How a Box can beat the bullies

national | rights, freedoms and repression | other press Wednesday August 31, 2005 00:18 by Justin Morahan - Peace People

Box and Interview method

"Bullying is rampant in Irish schools and this is one way to stop it"

(Irish Independent Tuesday 30 August 2005)

The new school season is knocking at the door and parents are worrying about buses, books and uniforms. Their children may have different worries, namely they are being bullied in school, on the bus, on the streets - or now even in their own homes via texts, e-mails, or other electronic messages. In recent years the public focus has shifted from bullying at school to bullying at work and this may have led to an increase in the number of victims in the schools. Such an increase would be truly horrifying.

All three types of bullying, physical, verbal or psychological, are extremely difficult both to uncover and to prevent. The resultant danger is that those who are in charge of the welfare of the children of our nation may be tempted to take the easy way out. This, for the Department might be to point to its own excellent Guidelines for the prevention of Bullying in Schools published 12 years ago; for the School management it might be to write a school policy stating "This is a non-bullying school" or "Bullying will not be tolerated in this school" or "This is a tell-all school". Alas, without having an almost fail-safe method of putting these excellent statements and theories into practice, the good intentions without action may only exacerbate the problem. The bully is always able to lick the system.

There are two major steps that must be taken by the authorities if school bullying is to be prevented: one is to become aware of the fact that it is rampant, the other is to take constant and relentless action to stop it. The steps are complementary: one is useless without the other.


The Government's passivity since 1993 has not been helpful. Delegating the responsibility to abide by its Guidelines to the schools themselves, it has limited its own role to support rather than being pro-active. School managements, who also bear responsibility, may respond to this approach differently. With both school managements and Government, the extent of the problem may not be fully appreciated. So, the figures for primary schools quoted by the Government to a United Nations Commission in 1996, - "roughly 5-7% of students being bullied regularly, with 3-5% of pupils engaged in bullying", grossly misrepresents the reality. http://foreignaffairs.gov.ie/information/publications/roc/viii.asp

In Donegal, only 42 out of 100 invited primary schools accepted an invitation to participate in a Bullying Intervention programme in 1998. In her report on the programme, Dr Mona O'Moore makes one very salient point: "Qualitative responses from the pupils reflected that while they understood that they should report bullying, they did not believe it was safe to do so." (Prevention and Intervention of School Bullying: the Irish Experience Dr Mona O'Moore) http://www.ncab.org.au/pdfs/prevention_intervention_omoore.pdf
This was at a time when statistics indicated that nationally 31.3% of students throughout Ireland were being bullied at least sometimes, while 3.1 % were being bullied once or twice a week, the figures for Donegal being significantly higher. (op cit)

Here then is the nub of the problem. Students are afraid to report that they are being bullied. What schools need is a fail-safe method of finding out the ugly truth and a fail-safe way to effectively stop the rot with courage and determination.

The Box and Interview Method, devised twelve years ago, is one attempt at such a fail-safe method. Briefly, each and every student is required to drop a signed form in a letter box once a week answering three questions, namely: During the past week, Have you been bullied, Do you know of anyone in your class who has been bullied, and Do you know of anyone in the school who has been bullied. Volunteer teachers filter the information received and, based on this, a number of Anti-Bullying Co-ordinators hold selective intervention interviews with various people including victims, alleged bullies, other students and parents. This is a whole school approach that demands the full cooperation of management, principal, vice-principal, staff, parents and students. An anti-bullying Code, spelling out clearly what the method is, is published with the School Rules and must be accepted by parents and students who apply for entry.

The Box and Interview Method is much more complex than this brief summary indicates. It focuses on immediate and ongoing prevention rather than long-time psychological help - which it recommends should be left to other agencies within and outside of the school. It also needs to be updated to keep in line with changing legislation. It can be accessed at the Peace People web-site, at the CaB web-site - or directly at http://homepage.tinet.ie/~justinmorahan/bullying/

While it was designed for secondary schools it could be fairly easily adapted for use in primary schools, universities, the work place, prisons, armies, hospitals and other institutions. Though copyrighted, it may, of course, be used freely by all those who passionately want to end the culture of bullying in Ireland