Thursday, July 23, 2009

Lateral thinking on Bullying

Its not quite true that "noone has an answer to bullying" as the psychologist on 774 admitted yesterday. Maybe we legitimize bullying , in a sense , but won't admit to it when we hear of it beyond ourselves - in the playground ? A problem with perspective and projection? The squashing of this option is handicapping "the debate"( herenamed as the reactionaries agenda)

In a strange merry go round of empirical ideas around this subject over the past 2days, 774 yesterday, the topic kept coming up in various forms - mentoring models ,behavioural modification, tricky people ( Andrew Fuller)and tricky kids.But rather than linking things as the ABC could have been doing and , as often happens when we listen to the Greeks, it goes around in circles without finding a centre. is it because ,at ABCchurch ,a centrepiece is sacralege and the line, always a line , uphill into the clouds , is nirvana.
The confusion was so obviuos ,because there was so much good talking and thinking.( but no linking )

Andrew ( after the psychco talk) was so clearly saying that kids need a way of overcoming the natural tendency to bag things - How was that for an answer !!!. he found one ! But it wasn't percieved as an answer on the program - which was mainly about his role in a new TV program .
Later on in the arvo the Tricky Talk is evidenec that we are all infected with versions of the same agression to gain power over others .But did we admit it?. I don't behave like the sneaky tricky ........etc and as for aggression -. That's only thems that aren't listeneing to the CD available with The Age on saturdays.

We may recognise that phycologists are unable to help us, but we still defer to them over the old remedy of going to church on Sunday . Impossibly greek !

I was teaching some third graders about Jesus's call to "love your enemies" a few weeks ago and one boy pipes up - eh "They can't stand it for too long --that's that the answer to bullying" !I could hear myself saying " Impossible " when i was preparing the lesson, so his unexpeceted comment was a shocking reminder of how little faith we have.

It is possible ! Jesus turns out to be the real revolutionary - far and away ahead of even our best and most effectively cloned psychology .