The Hall Of Champions And Bullying

This is an edited letter that I sent to a school district several years ago.  I sent it after attending a very interesting meeting that dealt with bullying.  Apparently bullying is a problem in schools throughout the country.  It is not necessarily a new problem.

"Thank you for allowing me to participate in the District’s Interfaith Meeting held last Tuesday, I am convinced the meeting was important. I also attended the last one held in October. I am also convinced that the interfaith community is able to assist the District in its’ efforts to combat bullying. I am most happy to share with you some information germane to this quest.

The Hall of Champions and Bullying

My name is Robert Dominguez. I taught for 26 years at Granger Junior High School. The first year I was there, I was aide to the assistant principal. My job was mainly helping the assistant principal with discipline. It was at that time that I realized how prevalent bullying is at school, particularly at the middle school and junior high school levels. I concluded that this was not going to be an easy problem to deal with and I told myself, when I get into the classroom I will be determined to create in my classroom an anti-bullying environment. Aside from my academic preparation for the classes, I taught, I endeavored to create a climate of safety in my classroom. I named my classroom “The Hall of Champions.” I emphasized character building and placed a major focus on courtesy and how we communicate with each other. I peppered my classroom with sayings. Among them were:

“Give respect, get respect”
“Never be jealous of anyone”
“The body of someone else is not your toy; keep your hands off of it”
“Words can hurt more than fists”

Those are but a few. I also had Biblical scriptures on my walls and bulletin boards in addition to social science materials.

I believed that "Character Development" was the forgotten curriculum. I had a list of forbidden words. I did not feel comfortable having them written on the wall so I had some of them written and covered. Among them are these: shut up, stupid, idiot, the “F” word, pendejo, buey, bitch, faggit, slut and puto(a).  There were others, and any other degrading form of communication was not permitted.

I must admit that I did spend time on character development because I thought it was very important.  I was a social science teacher. And in a broad sense the way we treat each other in our communities, and  the way we communicate with each other, would fall under the category of culture. And if you are in America, it is part of American culture.  I attempted to always connect character education to the lessons.  Although not all of my colleagues may have agreed with me, character education can be connected to every social study of the Social Science curriculum. I realize it may not have been part of the official curriculum, nevertheless, respect is connected to character development, and both are connected to the problem of bullying.   Not having a safe environment in the classroom, and on the campus, can seriously hinder learning."