I received admonishment and complaints from administrators and some colleagues who claimed that I should “be careful, this is awfully mature for sixth graders!” But we can’t truly address bullying without closely examining the language that fuels it (Krywanczyk, 2009, p. 3-4).

This is one of the biggest problems in our education system. The lack of support from the school administration, other colleagues, and even the questioning confidence in ourselves. Taboo topics keep teachers in a clear box drawn out by the administrative mime. One can can see the questions and issues students have and deal with, but psychological restrictions impede us from doing anything about it. When educators, like Mr. Krywanczyk, take the first step towards creating an open space that welcomes challenging and oh-my-goodness taboo topics that students already know and experience, they are met with resistance from other educators who are too afraid or too indifferent to start these conversations. This is not to say that there should be some restrictions in the manner that some topics are presented, especially when the students are at younger age. However, like Mr. Krywanczyk says, schools need to serve the students’ needs. This includes preparing students to combat and prevent abuse from others, from themselves, and towards others.  

Furthermore, covering topics that deal with bullying is a serious matter. For this reason, surface prevention, meaning telling our students to stop bullying is wrong without in-depth discussion of the why/how people get bullied, is negligence. Just like instruction, students need scaffolded lessons on identifying bullying, reporting it, and, hopefully, preventing it. To really attack the issue of bullying educators and administrators (including parents) need to stop walking on eggshells. Bullies and other sources of violence, racism, sexism, and abuse do not. So why should we if we are to fight them?