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03 Teaching Kids to be Peacemakers - Naomi Drew
Doug asks Naomi about bullying. In the survey research, 40-50% of the kids said that bullying is a serious problem. Naomi tells Doug that bullying causes depression, is related to suicide, and has been linked to the school shootings of the past 10 years. Naomi believes that schools must adopt and enforce an anti-bullying culture. Essentially, kids have to be taught to be kind and compassionate with each other. Doug and Naomi talk about how important teachers are in modeling kindness, compassion, and non-bullying behaviors. Doug asks Naomi about cyber-bullying. Naomi says that this is hugh unintended consequence of instantaneous communication. Through cell phones, text messaging, social network sites, cell cameras and the like, kids can catch other kids in embarrassing or stupid moments and broadcast that to 50 or 100 or an entire school in seconds. All kids are now highly sensitive to the fact that anything they do or say can be turned against them. This is breeding a new form of fear and paranoia among kids. Naomi talks of as a Lord of the Flies mentality as kids armor themselves against bullying and embarrassment. The challenge is to teach kids not to respond tit for tat. Kids subject to cyber bullying have some options open to them.