The Lantern

A family lived in a village and their home was near the woods. The father told his children, “Avoid the woods at night; in the day we can enter together, but no one should enter at night,” and this was true. For most of their young lives, the children believed the father and kept their promise, but the oldest daughter was curious, and on each birthday she asked her father for a lantern.

“I would like a lantern, so I can see my way through the woods at night.”

“No.” The father would answer, but each year she asked again.

“I would like a lantern; I am nearly a young woman. I would like a lantern to see.”

The father shook his head but one day gave her the lantern as she had asked. Quickly she took her lantern into the woods, and for a little while the father could see her light. Soon, however, her light grew faint, and before the moon lit above the trees, the night had swallowed her whole.

As a parent, I think about bullies sometimes. As a teacher, I often think about them again, and one thing I’ve noticed in recent years is that our society has spent much energy trying to stop bullying. We tend to treat it like polio, and as if we’ve suddenly found the vaccine.

Humans can be bullies, though. Humans are often prone to bad behavior, and while bullying should not be tolerated within a classroom or a locker room or around the supper table at night, I’m afraid we are naive to believe we might wipe it out someday like it’s a conquered virus, existing only in tiny and unobtrusive pockets.

Unfortunately, in many respects bullying today is often worse than it was when most of us were young, but perhaps not for the reasons we might expect.

To begin with, a number of years ago many schools began implementing what would become known as “Zero Tolerance” concerning punitive discipline. Like many sweeping ideas, “Zero Tolerance” makes sense on paper but often shows cracks in practice. Simply put, “Zero Tolerance” meant that a school would not tolerate certain behaviors. If a student brought drugs to school, they were removed. No tolerance. If a student brought a weapon to school, they were kicked out without much recourse.

Caught fighting? You get the picture.

Now, granted, these are some pretty broad generalizations, (specific practices always vary from place to place) and no reasonable person would suggest that weapons or drugs belong in school. However, not all fights are created equal. In fact, a crafty enough bully could even take advantage of “Zero Tolerance” by tormenting a victim to the point of retribution, and then the kid who had thrown a punch out of desperation would be the one getting suspended.

Life is also more efficient nowadays for bullies due to a more philosophical reason, and has to do with what I would call the “Gospel of the Reformed Bully.” Bullies are also victims, according to this view, and they themselves misbehave not out of malice but because of some former abuse that has not yet been reconciled.

And, granted, this is often the case. Abuse is cyclical, and so many bullies often are perpetuating bad behavior. This is small comfort, however, to the student tiptoeing into their fifth year of harassment.

But the final reason modern bullying seems worse is due to the misuse of social media.

Because of this technology, embarrassing moments are no longer mere moments. They are no longer isolated events that happen and then begin to fade away. What is posted or shared in the morning—vulgar comments, embarrassing pictures—is posted again in the afternoon, and then in the evening, exponentially, for days and sometimes weeks. This kind of boorish cruelty is troubling for adults, but for a young person trying to navigate their way through school without experience putting things into perspective, it’s a nightmare.

Social media can be a useful tool, but it is often swung like a hammer breaking glass.

            Returning to our nervous father, then, we find that for many hours he sat on his porch, wondering what had become of his daughter’s light. Happily, dawn brought with it her shaky return.

“How did you make it back?” He asked. “I saw your light dim out and fade!”

            “A noise startled me and I dropped my lantern. I followed the moonlight to the road, and then I followed the road back home.”

            At the risk of sounding defeatist, I think it’s worth mentioning that if we send our kids into the world, into our forests, they will get hurt. That doesn’t make it right or more tolerable, but it is true. We can’t catch all the bullies; we can’t stop all the abuse.

We can, however, make our homes worth coming back to, and we can offer comfort and hope to those without such homes. We can teach our kids what to expect, give them the emotional resources to figure it out on their own, and give them a shot in the dark chance to make their way out of the woods at night, with or without those lanterns.