Episode 821 - The Roots of Bullying
In this episode, Jeremy and Andrew talk about the Roots of Bullying and how to deal with it properly.
The Roots of Bullying - Episode 821
What is the root cause of bullying? Schools have been trying to address bullying but it continues to persist. In this episode, Jeremy and Andrew talk about the Roots of Bullying and how to deal with it properly. They also discuss why advocating for teaching children self-defense and conflict resolution skills is a better way than policies against violence.
Jeremy and Andrew also talk about why it’s important to acknowledge the existence of bullying and working to address it in a constructive manner.
After listening to the episode, it would be exciting for us to know your thoughts about it. Don’t forget to drop them in the comment section down below!
This episode is sponsored by Kataaro:
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Show Transcript
You can read the transcript below.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Hello and welcome. This is whistlekick Martial Arts Radio. On today's episode, Andrew and I are talking about the roots of bullying. This one probably isn't going to be controversial to any of you, but I bet it would be controversial to some folks outside of the martial arts world. Regardless, we're gonna do it. We'll see where it takes us. Welcome. Thank you for joining us. I'm Jeremy Lesniak, host here, founder of whistlekick. I love traditional martial arts. Joined by show producer, halftime host, great friend, wonderful cook, and…
Andrew Adams:
Hey, all of those things describe me.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Intrepid road companion, Andrew. Thanks for being here.
Andrew Adams:
How's it going, Jeremy?
Jeremy Lesniak:
It's going great. I'm looking forward to talking about this with you. We talked about where this came from. I had this conversation with someone and I'm looking forward to unpacking this more with you. Before we get there though, couple things that you should know. If you are new to whistlekick, you should know that we have a website, whistlekick.com. Super clever, right? Nobody would've ever guessed that. But if you go to whistlekick.com, where you're gonna find links to things that we do like Martial Journal or Martial Summit, or Martial Arts Teacher Training and Certification courses. We offer MATTaC. But you're also going to find a variety of apparel, training, equipment, training programs, and so much more at whistlekick.com. You can use the code podcast15 to save 15% on any of it. So go check that out. Now, if you are not new to the show, you know that we have a separate website for whistlekick Martial Arts Radio, and it is whistlekickmartialartsradio.com because once again, we wanna make it really hard for you to find things. If you go over to that website, what will you find there? You'll find some things that you would expect like show notes and the ability to play every single episode we've ever done. But you'll also find a way to leave us a tip if that is of interest to you. Sign up for the newsletter. We've got some of these episodes sorted out in categories and tags and things, so if you want to dig around and find certain content, we've made that as easy as we can. And why do we do all of these things? Because we believe martial arts brings out the best in us, and we believe that by connecting, educating, and entertaining all of you, we make the world a better place. And hopefully, get everybody everywhere to train for at least six months. If our mission means something to you, consider supporting us. Leave a review, buy us something, join the Patreon. I wasn't sure if you're gonna put up the ripped sign. Andrew still has the ripped sign.
Andrew Adams:
I'll bring it out it. I ripped it. Guys look, I ripped it.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Patreon.com/whistlekick, you can get in as little as two bucks a month and we have tier going up to a hundred dollars a month. They give you incredible value. And how do we know it's incredible value? People don't stop. Now, there's one other thing you can do to help us and that is to help somebody else. You may know the name Kataaro. Kataaro makes the best belts in the world. They're made in the US, they're handmade to order. They're absolutely incredible quality. I've got one here. This is the one that they helped me, well, I shouldn't even say, they helped me order. They said go order a belt so I went and ordered a belt and this one's pretty simple because I'm a simple guy. But it's a black belt that is the best quality belt I've ever seen. It's got the whistlekick logo on it. It fits me perfectly. I could get it. I could order whatever length I wanted. I had options on width on the color of the stitching. It was absolutely incredible. In fact, when we set this up with them, they told us, make sure you tell people that if they don't see the options that they want to let us know because we can probably do it. They said, hard stop. If they put every single option on the website, what they could do, the website would never load.
Andrew Adams:
Yeah. Yeah. They have…
Jeremy Lesniak:
You've spent some time on their website, there's so much stuff over there.
Andrew Adams:
I did. And the other thing that was interesting, and it's because it's a world that I'm not familiar with.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Yeah.
Andrew Adams:
But they offer more than just a black belt, you can get, they have specific Jujitsu black belts.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Yeah.
Andrew Adams:
There is, if you're competing in the International Brazilian Jujitsu Foundation, apparently, you have to have an IBJJF Legal black belt. You can get it from them. They have that.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Oh, I didn't realize that. Okay.
Andrew Adams:
Yep. And I didn't realize that either until I looked at the website and I'm like oh, IBJJF Legal Deluxe, Jujitsu black belt. Oh, and it has a little stamp that says IBJJF Legal. So, oh. So like, if you're listening to this, they're like, I mean, I'd like love to support whistlekick, but I have to have this special belt. They probably have it.
Jeremy Lesniak:
I can't imagine they couldn't make it for you. And we were talking the one that, you know, I've got this and it's really opened my eyes because, you know, I've got my original black belt and that does mean something to me. But there's nothing wrong with having more belts, right? You know, I wear whistlekick belts at whistlekick events, and I wear certain belts, you know, that I earn from this person. At that event. They have a belt that longtime audience members will say, oh, that is the most Jeremy thing. It's black on one side and white on the other.
Andrew Adams:
Yep.
Jeremy Lesniak:
It's like the Oreo cookie of belts, but it's also very much me, right? It's a black belt with a white side, right? Like constantly learning, constantly embracing that white belt mentality. Now, if you go, wanna check out, you want to go? There you go. Check out some of this stuff with Kataaro. Go check out their website, Kataaro, it's a double A in the middle .com. You can also find their social media Kataaro USA on Instagram, facebook.com/kataaro. And if you use the code WK10 capital W, capital K one zero, you'll save 10% on your first order, which is worth doing.
Andrew Adams:
And the other thing really quickly before we move on, they offer more than belts?
Jeremy Lesniak:
Yeah. They do certificates in…
Andrew Adams:
There's patches, they do patches as well.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Yeah. They do some really, really cool stuff. So make sure you go check it out. And let 'em know we said, and if you order something, let me know. I wanna see the picture. I wanna see what you got. Okay. Bullying. Is there a subject that martial artists have more latched onto and said, we can help this? Other than self-defense, then bullying. Right. Bullying, you know, certainly has some overlap of self-defense, but I don't see anybody from the, I don't see the martial arts world overall out there trying to stop hunger. But we're out there trying to stop bullying.
Andrew Adams:
Yeah.
Jeremy Lesniak:
And I think that's great.
Andrew Adams:
Yeah, I think you're right. That's probably the one of the number one things.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Now if most of us had our way and most people were training on a consistent basis, we'd probably solve bullying cuz where does bullying come from? Right. It's lack of self-esteem and it's lack of discipline. And there are a variety of things that go in and martial arts addresses most of them. I won't say absolutely all.
Andrew Adams:
A lot of them. Yeah.
Jeremy Lesniak:
But certainly most, and the roots of this conversation. I was having a chat with someone who is in the public schools, and we were talking about bullying and how it's increased, and the way that schools are handling it. And I made a very simple statement, and I stand by this and I've been saying this for a long time. Bullying is part of human nature.
Andrew Adams:
Say more.
Jeremy Lesniak:
It's part of social structure, right? If you watch, I mean you got a new puppy. You, if you haven't already seen it, it will happen that your two dogs will jockey for position. Anybody who has watched a group of dogs knows that one of them is the, if you want to use the term alpha, you know the big dog there, regardless of size, is the boss. You know that in any family there is one person that's in charge. Maybe it's the mom, maybe it's the dad, maybe it's a grandparent, right? There's always somebody in every group that if, kind of surfaces as the leader, and it's not always the person that's most obvious. We are social creatures. Human beings need to understand where we are. We need to understand our boundaries, right? This is if you talk about raising children, whether we're talking about in general or in martial arts, they need boundaries. They need to know what is expected of them. They won't need to know what they can and cannot do, and they will test those boundaries. And if you do not enforce those boundaries, it creates a whole other set of problems. When you look at human beings in the world, they all wanna know where they stand. It could be in the workplace. It could be in a martial arts school, and of course, it's gonna happen in education, in schools.
Andrew Adams:
Yeah.
Jeremy Lesniak:
It is not possible to remove that instinct to figure out where we fit in. Am I the top? Am I the alpha? Am I at the bottom? Am I somewhere in the middle?
Andrew Adams:
Yeah. Where am I in the pecking order?
Jeremy Lesniak:
Go ahead. Yeah, that's a great way to put it.
Andrew Adams:
No. And there's a, that was it.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Just, oh okay.
Andrew Adams:
We gotta figure that out.
Jeremy Lesniak:
And there's a constant need to figure that out. Cause it's constantly changing. The person at the bottom does not wanna remain at the bottom. They don't accept that. Sometimes they do, but most of the time people want to climb the social ladder. You've heard that phrase before. Everybody's heard that term. Climbing the social ladder. That is the adult version of bullying, does it always translate out in disrespectful and unhealthy ways? No, but it is the same instinct comes from the very same place, and…
Andrew Adams:
Yeah.
Jeremy Lesniak:
I believe very strongly that the way you solve a problem is acknowledging what it actually is and working with the reality of it. If bullying is the result of a natural human instinct, how do we address it? Eliminating is probably not the way to do it because that's what we've seen for the last 20 or so years and it's not getting better.
Andrew Adams:
Yeah.
Jeremy Lesniak:
We, very early on in this show, I did an episode, and at the time I think it was probably the most heated I have ever been on an episode. I've gotten heated more since, but there was an episode where, there was a news story that somebody sent my way, I think, and it involved three children, three I think, elementary-age children, one who was a known bully, one who was a known victim of that bully, and one who was actively training in some manner of martial arts. Teacher had left the room or something. I forget what the specifics were, but the bully was harassing the victim. And the kid who did martial arts heard a knife open and he intervened. The kid absolutely had pulled a knife and so the kid with the martial arts background did something about it. He addressed the situation in the way that I think most of us would agree it should be addressed. He used physical force. And nobody got hurt, but he was still expelled from the school. Now, here's my issue with that. I fully understand zero tolerance. We don't condone violence. Sure. What's the alternative? The alternative is that
Andrew Adams:
Would it have been better if the bully had stabbed the victim? Would that have been a better alternative?
Jeremy Lesniak:
Who wins in that situation? I would argue it's worse and a worse outcome for all three of them. It's worse for the bully because now he might have, charges pressed against him. I mean, let's face it, that doesn't generally happen in schools for some ridiculous reason, because somehow schools are beyond legality it seems in most cases. The kid who got stabbed definitely is getting the worst end of the deal cuz he got stabbed. And now the kid who knew he could have done something about it didn't. And he knew he chose wrong. And I think that's terrible. So what do we condition people into? You reward the behavior you want people to take. If you want people to ignore violence, to allow violence to be perpetrated upon them, you tell them that defending themselves will be punished. And that's what schools have done. So we've taken this instinct. Which normally would be met with the rest of the social structure addressing it, right? If you get a disrespectful person, let's say in a job, this is an example that happens often, you get somebody at work that's a jerk, other people aren't gonna go outta their way to help them. They'll do the bare minimum, you know, hey, can you help me with this report? Sorry, I'm really busy. And so that person does not succeed. And the system, the environment kind of selects them out from progressing up too far. Now maybe there are other things that can be done, but they don't advance. How about out in life in general? How about in a family? Most of us know of at least a family if it's not ours, that has a family member that nobody wants anything to do with because that person is rude and disrespectful, and so they kind of get ostracized. They don't have the ability to have a negative impact on the others around them, but yet, because public school is a right, we have to make sure everybody has their opportunity to learn. And I agree with that. But if the other children are not allowed to kind of step in, I was kind of on the tail end of this. You got a couple years on me, so I'm guessing that when you were a kid if there was a bully. Other people would step in, you know. If a bully was picking on this other kid that was well-liked, three or four people would say, Hey, cut it out. Is that not what happened when you were in school?
Andrew Adams:
Yeah. If they were well-liked, yes. But I was definitely the victim of bullying in school and very rarely did people step in because I wasn't terribly well-liked.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Sure. And that was also my experience.
Andrew Adams:
Had I been maybe more popular, I think that may have happened. And I think it also depends on how big the bully is and how much of a sway he has. You know, he or she. Sorry.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Right. Now if we think back to, you know, you self-identified as being a less popular person. I'm going to guess that the people bullying you were also not popular.
Andrew Adams:
Not true in my case.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Okay.
Andrew Adams:
No.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Were they trying?
Andrew Adams:
Football team? Big football team guy, like very, very well known in the school. But I was an easy target cuz I was
Jeremy Lesniak:
Is it being done to try and climb the ladder? Was it being done while other people were around?
Andrew Adams:
Yeah, it was being done while other people were around.
Jeremy Lesniak:
So in this case, I would say it's reinforcing social standing.
Andrew Adams:
Yeah, yeah. Definitely exerting dominance to continue to show that he was the best, the biggest guy. And you know, I started training in martial arts, dealt with it in a, somewhat of a dumb way, but it worked. I just flat-out told him, punch me in the stomach as hard as you can. What, and there were no teachers around. I said, go ahead, punch me in the stomach as hard as you can. And I had just like a couple weeks earlier, we had worked on like tensioning and like tightening up for when you're gonna hit. And I was like, go ahead, punch me as hard as you can. I'm giving you permission. I will not tell the teachers. And he said, okay. And he hauled off and slammed me in the stomach as hard as he could and I just tightened my stomach and went and just took it. And then I turned around and walked away. Now inward. I'm like, oh my God, that hurts so much.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Yeah.
Andrew Adams:
But outwardly he saw that, oh, he's not gonna, he can take anything I'd given him. So I guess I'm, and he just stopped right there.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Now, regardless of the method, you reached a point where you needed to take an action.
Andrew Adams:
Yep.
Jeremy Lesniak:
And you chose to take that action, you know, whatever risk was involved, you know, it could have been something like that, you know, I would say might be a little better, but it could also be a classic example of fine. If you're gonna keep doing this, we might as well fight.
Andrew Adams:
Yeah.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Because at least I'll know, right? Like, something like that. But what would've happened in that situation if, you know, if word had gotten back to teachers, right? He certainly would've been punished. Probably would've taken that out on you. You likely would have been as well in some way for encouraging it, right?
Andrew Adams:
Yeah.
Jeremy Lesniak:
But you solved the problem. Did you have issues with that person?
Andrew Adams:
I solved the problem
Jeremy Lesniak:
After?
Andrew Adams:
Yeah. No, I didn't and I solved the problem in a way that. If anybody had outwardly, and there were some other kids around, not a ton, but if anybody else had seen what happened, I would not have been the aggressor.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Right.
Andrew Adams:
Because I just stood there. And he chose to hit me. And I also, I told him to punch me in the stomach. I didn't tell him, punch me in the face. I don't wanna get punched in the face.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Right.
Andrew Adams:
You know?
Jeremy Lesniak:
Right. One of my core beliefs is that the further away we get from nature, The more problems occur. If we can agree, and I think most people will agree that striving for social standing and understanding where we are in any kind of group is an innate desire that people have to take that away is only going to lead to problems. The instinct is still there. But now we've said, not only are we not going to let you figure this out, we're going to take away the part of the, that is kind of self-correcting, standing up for oneself, other standing up for other people, et cetera. And I think that it is well-documented that bullying has increased.
Andrew Adams:
Yeah.
Jeremy Lesniak:
And there is a significant amount of oppression in Western society and a lot of that, I won't say most, I don't have statistics for this, but a lot of that cracks back to people feeling helpless. And if you were given a problem, if there is a problem that exists and that problem is as innate as being alive. And again, I will say the desire to know where you fit into any group is natural. If that natural desire exists without the ability to figure it out and find the answer, how can it lead to anything but depression and helplessness?
Andrew Adams:
Yeah, it's a good point.
Jeremy Lesniak:
So what do we do as martial artists to solve this?
Andrew Adams:
So if the root of bullying is wanting people to climb the ladder exert a pecking order. I think as educators, whether it be in a Martial sense or in a school sense, it's making sure that everyone knows you. Like, I'm the teacher, you're all the same. That's what my head instantly goes to is how can we, and maybe we can, but can we find a way to help all of the everyone that's being taught? They are you. There is no higher hierarchy now within a martial arts school. That's incredibly difficult to do. Because we are from the get-go. Most though not all, most martial arts schools have a belt ranking system and this person is quote-unquote better than you because they have a higher rank.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Sure.
Andrew Adams:
But I also don't know that a ton of bullying is happening in martial arts schools because if it does, it gets taken care of pretty quickly. But in a public school setting, obviously, that's not the case. And so trying to find a way to exert that. I, as the teacher, I'm the person at the top of the food chain and you guys are all the same. And here's an example.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Sure.
Andrew Adams:
That I will give where it happened and I started teaching high school back in early two thousand, and I was teaching at a private high school. And the private high school had a dress code and for the boys, it wasn't uniform, it wasn't a. You know, you had to wear the exact same clothes, but the dress code for the boys was you had to wear a collared dress shirt and you had to wear a tie. You had to wear dress pants, you couldn't wear jeans. And for the girls on campus, you were required to wear a collared blouse of some sort or a dress. And there was rules on, you know, how long it could be and stuff like that.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Sure.
Andrew Adams:
And I went to a public school and I thought this was dumb. I was like, you know, I grew up in a school where you could wear whatever you want, that's part of your individuality. And I was like, this is dumb. However, I'm teaching here. So I have to adhere to the rules that I'm gonna do that. And there would be days that would be quote, dress-down days. And you could pay a dollar and you could dress them whenever you wanted. You could wear jeans, you could wear t-shirts, you could do whatever. And that money was usually collected for some sort of charity. And the difference in how the children acted on dress-down days was very different from how they acted.
Jeremy Lesniak:
How so?
Andrew Adams:
During the regular school day. So I thought a lot of, did you say how come or how so?
Jeremy Lesniak:
How so? How did they act differently?
Andrew Adams:
Just were they were more talkative. They were more rambunctious. And it was very noticeable that there was a difference when you were teaching on a dress-down day than when you were teaching on a regular day. And I thought a lot about why that was. And you identify as male. When you were a kid, when did you as a boy have to wear a shirt and tie?
Jeremy Lesniak:
Sports games? If we were, if we had a soccer game, if we were away.
Andrew Adams:
Okay. When else?
Jeremy Lesniak:
My Bar Mitzvah.
Andrew Adams:
Okay.
Jeremy Lesniak:
School dances.
Andrew Adams:
Good. Okay. There's two more that…
Jeremy Lesniak:
Okay.
Andrew Adams:
That always come up for people if they happen to go to them. Weddings and funerals.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Okay. Yeah. I didn't do any of those as kids.
Andrew Adams:
Yeah. But that, those three things, weddings, funerals, and church.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Yeah.
Andrew Adams:
Are the three typically where you have to dress nice. And for boys it's shirts and ties, right?
Jeremy Lesniak:
Yeah.
Andrew Adams:
And not always I'm just, I know that I'm making a generalization.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Yeah, no, that makes sense.
Andrew Adams:
Certainly, there are weddings you can go to where you can wear jeans and t-shirts, so that's fine. But you dress up when it's a formal, fancy occasion.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Yeah.
Andrew Adams:
For you mentioned Bar Mitzvah, you know, a formal school dance or whatever, and you were, when you were in those environments, you were expected to behave. And you were expected to behave in a different way.
Jeremy Lesniak:
You're saying there are actions that correlate with wearing that uniform.
Andrew Adams:
Correct.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Much like martial arts.
Andrew Adams:
Exactly. And so when these kids were in school on a regular school day when they had to dress up nice, they acted in a slightly better way. They were not as disruptive. And when they had a dress-down day, it was like, Release the Hounds. They do whatever they want and it made a difference. And so that is one way that this particular school chose to show, Hey, everybody's the same. Everybody has to wear a shirt and a tie for the boys. You know, my daughter now goes to, a school where they do have a uniform. And so everyone is pretty much wearing the exact same thing. And it helps to show all of the kids that you're all kind of the same.
Jeremy Lesniak:
It gives 'em common ground. We're all here for the same reason, same place, roughly the same clothing, same classes, and instead of reinforcing the differentiation because yeah, I went to public school. You went to public school. How you dressed was significant. What you wore…
Andrew Adams:
Absolutely.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Was a huge component of whether or not you were popular.
Andrew Adams:
Yeah.
Jeremy Lesniak:
I am going to suggest that this problem doesn't get better soon, that we are, that, especially if we look at public school, we are so far off, let's say, natural, that it's going to take some real problems. More so, I mean, we we're seeing the problems. I'm not going to name them, but we are seeing problems that are the result of this on a frequent basis. But it is my hope that someone eventually will do the research and correlate, oh, wait a second, here are the differences between. What happens coming through public school with these things, and this is what happens coming through private school or homeschool with these things. Let's look at what's different. Oh, maybe we need to make a change here and I wanna be really clear. You know, it's easy to look at what I'm saying and say, Jeremy's in favor of bullying doesn't matter if I'm in favor of bullying. Bullying exists. It will always exist.
Andrew Adams:
Yeah.
Jeremy Lesniak:
It is hardwired into our humanity. I experienced some absolutely horrible things as a child, but they only went so far because everyone knew I trained and they only wanted to push me so far. Nobody wanted to be the guy that got beat up by this small karate nerd at school. That would've, it would've been tragic for them, so there was very little reward to balance out the risk. If I was in school today, I think I way to have a very difficult time with the instructions I was given, which was stick up for yourself. If someone puts hands on you, you have permission, you have implicit permission. But I will say point blank, that if I had children and they were in public school, I would give them the same rules. And if the school could not comply with those, if that did not work for the school and I was unable to make some headway there, they would not be in public school.
Andrew Adams:
Yep. That seems fair. I get that.
Jeremy Lesniak:
So, anything else we should add?
Andrew Adams:
No, I think we're good.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Okay. Audience, I wanna thank you for watching or listening if you have feedback on this one. I'm hopeful we have some folks out there that understand this subject at a deep enough level that they can add to the conversation. And even if you're not coming at it from that angle, if you have opinions, if you have experiences that you want to contribute, the best thing to do is to, I'll give you two options. We have the whistlekick Martial Arts Radio behind-the-scenes Facebook group. It is a private group. You can find it, you can join it, and you can add your comment. You can also reach out. You can email me jeremy@whistlekick.com, Andrew was andrew@whistlekickmartialartsradio.com and you can let us know your thoughts because the show is better when there's conversation involved, which is why I enjoy doing these episodes with Andrew. If you wanna support us lots of ways, Patreon, reviews, telling Friends, but also Kataaro, make sure you check out what they've got. Make sure if you buy something from them, and I hope that you do use the code WK10 capital letters. And if you want us to come out, teach a seminar at your school on de-escalation or, some of the things that we teach with regard to how to teach so people learn martial arts more effectively, there's a lot that we can do in that realm. As well as if you're interested in coming on as a consulting client, we can help you grow your school, help you make more money, add students, all that good stuff. Our social media is @whistlekick everywhere you can think of. That takes us to the end. Until next time. Train hard, smile, and have a great day.