[MUSIC, Title: "Good Intentions and Systemic Problems"] [Beth] There's an old children's story that tells of a woman... who swallowed a fly. Well, that wasn't too pleasant. So she swallowed a spider to catch the fly. Well, that was really unpleasant. So she swallowed a bird to catch the spider and then a cat to catch the bird and then a dog and then a hog. And on and on until she swallowed a horse. She ended up dead of course. The nonsensical ending is: "Don't swallow a horse!" What does this story have to do with tackling bullying or bias or prejudice of any kind? It reminds us that we should be careful how we solve a problem. Our solution may make sense when looking only at that particular issue, but if you look more broadly, the solution may be causing even bigger problems. In fact, any approach to solving problems, particularly when it comes to social issues, can produce a cascading stream of resulting difficulties that are worse— sometimes far worse—than the original problem. [MUSIC, Title: "Understanding the Long-term Effects of Social Interventions"] [Barb] To help us better understand what's informally thought of as: the "Law of Unintended Consequences", let's take a look at the work of pioneering sociologist Joan McCord. At a time when women were expected to be homemakers, McCord put herself through Stanford's doctoral program, while simultaneously working as a single mother. Amongst many other achievements, she would become the first female president of the American Society of Criminology. McCord developed an intriguing specialty— following up on social programs to see how effective those programs were in the long run. A major focus of McCord's attention was the Cambridge-Somerville Youth Study, which ran for five years in the late 30s and 1940s. Five hundred students were selected who were matched with each other for neighborhood, family size and cultural background. Then one boy from each matched pair was randomly assigned to either the control group or the treatment group. The treatment group received additional tutoring to help them with their studies, medical care, counseling as necessary, and help for the younger children in the family. The youngsters were even taken to athletic events and sent to summer camp enrichment programs. The students were carefully matched with a control group of 250 students who received no treatment at all. Thirty years after the original Cambridge-Somerville study ended, the persistent McCord tracked down nearly 98% of the participants and conducted a meticulously designed follow-up study. The goal was to determine the effects of the intervention by studying the two different groups. One that was provided extensive support, and the other matched group that was basically left alone. There were small hints that the support was indeed beneficial. For one thing, the former participants glowingly described the value of the support program in their lives. The results were clear. One group was more likely— and these results were statistically significant— to be treated for alcoholism or serious mental illness, to commit crimes, to die younger, to have occupations with lower prestige, and to have more stress related disease. They also reported that their work was not as satisfying. In fact, on virtually every measure, one group was worse off. Which group was it? If you reported that it was the group that received the additional tutoring, medical care and counseling that ended up worse off, you're exactly right. Yes, an incredibly expensive and well meaning program seems to have been flat out harmful for the youngsters involved. And McCord discovered another crucial insight: Subjective reports by study participants themselves were unreliable. This is part of why surveys, beloved by program creators, can be such poor devices for determining whether an educational or social program has achieved its goals. [MUSIC, Title: "Back to Bullying"] [Beth] We teachers try hard to help our students improve their behavior— especially when it comes to bullying. It turns out that conventional anti-bullying programs often have—you guessed it—unanticipated consequences that can make the situation worse. Nationally certified school psychologist Izzy Kalman, who has worked for decades to help kids improve their resilience to bullying, has developed an extensive list of "unexpected" consequences that are not taken into account when standard anti-bullying measures are implemented. For example, some schools mandate that bullying incidents must be reported to the authorities, even if a student can handle the incident on their own. The idea is that adults need to know about bullying so they can make it stop. But here's the problem. Teachers, administrators, parents, and other well intentioned adults, generally don't KNOW how to make bullying stop. In fact, reporting bullying to authorities can turn those authorities into quasi-law enforcement officers with a mandate of quashing the bad guys. In other words, it can escalate the situation. As a result, the bullying can simply go underground, where the bullied can suffer even more as the bully enlists others to join in mind games as the attacks spread on social media and more difficult to monitor paths. In another well meaning approach, professional speakers, who were victims of bullying during their school years, or whose child was a victim, have earned substantial amounts of income by retelling the horrors they experienced. The goal of exposing students to these personal stories is to allow them to understand and empathize with the consequences of such behavior so they are motivated to refrain. While some kids may indeed refrain, the kids who you MOST want to change, will listen, appear moved, but then continue on with their usual bullying behavior, just as with Harvard's crudely propositioning student Michael. This is in part because few bullies think of themselves as bullies. And in the end, after the professional speaker is gone, the real victims of bullying haven't learned healthy coping skills. You'll also notice that the anti-bullying trainers and speakers, as well as those who might enjoy the role of hero —saving victims from bullies—can malign and reject valuable programs that instead teach kids how to handle bullying on their own. Which would then reduce the need for expensive anti-bullying campaigns and authority intervention at every perceived event. [Barb] Remember also that bullying isn't just an act of aggression. It can also be purposeful exclusion. This may be part of why participation in social media can have such negative effects on student mental health, driving up rates of depression and anxiety related disorders. It's easy to feel left out when you're not getting many likes or the comments are crude and painful. Sadly, some students begin to believe the insults of the bullies, feeling that they're worthless and don't deserve friends. They can even begin to hate themselves. We see this self-hate take form in many mental health issues that students face, going beyond depression and anxiety to include cutting, obsessive compulsive disorders, perfectionism, eating disorders, and suicide. It's also important to remember that perfect kids who are good looking talented, smart, captains of football teams, and of cheerleading teams can also be bullied. Remember how the best teachers can be bullied by others who are jealous of their success? People can find it hard to believe such perfect students could be victims, but the reality is that some kids like this have even taken their lives because they couldn't tolerate the bullying anymore. [Beth] We do children a great disservice when we try to protect them from bullying rather than teaching THEM how to handle it. Just as kids deserve to be taught how to handle the challenges of reading, writing, and arithmetic, kids deserve to be taught how to handle the social challenges of life. It doesn't take long. In fact, it is much quicker than teaching them how to handle their academics. Ultimately, it's important to avoid handicapping students through well-intentioned efforts that have unexpected negative side effects. So what are some of the techniques to help defuse bullying situations? Follow us to the next video and find out! [Beth] I'm Beth Rogowsky. [Barb] I'm Barb Oakley. [Terry] I'm Terry Sejnowski. [All] Learn it, link it, let's do it!
