Bullies are the new group everyone loves to hate, and can hate with impunity.

School psychologist Israel “Izzy” Kalman finds this state of affairs not merely bizarre, but dangerous to children — really dangerous, and in several ways.

Throughout his early career, Kalman specialized in healing interpersonal conflict, especially sibling rivalry. But after the 1999 shootings at Columbine High, he found himself in the awkward position of advocating for bullies — not bullying, mind you, but the kids labeled and punished as bullies.

In a phone interview, Kalman said, “We only care about the so-called victims. But every kid thinks he’s the victim. The parents want the schools scrubbed of aggression. Schools can’t do that. They promise they will, but they can not deliver.” But they can pretend to be on top of the problem by bullying the so-called bully.

Kalman says that 90 percent of bullying is name-calling and insults. … The other 10 percent is pushing and shoving that cause no actual hurt. Fighting is natural. Aggression helps humans survive and achieve. Fighting between kids teaches them coping skills, the benefits of negotiation, the limits of force and the natural consequences of hurting one another.

Kalman teaches kids to ignore name-calling. And he teaches adults to ask his “magic questions.” He says, for example, “If you’re my student and you tell me that ‘Johnny called me an idiot,’ I ask: ‘Do you believe it?’ Most of the time the kid quickly answers ‘no.’ Then I say ‘good,’ and the problem is over.

Kalman’s Web site — bullies2buddies.com — is eloquent about the protection of children’s First Amendment rights.

So he’s freaked about what he considers to be our culture’s bloodlust for bullies. “Both the far left and the far right can hate bullies, because everyone thinks the bully is the other person. But the bullies are us. How many people do you know who never upset anyone else?”

Kalman admits that many school staff and mental-health professionals don’t buy it. They complain that bullies have to “be held accountable” and shouldn’t be allowed to get away with it. Kalman says, “What’s better? That the victim got away with getting the bully punished? … Where is compassion? We’re pleased to take a whole class of children and treat them like criminals? This is a failure of our profession. We want the legal system to solve this problem for us. Now anti-bullying psychology is just law enforcement.”

Read the entire Op-Ed by Julia Steiny…

Source: The Providence Journal, Sunday, 7.27.08