Michael F. Shaughnessy
Senior Columnist EdNews.org
Eastern New Mexico University

Izzy Kalman is a Nationally Certified School Psychologist, author of Bullies to Buddies: How to turn your enemies into friends, and creator/author of the website, www.Bullies2Buddies.com. Over the past four years, he has taught his methods to over 25,000 mental health professionals and educators throughout the US at his seminars, Anger Control Made Easy, and Turning Bullies into Buddies. You can email Izzy at mailto:[email protected].

Izzy is currently working on a DVD version of his program for schools, Victim-Proof Your School.

1. First of all, what got you interested in bullies and bullying?

I'm not interested in bullies and bullying – and neither should anyone else be. Society's current obsession with bullies is little more than a witch-hunt – the most massive and popular witch hunt in the history of the world. The idea of trying to get rid of bullies sounds so good that I have never heard anyone question its value.

Everyone on the political spectrum, from the far right to the far left, has embraced the anti-bully movement. Every religion has jumped on the anti-bully bandwagon. Unfortunately, witch-hunts inevitably never succeed in eradicating the epidemic that initiated them, and cause more harm than good.

What I am interested in is victims and victim behavior. When I teach you how not to be a victim, no one can bully you. You don't have to wait for society to get rid of bullies for you to become happy.

Though we may not always think of it in such terms, the mental health professions have always been about helping victims to change, for everyone who comes asking for help feels like a victim. Unfortunately, we haven't done such a good job at this, which is why psychotherapy is often expected to take many months or years, and why the success rate is nothing to rave about. (For example, most people who go to marriage counseling end up getting divorced.) I believe the professions began asking, "But why should the victim have to change? The victim is the good one. Their problems are caused by abusers [and more recently, 'bullies.']. Let's promote mental health by fighting for laws against abuse." So, our professions began trying to promote mental health by fighting for laws against abuse and bullying. Which means that we are looking for legal solutions to the problem because psychological ones aren't working. The mental health professions today are becoming increasingly a branch of the legal justice system and less one of science.

But making abuse illegal doesn't make abuse disappear. It just changes who we deal with. So today, instead of trying to get victims to change, we are trying to make abusers change. And you know what we discover? It is not so easy to help abusers, either – after all, they are personality disordered and have no conscience! But I believe that our own conscience feels better failing to help evil abusers (and bullies) than failing to help poor, innocent victims.

Over two decades ago, I developed a very simple, effective way of teaching people not to be victims. My technique is grounded in simple principles that are consistent with all major schools of psychology, philosophy and religion. But after Columbine, I saw that the country was dealing with the problem in exactly the wrong direction. Instead of teaching kids how not to be victims, which is the only reliable way to reduce bullying, we began trying to target and eradicate bullying. I knew that such an approach was bound to make the situation worse, and I began warning about this – and research has since borne out my predictions. Following Columbine I decided to make the effective solution available to all, so I created my website, www.Bullies2Buddies.com, for which I wrote free manuals for both students and adults on how to get kids to stop being victims.

2) What led you to write the book "Bullies to Buddies "?

I had previously written the manual, How to Stop Being Teased and Bullied Without Really Trying, that is available for free on my website. A couple of years later I decided that it would be useful to have a longer, more comprehensive work, so I wrote the book "Bullies to Buddies: How to turn your enemies into friends." It teaches the same principles as the website manual, but provides a deeper foundation for understanding human nature, the biological role that "bullying" (I hate the word – it is an insulting way to describe "dominance behavior") plays in social organizations, and how to handle virtually the entire gamut of behaviors that we call "bullying."

3) I know that there are several "package programs "out there that address bullying. What seems to be wrong with these programs?

I don't want to make a blanket statement about these programs because not every "anti-bullying" program is the same. Some programs are very good, but if you examine the good ones carefully, they are not really "anti-bully" programs. They are simply good social skills programs that teach people how not to be victims, but the creators call them "anti-bully" programs because schools are required to show they are doing something against bullying.

I will address, though, the programs that are truly "anti-bully", the ones based on the classic Olweus model. These are the programs that actively target bullies by teaching kids and staff how terrible bullies are and how to recognize them; not to respect or tolerate bullies; to have sympathy for victims and to unite against bullies; and to report bullies to the authorities so that they can be sent for counseling and/or punishment.

What's wrong with these programs? A better question is "What's right with them?" I can write a book on what's wrong with these programs - and maybe I should. But I will give you a few points. I will start with the empirical one.

Bullying is said to be skyrocketing in the country in recent years. During the same period, anti-bully programs have been proliferating. Shouldn't bullying be going down with all our anti-bully education? No one is daring to put two and two together to realize that bullying is on the rise because of our anti-bully programs. School mental health professionals have told me things like, "Ever since our school adopted its anti-bully program, we're having three times as much bullying as before." Thanks to my website and my seminars, I am in touch with school mental health professionals throughout the country. Some of them love the sense of power they get from going after bullies. Most of them, though, have become miserable because their schools' anti-bully policies have turned them into security officers, policemen, detectives and judges. They did not go into the mental health professions to become law enforcement agents.

In the Dec. 2004 issue of the School Psychology Review - the research journal of the National Association of School Psychologists - a paper was published that was so important it should have made headlines in every newspaper and caused uproar in the Western World. If the news has fallen on any ears, they have been deaf ears. A Canadian psychologist, J. David Smith, conducted a meta-analysis of all the published research on whole-school anti-bullying programs. Do you know what he discovered? The great majority of these programs produced no benefit at all or even made the problem worse. Only a small minority showed a mild benefit.
And who knows what the researchers would come up with if they actually set out to measure the harmful effects of these programs.

What happens when research shows that a medication causes too many undesirable side effects? It gets pulled off the shelves and the manufacturer is sued for hundreds of millions, or even billions, of dollars. Since Columbine, our country has invested huge amounts of time and money on anti-bullying efforts, and here we have an article in a major journal revealing that these programs are having no benefit and even making the problem worse! Don't we deserve to know about this? Where is the public outrage?

I believe the reason we don't know is that we don't want to know. We love the idea of playing knights in shining armor protecting virtuous victims from evil bullies. We don't want anything to challenge this noble mission. You would think that David Smith had recommended in his paper that we should stop wasting our time and money on these anti-bully programs. No. He recommends that we keep on doing them because: 1. maybe they are helping in ways that aren't being measured; 2. maybe if we do them long enough, they may end up helping; and 3. maybe if we do them long enough, we will find out what works and what doesn't. It's so hard for anyone to imagine that there could possibly be anything wrong with an anti-bully program. Researchers would rather ignore their own findings than consider that it may be wrong to run an anti-bully crusade.

My other points will be more theoretical. The following are only some of the problems. 1. These programs are fostering a victim mentality among our children. It is simple logic that when you actively support victims against bullies, you are rewarding children for thinking and acting like victims.

2. "Bully" is not a diagnosis; it is an insult. We wouldn't refer to kids as "wimps," "suckers" or "losers." We have no business insulting kids by calling them "bullies," either.

3. Anti-bully policies violate the First Amendment's right to Freedom of Speech – the cornerstone of democracy. They are making it illegal to say anything that can hurt anyone's feelings. Freedom of Speech is actually the solution to verbal bullying, as I demonstrate through role-playing, but instead of promoting Freedom of Speech, we are repealing it.

4. We are making it easier for parents to bankrupt our schools. If it is officially the school's responsibility to make sure no students are bullied, then parents have ammunition in court to sue their school for failing to stop their child from being bullied – and no school can make the bullying disappear. Schools have lost hundreds of thousands, and even millions of dollars in individual lawsuits, and these lawsuits are becoming more common, thanks to our anti-bully education.

4) As a school psychologist, do you not feel that some of these bullies are really emotionally disturbed kids who have not yet been diagnosed, tested or labeled?

If we need to have "anti-bullying" policies that turn a school into a totalitarian police state in which it is a crime for kids to upset each other – while intensifying the bullying problem - in order to identify some kids who may have emotional disturbances, the mental health professions are in deep trouble.

And why stop with "anti-bully" programs? Let schools have "anti-moron" programs to identify kids with learning problems. How about "anti-slut" programs to identify sexually promiscuous students? "Anti-jerk" programs to identify kids with personality disorders? "Anti-airhead" programs to identify students who use drugs? Are "bullies" the only problematic children who need to be changed?

5) You say the problem is not bullying. I say the problem is a lack of teacher supervision. What ever happened to the concept of "en loco parentis"?

This sounds like a great idea: Let's make our children as safe in school as they are at home under their parents' supervision.

Children are thirty to forty times more likely to be killed by their parents than by another kid in school. My survey of four thousand mental health professionals and educators shows that their own children are four times as likely to be hit daily by a sibling at home than by another student in school. They are twice as likely to be insulted daily by a sibling than by another kid in school. They are fifty percent more likely to be sent to the hospital by a sibling than by a student.

Schools are currently the safest place for children. As dangerous as you may think school is, it is safer for your kids than your home. Schools are already doing a much better job than parents at protecting children. Only one in a hundred child homicides occur in school. If two parents – experts in child behavior and education – can't get their own couple of kids at home to stop fighting, how can anyone expect 100% success from teachers who have to care for 30 students at a time?

The truth is, the reason children fight so much at home is because the parents are trying to make them stop fighting. When parents get in the middle, each child become concerned with getting the parents – the most important people in the world to each of them - on their side, so hostilities escalate. If you start paying attention, you will notice that in most families, children get along better when the parents aren't around to save them from each other. So what do we do in school? We fight for anti-bully policies that force school staff to make the same mistake parents make at home, and we wonder why school bullying is escalating!

6) What happens in some of your workshops? What goes on?

I make extensive use of role-playing. It is a much more fun and effective way of teaching than lecturing. I have created structured role-plays that reveal the hidden dynamics of bullying, expose how adults unwittingly cause most of the bullying between kids, and teach the simple principles for stopping to be a victim.

But I teach these principles not only to kids. I teach them to adults as well. There is actually far more bullying going in the lives of adults, including mental health professionals and educators, than there is among kids in school. Most mental health professionals have no idea how to be free of bullying in their own lives. They marry their "soulmates" and before they know it, they can't stand each other. How are they supposed to teach kids how to get rid of bullying if they don't even know how to stop fighting with their best friends?

There is really nothing new in what I teach. The only thing that is original is the way I teach it. What I actually teach is the correct application of The Golden Rule. To get people to treat you like friends, you have to treat them like friends – even when they treat you like an enemy. What's really new is the "anti-bully" psychology.
It is an abandonment of the basic principles of psychology and wisdom, and is immoral and counterproductive. The reason it doesn't work is that it is teaching us to treat people like enemies ("bullies").

7) What has been the general reaction of educators, principals, parents and kids?

Almost everyone loves what I teach. (You can read testimonials from my seminars at: http://bullies2buddies.com/testimonials/index.html It contains both the best and the worst comments.) What can be better than effortlessly solving your own problems? Plus, my teaching methods are very entertaining. People laugh their heads off at my role-plays.

Many professionals come to my seminars skeptical, and by the end of the day most are "converted." They wish all schools in the country would adopt my approach.

8) Are there any research studies about your specific approach?

I have done small, informal studies of my own, but currently Kent State University, in conjunction with PSI Solutions, Inc., is conducting a large scale research study on my "Victim-Proof Your School" program. I believe the results should be available in several months.

9) Why do you think "bullying "has become such a concern? Is it due to Columbine or some other stuff happening in society?

You are right. Bullying was catapulted into the spotlight by the Columbine shooting. Before that, the term was practically unheard of in mainstream education and mental health. It's not really that schools weren't concerned with "bullying." Schools have always been trying to get kids to stop being aggressive to each other. It just wasn't referred to by this basket term, "bullying," that includes everything from bashing someone's head in with a baseball bat to not wanting to be someone's friend.

Columbine made us panic, and when panic sets in, reason flies out the window. We realized that bullying goes on in every classroom in every school, so – Oh my God! - Columbines could literally happen anywhere.

Though a child would have to go to school for an average of about thirty-thousand years to have a decent chance of being present in a school when a random shooting occurs, our government quickly allocated hundreds of millions of dollars for anti-bullying plans that would prevent future Columbines.

It didn't take long for people to begin thinking, why should we only be concerned with school shootings? There are kids who are suffering terribly from bullying in every classroom, even though they don't kill anyone. Why should any child have to go to school being afraid of bullies? Let's make our schools "bully-free." If you think about it logically, what we are really trying to create today, for the first time in the history of the planet, is a social environment in which everyone is always nice to each other. I have heard of a place in which no one upsets anyone else. It is called "Heaven" and as far as anyone knows you have to die to get in.

As though our anti-bully programs have been so phenomenally successful, state legislatures are being pressured by parents, educators, and mental health professionals to pass school anti-bullying laws requiring our schools to make bullying disappear. Thus our schools are being legally mandated to accomplish the impossible. But what's the big deal? Who said, "You can't legislate morality"? We can if we want to. Anyway, the government can easily print the money to pay off lawsuits. Why should we care? The money doesn't come from our pockets.

Or does it?

Published February 20, 2007