A Special Message . . . from Emily Bazelon author of Sticks and Stones: Defeating the Culture of Bullying
and Rediscovering the Power of Character and Empathy
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hen I was in eighth grade, my friends fired me. Two and a half decades later, I can say that wryly: it happened to plenty of people, and we survived—look at us now, right? But at the time, in that moment, it was impossible to have that kind of perspective. Being rejected by the girls I loved left me crawling with insecurity and selfdoubt—what had I done wrong? I disappeared from the lunchroom and hid during free periods. I dreaded the words “choose a partner” in class, especially gym, where you could either pair up and scamper away or stand there alone. At home I cried. On some level, I guess, I knew that I wasn’t the only lonely thirteen-year-old in the world, but how did that help, really? Instead of finding some inner source of comfort, I picked myself apart—was I too bossy? Irritating? Self-absorbed? What was it that had driven them away? What was wrong with me? I can’t claim to have been bullied, at least not like the teenagers I write about in my book, Sticks and Stones, but I know the feeling of watching powerful kids rip a vulnerable one apart and not knowing how to diminish their power. Many of us have had a similarly indelible experience of bullying—of being predator or prey, of taking or failing to take a side, or being humiliated or ostracized or worse. We’re deeply affected by these encounters. They helped make us who we are, and the visceral memories and feelings stay with us, giving us a window we can actually see through, one that takes us right back to our childhood selves. We’re still trying to understand what happened to us and why, and what lessons we should draw from it all, about ourselves and about other people. And so a central question in my book is: Why does this particular aspect of growing up affect us so deeply? This problem has particular urgency right now because it isn’t just confined to schools anymore—it’s on our computer screens and cell phones for all to see. With the constant connectivity of these devices, bullying has started to feel omnipresent, inescapable. This makes it more lasting, more visible, more viral. The consequences have infinitely expanded. Understandably, parents are more concerned. Luckily, the heightened awareness of bullying has shined a spotlight on kids who are in need of protection from cruelty—because they’re gay, for example, or Muslim, or overweight. It has prompted a growing number of parents to talk to kids about the online risks posed not only by adult strangers but by their classmates as well. At some schools, the push to prevent bullying has intersected with the recognition that kids need to be taught how to treat each other right, and even how to empathize, and that taking this on is a community-wide project with academic as well as social benefits. It used to be that “safe schools” meant schools without guns and knives. Today parents, and school officials, too, equate safety with their children’s emotional well-being. All of this has the potential to fuel the kind of sustained and transformative effort to reduce bullying that has previously fallen short in the United States—if, that is, we do it wisely and well. In hopes of helping to make that happen, I lay out some of the smartest ideas in Sticks and Stones. I hope it proves useful to you. n EMILY BAZELON is a senior editor at Slate, a contributing writer at The New York Times Magazine, and the Truman Capote Fellow at Yale Law School. Before joining Slate, she worked as a law clerk on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit. She is a graduate of Yale College and Yale Law School, and lives in New Haven with her husband and two sons.
“Bazelon’s even-handed, thorough, and affecting narrative provides insights and information about the kids, parents, educators, and courts dealing with the actions and aftermath of psychological and physical bullying in schools, as well as insidious cyberbullying. . . . Masterfully written, Bazelon’s book will increase understanding, awareness, and action.” —Publishers Weekly (starred review)
STICKS AND STONES Defeating the Culture of Bullying and Rediscovering the Power of Character and Empathy by Emily Bazelon Random House n Hardcover 978-0-8129-9280-9 400pp. n $27.00 Author website: www.emilybazelon.com
Random House, Inc., Academic Dept., 1745 Broadway, New York, NY 10019
m www.randomhouse.com/highschool
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A Special Message . . . from Kristine Barnett author of The Spark: A Mother’s Story of Nurturing Genius
W
hen our son Jacob was two years old he was evaluated as moderately to severely autistic. At the time, this diagnosis meant there was no hope that he would ever read, tie his shoes or even be able to reach out to us as parents and hug us again. We sought out every avenue we could find to help our little boy. We surrounded ourselves with doctors and specialists, all of which were fiercely fighting to bring Jacob back into our world. A barrage of therapists came to our home and trained their focus on his lowest skills. Their protocol included things like teaching him to put a ball in a cup, a skill that sadly one of the younger children from the tiny daycare I was running could easily do. By the time Jacob was two and a half, he had the standard course of therapy. It consisted of 40-plus hours of early intervention followed by speech, developmental, physical and occupational therapies. That spring, on the first warm day of the year, Jacob was sitting with a trusted therapist at our kitchen table when I decided to take the children in the daycare out to play in the sprinkler. After a long winter spent cooped up indoors, the sight of them laughing and playing, their pudgy toes slipping on the grass as they became soaked by the spray of water, hit me hard. We were so busy trying to “fix” Jacob that we were forgetting to let him enjoy his childhood. By spending so much of our time working on the things that challenged him, we were not giving him the time to do the things every child at his age needed to do to develop and grow. I made a decision that day that meant going against protocol to spend the time with Jacob, to prioritize those simple childhood moments. More than one therapist probably thought I had lost my mind. But I had never been more certain that I was doing the right thing for my son. It was this decision to celebrate childhood that I would later credit with every moment that followed in parenting my son. Unexpectedly, Jacob began to emerge from his autism. His progress in therapy boggled the minds of his entire developmental team. Gone were my days of working on his challenges and being consumed by a diagnosis. Instead I would focus on what my son was showing me he COULD do. What is even more remarkable was that as I applied this method with the other children in my daycare, taking the very things they loved and were naturally drawn to and celebrating them to the utmost, I found that every single one of them outstripped every expectation that anyone could possibly have for them. It was this way that I learned to find the spark in a child, follow it wherever it may lead, and watch as it led every single last one of them to their very own beautiful place in life. I believe that this dazzling possibility is in every child, and it’s one that I explore in my new memoir, The Spark. I hope the telling of my son’s journey of overcoming incredible odds will help other families who are dealing with similar situations. I invite you to read my book and share it with other parents and teachers in your community. n
“This eloquent memoir about an extraordinary boy and a resilient and remarkable mother will be of interest to every parent and/ or educator hoping to nurture a child’s authentic ‘spark.’ ” —Publishers Weekly
“Every parent and teacher should read this fabulous book!” —Temple Grandin, author of Thinking in Pictures and coauthor of The Autistic Brain
THE SPARK A Mother’s Story of Nurturing Genius by Kristine Barnett
KRISTINE BARNETT lives in Indiana with her husband, Michael, and their children. In 1996 she founded Acorn Hill Academy, a daycare serving local families. She and Michael currently run a charitable community center for autistic and special-needs children and their families called Jacob’s Place.
Random House n Hardcover 978-0-8129-9337-0 n 272pp. n $25.00 Website: www.atrandom.com/the-spark
Random House, Inc., Academic Dept., 1745 Broadway, New York, NY 10019
m www.randomhouse.com/highschool
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For course adoption, bulk orders, or other inquiries about any of the books in this flyer, email highschool@randomhouse.com
Turn Over for More