I wasn't sure where to put this but it is a response to Jenna's piece in this week's newsletter and I just wanted to respond but without clogging up her inbox.
Her comments about reaching the parents who have kids with the potential to stand up for the underdog immediately brought to mind a story I read yesterday about Angelina Jolie. It may or may not be true (you know what these celeb gossip stories are like). Angelina's son Maddox has started attending an English school and she was - supposedly - bemoaning the fact that the school was taking away his individuality. They had made her cut his mohican and remove any jewellery, including his favourite helicopter necklace.
I think one of the main problems that encourages bullying is that, even if we are not told directly to do it, we are all expected to conform. There is a "norm" that we are all supposed to follow. From a very young age we are expected to "fit-in." As a result, those who don't fit into that norm are considered weird, geeky, and outsiders, and often ridiculed and bullied.
Yet, in adulthood, we all gradually find our place in life and suddenly being the same as everybody else isn't necessarily appealing. What sort of world would we be living in if there hadn't been more unusual, flamboyant, even outrageous people in our society. Where would we be if we never had people who were prepared to stand up for beliefs that may not match society's current line of thinking? If Salvador Dali, Vivienne Westwood, Nelson Mandela etc......had all conformed to what society expected of them, the world would be a very dull and stagnant place.
At my schools we always had school uniforms - the theory being that we all looked the same and therefore no one would be bullied because their parents couldn't afford the latest trends or wouldn't have bought them for their kids even if they could. Of course, there were still ways of singling people out. If you didn't customise your skirt to be shorter and your tie to be extra thin, or wear the right sock or shoes you were considered a geek.
I'm sure in Maddox's case he will always have a strong individuality because his mum is such a strong, unusual woman (infact, it may be in adulthood that he decides to conform). I can't see her letting him turn into the perfect English schoolboy (if there is such a thing).
I could ramble on for hours, but I'd better do some work.
Lisa x
Her comments about reaching the parents who have kids with the potential to stand up for the underdog immediately brought to mind a story I read yesterday about Angelina Jolie. It may or may not be true (you know what these celeb gossip stories are like). Angelina's son Maddox has started attending an English school and she was - supposedly - bemoaning the fact that the school was taking away his individuality. They had made her cut his mohican and remove any jewellery, including his favourite helicopter necklace.
I think one of the main problems that encourages bullying is that, even if we are not told directly to do it, we are all expected to conform. There is a "norm" that we are all supposed to follow. From a very young age we are expected to "fit-in." As a result, those who don't fit into that norm are considered weird, geeky, and outsiders, and often ridiculed and bullied.
Yet, in adulthood, we all gradually find our place in life and suddenly being the same as everybody else isn't necessarily appealing. What sort of world would we be living in if there hadn't been more unusual, flamboyant, even outrageous people in our society. Where would we be if we never had people who were prepared to stand up for beliefs that may not match society's current line of thinking? If Salvador Dali, Vivienne Westwood, Nelson Mandela etc......had all conformed to what society expected of them, the world would be a very dull and stagnant place.
At my schools we always had school uniforms - the theory being that we all looked the same and therefore no one would be bullied because their parents couldn't afford the latest trends or wouldn't have bought them for their kids even if they could. Of course, there were still ways of singling people out. If you didn't customise your skirt to be shorter and your tie to be extra thin, or wear the right sock or shoes you were considered a geek.
I'm sure in Maddox's case he will always have a strong individuality because his mum is such a strong, unusual woman (infact, it may be in adulthood that he decides to conform). I can't see her letting him turn into the perfect English schoolboy (if there is such a thing).
I could ramble on for hours, but I'd better do some work.
Lisa x