom.  As it “activated previous knowledge” for me (a fancy term for “Hey!  I’ve heard this before!) I got a little excited.

Mary Pipher’s Reviving Ophelia: Saving the Selves of Adolescent Girls made #1 on the the New York Times Bestseller list in 1994.  It has been a standard among people who work with children and provides amazing insight into gender differences which “common sense” tells us must be “natural.”  Pipher’s opus walk us through case studies which she encountered in her many years of behavioral therapy then comments on the parenting styles which lead to, or enable girls to avoid, certain maladaptive behaviors among adolescent girls.

Both EdPsych Modules and Reviving Ophelia use a theory put forth in 1966 by a behavioral psychologist named Diana Baumrind.  The theory measures parenting by “control” and “responsiveness.”

Control:  How many rules we have and how we apply discipline to enforce those rules.

Responsiveness:  How affectionate we are, how supportive, and how involved we are in our children’s lives.

Parenting Style is placed on a corresponding grid which looks like this:

The four different parenting styles are defined as the following:

Authoritative:  According to both Pipher and Braumlin, this is the optimal parenting style for well-adjusted children.  It constitutes a high level of control, the setting and enforcing of rules and limits which protect children from negative outside influences while teaching them to manage themselves.  This style of parent is strict but not unreasonable.  The high level of responsiveness means parents will bend or adjust the rules depending on specific circumstances in the child’s life because they are very keyed in to what’s going on in the child’s life.
     Application: 

         Susie is not allowed to hang out on the playground after school with the other middle school kids.  She is expected to come straight home after school so that she can do chores and help her mother with her younger siblings.  She loves to dance, however, so her mother agrees to do her chores for her and lets her stay after school for the occasional school dance.  She is, however, expected to be out front and ready to be picked up exactly at the previously agreed upon time.

     Roger cannot watch movies without previous permission.  His parents are very firm on not exposing him to gratuitous violence or negative depictions of women.  His class at school is screening the new Transformers movie and Roger will have to sit in the Principal’s office.  His mother has agreed to let him watch the film with his class but has a long talk with him afterward about certain unhealthy dynamics between the film’s hero and various female characters.

Authoritarian:  This high-control, low-responsiveness parenting style is typified by the “dictator” parent who makes and enforces rules regardless of mitigating circumstances.  While this parenting style can be harsh and stifling leading to some maladaptive behaviors especially in girls (eating disorders, cutting, suicide), under certain circumstances, such as in dangerous and/or high-crime areas or communities which suffer from high rates of alcoholism and drug abuse such parenting can counteract negative societal influences.
     Application:

     Susie is not allowed to interact with boys at all.  Her father has insisted that the local school separate her from her male classmates by at least one desk and is lobbying for segregated P.E. classes and recesses.  She must submit to inspection every morning to make sure that her clothing reaches to her neckline and wrists and that her skirts (which she is required to wear) fall a full four inches below her knees.

     Roger must be home directly after school.  He is allowed to participate in sports but only if one of his parents is available to chaperone during practice and games.  He is not allowed to sleep over at friends’ houses or hang-out in the playground after school.

Permissive:  This low-control, high-responsiveness is fairly typical of today’s parents.  Rules are either non-existent or not enforced and the household generally revolves around the desires of the child. 

     Application:

     Susie has learned that she can get attention from boys in her class by wearing revealing clothing and engaging in sex acts with them.  She also manipulates the other girls in her class by spreading rumors about them among the boys.  This behavior has caused many of the other girls in the class to make her the target of some particularly nasty bullying.  Susie’s mother, concerned about how mean the girls in Susie’s class are, has written emails to the other parents accusing them of bad parenting.  She has also written to the school principal, asking that Susie’s teacher be removed for negligence.

     Roger hates doing homework.  His father, remembering how much he hated homework as a kid, tends to sweep the issue under the rug.  His mother feels that home time is family time and does not approach the issue in order to avoid family conflict.  Roger is getting bad grades.  His parents feel that his teacher should make time during the day so that Roger can complete his homework at school.  They also suspect that the teacher is picking on Roger because of his learning disability which the school has never diagnosed but his parents strongly feel that he must have.

Uninvolved:  Low-control, low-responsiveness, this parenting style can basically be described as the absent parent.
     Application:
     Susie has been having trouble with her school work for some time now.  Her teachers have attempted to contact her parents in order to have her screened for a possible learning disability.  A routine health check by the school nurse has revealed that Susie is in need of glasses which could explain her difficulty in algebra.  Her teacher, relieved and encouraged by this news, has moved her closer to the board but would like to see Susie taken to an ophthalmologist.  She has yet to hear back from Susie’s parents.

     Roger has received detention three times since the beginning of the school year for bringing inappropriate reading material to class.  Because of the graphic nature of the material and the frequency of violations the principal is considering suspension but feels he should speak with Roger’s parents first.  Roger’s father, after a week and a half, finally returned the principal’s phone call but simply made some noncommittal noises, ending the phone call with “Well, boys will be boys.”

We all, as parents, fall somewhere on this scale.  It is helpful to know the ramifications of our rules or lack-thereof.

This is another one of those cases that can first seem very invasive and inappropriate for you kids’ teacher and school to be prying into.  What are they going to do next?  A home safety check?  (Well…  In extreme cases, the school is legally obligated to refer cases to the local Child Safety office so, yes.)  You can see where different parenting styles are going to directly effect the relationship your child has with school and their teacher.

Bronfenbrenner's What?

Over the course of my Master's of Arts in Teaching program I was required to take a class called Educational Psychology- EDFN (Education Foundations) 603.

If you would like to see what a $300.00 textbook looks like, click here.  I was lucky enough to purchase mine used (covered in highlighting and other random scrawl) for $180.00 through the UAA University Bookstore.

Our text was organized in “Modules” which began with a series of “case studies” (little stories) focusing on different age levels from Pre-K to High School.  Our first reading assignment had us learning about and exploring psychological terminology as it applies to education.  Yes, you understand correctly, your child’s teacher must have a working familiarity with your child’s psychological functioning in order to effectively teach.  Of course they would!  Why wouldn't they?  They are professionals, are they not?

Bronfenbrenner’s Bioecological model looks like this:

It describes the system of interactions between your child as a person and their environment, including your environment as it interacts indirectly with your child.

The graphic in my textbook shows a smiling kid backed by four little circles which read “childcare facility,” “peer group,” “school,” and “family.”  Another that I’ve seen skips the daycare and reads “religious institution.”  Those four little circles are considered “Microsystems” with lines called “Mesosystems” representing the interaction between spheres such as a parent’s (ie “family”) relationship to “school.”  Outside of the “Microsystems” are the “Exosystems” which include such things as the “Media,” “Community” and “Parental Employment.”  Outside of that are “Macrosystems which include “Culture,” “Economics,” and “Society.”  Alongside my graphic is a dotted line labeled “Chronosphere” which is means all of the above over a period of time.

My version of Bronfenbrenner’s Bioecological model looks like this:

All of these factors, interacting together, effect who a person is, how they behave and how well they are going to be able to learn.  It is important for educators to be aware of these factors and how they interact.

I was going to dissect my oldest daughter for your viewing pleasure but I’ve decided that the poor kid has to be my show pony often enough.  I would encourage everyone to think long and hard about each of the above boxes and consider what your own child’s “Permanent Record” has to say. 

Some of us may jump on the “Well, it’s none of their dang business!” bandwagon immediately.  It is a little daunting, the idea of educators prying into our home lives, our churches, what we do for a living.

But, let’s think about this.  Ms. So-and-so is trying to conduct a class and Little Jimmy is going through a rotten divorce.  His mother has taken off to the Bahamas with his babysitter and left him and his 8-month-old little brother home with his dad who is barely making ends meet on a two week on, two week off remote work schedule.  When dad’s away at work Little Jimmy and his brother stay with his Grandma who is 80-years-old and too blind to drive.  Add to this that they are new in the school district and Little Jimmy is one of two Euro-American kids in a predominantly Alaskan Native school.

Is Ms. So-and-so going to give Little Jimmy a “0” on a missed homework assignment that he forgot at his dad’s house and can’t get to because dad’s at work and Grandma doesn't have a car?  Is Ms. So-and-so going to give Little Jimmy detention for falling asleep during Social Studies for the third time when she knows the baby is teething?  Is Ms. So-and-so going to kick Little Jimmy out of school for fighting (first offense) the local bully?

Probably not.  Ms. So-and-so wouldn't really be a very good teacher if she did.

From a personal perspective, all of the above is way more than daunting!  I love introducing kids (older kids…  I get a little freaked out if they can't wipe their own noses) to the big ideas of the world.  I like initiating conversations about politics, history, anthropology, to help them figure out what makes people and the world tick.  I don't want to psychoanalyze the little darlings or do an intensive background check on their parents.  As far as I'm concerned, what happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas and when they're in my class the rest of the world only exists in abstract.

If only that could be true.

Stay tuned next time for the four basic parenting styles and their impact of school performance...

Social studies: social science or indoctrination?

“Every child in America should be acquainted with his own country. He should read books that furnish him with ideas that will be useful to him in life and practice. As soon as he opens his lips, he should rehearse the history of his own country.”  -Noah Webster

Last year, an election year, I served an internship at a small, rural, conservative school.  As a Social Studies teacher.  I was forcibly reminded by family, friends, and acquaintances that the community, the school, and my mentor teacher were very conservative and very religious, particularly in contrast to myself. 

The picture of militarism.

To put it a better way, in contrast with the community, school, and most of the staff, I appeared to be some kind of militant, feminazi, evangelizing atheist.  To be clear, I am moderately more moderate than any of those things but I think everyone, except for myself, was braced for conflict.

I found the community, one in which my family has ties that run both thick and deep, to be welcoming.  Most of the parents and the veteran staff at the school remembered me from my childhood and not unkindly.  Many of the parents and staff knew my younger siblings and my parents.  My mentor teacher was patient, kind, and supportive.

So despite visibly choking back apoplexy while the students watched Romney's nomination acceptance speech (and tears during Obama's), I did not deliberately foist my political or religious viewpoint on my students.  I was mindful of my commentary and of the Alaska Code of Ethics of the Education Profession, particularly Sections 20 AAC 10.020.b.2 and 20 AAC 10.020.c.2 which admonish educators not to suppress or distort information for personal reasons and to distinguish personal political beliefs from those of the educational institution.

Official code of ethics aside, what sort of horrible, demagogic monster would deliberately indoctrinate children with their personal political or religious beliefs, anyway?

Noah Webster, author of the famous Blue Back Speller or Primer

Noah Webster, one of the founder's of the United State's system of education, believed that a woman's greatest charm should be her modesty, that Democracy led to the empowerment of the ignorant and intemperate, that children should be taught submission to a higher authority above all else, and whose lack of commitment to the separation of church and state was probably directly responsible for the Philadelphia Bible Riots of 1844.

The Bible Riots pitted Irish Catholic immigrants against "Nativists" who sought to enforce Protestantism on school children.  The shaming and punishment of Catholic children in public schools became so severe that parents pulled their children despite legal and social sanctioning.  Protestant anti-immigrant groups attacked Irish Catholics in the street and burned their churches and private schools.  This series of conflicts left at least 20 people dead and are the reason public schools do not allow religious favoritism. 

While Webster hoped to enforce an "American" way of speaking, spelling, thinking, and worshiping that would distinguish the population of the United States from its European forebears, his methodology of indoctrination left little room for cultural pluralism or critical thinking.  

This tension in the field of Social Studies Education exists today.  For instance, all major publishers of history textbooks in this country publish a separate edition for the state of Texas.  The conservative government of Texas knows that controlling what public school children learn in Social Studies class will influence the way they vote when they become adults.  But whose best interests are the lawmakers serving?  Texas, the United States, the people, the students?

What, then, is the job of a Social Studies teacher?  Do we teach History as a narrative beginning with writing or agriculture (to skate around the problematic million or so years of human existence which predate the Christian bible) and ending with the terrorist attacks of 2001?  Are the histories of Asia, India, Russia, and Africa to be relegated to their own units or even merely chapters, separated from "Western Civilization" as if only Greco-Roman influence legitimizes a culture?

If a linear narrative, with a clear beginning, middle, and end, leading to a seemingly inevitable conclusion is how we choose to approach History, what of it's "losers?"  How do we treat those cultures and ideas that were trammeled by "Western Civilization?"

The best example of this conundrum is the period of United States' history often called The Age of Expansionism.  How could I face a classroom of 7th & 8th graders, 30% of whom were Native Alaskans, and glorify Manifest Destiny?  I was distinctly uncomfortable with that proposition.

You will note the unhappy figures in the bottom left.

Despite their "tender" age (although there was nothing tender about that particular class of brilliant little ruffians) I felt compelled to introduce the concepts of historiography, how interpretations of history have changed over time, sociological imagination, how our own culture informs how we judge others and ourselves, and cultural relativism, how "normal" changes over time and from place to place.  The students responded well to the change in perspective, many were enthusiastic about voicing their disapproval over the behavior of such historical figures as Andrew Jackson and James Monroe.  

One student was immediately on to my game and busied himself challenging my revisionism.  He ended  his description of his final project, a toothpick log cabin representing the childhood home of Andrew Jackson, by admonishing the class and myself that, "Things had to happen how they did or we wouldn't be where we are now!"  This statement led to a lively debate among the class about the virtues of "where we are now" and whether or not we had to do what we did in order to get here.  

"Andrew Jackson: Most Terrifying Man Ever Elected President"
The funniest not-classroom-friendly video ever created about a president.

If I had kept other viewpoints to myself and taught a linear history strictly out of the textbook, would that very conservative student have engaged like he did?  Would have the rest of the class?  What about the chronically off-task and under-enthused student who piped up from the back of the room, "Hey!  I'm an Indian and I think that sucks!" which led to the polarization of the rest of the class about the building of the transcontinental railroad?

These were 7th & 8th graders.  Who were VERY engaged in Social Studies class.

Many people remember Social Studies as the most boring part of their school day; the most hated class in their academic career.  I wonder how much of that boredom had to do with the way we approach social science as an ideological narrative to be "recited" as per Noah Webster.  I contend that approaching Social Studies scientifically, by weighing evidence, comparing examples, and scrutinizing competing viewpoints, we will better engage students, allow them to practice necessary critical-thinking skills, and comply with universal moral and ethical directives that prevent classroom podiums from becoming pulpits.