You don’t have to be a Prairie Home Companion fan to have heard Garrison Keillor’s famous description of Lake Wobegon, that mythical Minnesota town “where all the women are strong, all the men are good looking, and all the children are above average.”
Everyone knows it’s impossible for all children to be “above average,” yet we believe somewhere in our hearts that maybe ours are different. Or that maybe there’s a place bucolic Minnesota perhaps? where all the children are doing just great and aren’t touched by the kind of social problems that plague the rest of us.
A recent survey on bullying by the Minnesota Department of Education puts those fantasies to rest. It seems some problems are, indeed, national in scope; and, unfortunately, bullying is one of them.
According to the survey, “more than half of Minnesota students reported they had been bullied or had bullied someone else at least once in the past year,” said the Associated Press. And 13 percent said they were bullied once a week or more.
According to the survey, bullies and their victims were more likely to skip school, less likely to have As or Bs, and more than twice as likely to be obese as students not involved in bullying. And they had higher rates of alcohol and drug use.
“On a positive, note, nearly half of all students responding had no involvement with bullying as a victim or bully,” the report said. “This group benefits from not being a target or engaging in bullying activities, but also seems to be supported by assets in home, school, community, and peer contexts.”
ASBJ has written many stories on bullying and how schools can confront the problem. The most recent was my December 2010 piece on harassment of gay students.
Lawrence Hardy, Senior Editor
