Massachusetts principal tackles school bullying

Thursday, March 17, 2011

‘Courage is when you walk into the cafeteria and don’t let any child sit alone.’ – Andrew Zitoli

AMHERST – Looking like the football coach he is, Andrew Zitoli paced back and forth, pressing his message home.

His game plan required strength and courage but the goal wasn’t a trophy. The goal was a school where no one is allowed to inflict psychological pain or drive other kids to despair.

Zitoli is the principal of Millis (Mass.) Middle School. He was in Amherst last week to talk to middle school students about bullying and leadership – “courageous leadership,” he calls it, saying it can prevent the types of bullying that lead to suicides like the one of Phoebe Prince in Hadley, Mass., last year.

“Bullying has devastating effects on the victim,” he said, showing slides of TV news reports about 15-year-old Phoebe’s suicide.

Her school, was a place where there was “zero courageous leadership,” he said, where “many students knew what was going on and did nothing. Nobody stepped in.”

Adults only see about 20 percent of what is going on among young people, he said, so it’s up to kids to tell teachers about bullying – which he defined as intentional, ongoing negative actions that involve an imbalance of power.

“If you are doing it, you need to ask yourself why,” he said, “and you have to have the courage to tell the other person you’re sorry and it won’t happen again.”

Bystanders can interrupt the cycle of bullying by telling adults about it, Zitoli said.

Zitoli has seen bullying from both sides. When he was a kid and complained to his mother about other kids, she would repeat the saying about sticks and stones. But, he said, “Most of you would rather suffer sticks and stones than constant name calling.”

The coach told Amherst Middle School students a story obviously still painful for him to tell – how he once yelled at a fifth-grader in front of high school players, actions which sparked a series of events that led to the boy’s suicide.

“This was a major act of bullying on every level,” he said. “Think about the impact of your decisions, words and actions. When there is a problem, you as coach are part of the problem.”

Building an anti-bullying team takes courage, Zitoli said.

“I don’t care if someone is the best singer in school or the best lacrosse player; there’s no courage in that. Courage is when you walk into the cafeteria and don’t let any child sit alone. Just by doing that you will make a difference in your school. Aid the victim, stop the bullying and tell an adult. Be a role model. Ordinary kids can do extraordinary things; 98 percent of you want a nice, safe school.”

The Courageous Leadership program at Millis Middle School has progressed to the point, he said, where kids don’t mind wearing T-shirts with the words of Martin Luther King: “In the end we remember not the words of our enemies but the silence of our friends.”

After the presentation, Patty Wons, the Amherst Middle School assistant principal, called for students to form a peer leadership team for seventh- and eighth-graders. She said about 90 from the 450 students in the two grades, took applications, which made her happy.

Kathy Cleveland can be reached at 673-3100, ext. 21, or kcleveland@cabinet.com.