In 1991, teacher Hetty Van Gurp’s 14-year-old son Ben died at school. “He was 14-years-old in grade nine,” she explains. “Ben was in the gymnasium watching a basketball game. The boy who’d been bullying him came to the door and just made a run for him, causing Ben to fall quite hard on the floor, severing an artery on his back.”
There is no loss more devastating to a parent than the death of a child, especially in violent, senseless circumstances such as these. It’s the kind of event that creates crusaders, mothers and fathers who fight for changes to say improve safety on playgrounds or to neighbourhood traffic laws or to legislation governing everything from bike helmets to weapons. Hetty Van Gurp’s loss led her to create a worldwide movement for peaceful schools.
She started with her
own students at a Nova Scotia school. In her efforts to deal with Ben’s death, she worked with them to create an atmosphere that discouraged all forms of aggression. “It helped me focus on something positive,” says Van Gurp. “I went into my own classroom every day and I was faced with these cheerful, energetic, positive and hopeful five-year-olds. It just helped lift my spirits and certainly distracted me as well.”
“One thing led to another,” continues Van Gurp, “and before long I was doing workshops and speaking at conferences.” Soon afterward she started a Nova Scotia organization called League of Peaceful Schools. “The first thing we did was offer peer mediation training,” says Van Gurp. “Kids aren’t really interested in listening to an adult talk to them. When someone their own age does something that’s very brave and taking a strong stand, they really pay attention.” Out of these workshops, conferences and training sessions came a book of lessons and activities so other teachers could create their own peaceful learning environments.
Van Gurp went about creating peaceful learning environments with an energy that took her around the world. Following a trip to Japan, Serbia and Macedonia, she handed League of Peaceful Schools over to others and came up with the idea of a global network of schools that would commit to fostering safe learning environments. Peaceful Schools International was born.
The organization encourages and teaches techniques in conflict resolution, peer mediation, co-operative teaching and student-based decision-making. PSI now counts among its members hundreds of schools across Canada and the United States, as well as in thirteen other countries including Serbia and Ireland. Van Gurp has written three books on the subject of peaceful learning environments. Peace in the Classroom, Peaceful Schools: Models that Work and Peer Mediation: A Complete Training Manual. She’s also the co-creator of the Peace@School toolkit. Van Gurp’s work earned her an honourary doctorate and accolades from far and wide. Time magazine named her a “Canadian Hero” and she is one of Readers Digest Canada’s 2006 Heroes of the Year.
Van Gurp says bullies are not born, they are created. “I believe that it’s a behaviour they have witnessed or experienced themselves. I don’t think that kids just do it for the heck of it or for fun. Somehow it gives them a feeling of power, of leadership, of being admired. They usually have a little group that hangs around with them. That’s their way of acting out in order to gain some attention and maybe even feel better about themselves.”
She says that in an age when parents and teachers are more aware than ever, the nature of bullying has changed. For example, she says of girl bullying, “It seems to be on the rise,” she says. “It’s more insidious. It’s done in an underhanded way that’s often difficult to detect. It’s subtle. It’s much more difficult for the adults in charge to detect it and for them to intervene.” She adds that because kids are socializing more and more on the internet in private and at home, bullying is increasingly difficult to detect. “The experts are trying to find solutions to internet bullying,” she says. “I’m not sure there’s been a lot progress yet.”
It’s critical to understand that none of Van Gurp’s significant and numerous awards are the result of an attack on bullies. “My focus has never been on bullying,” she explains. “It’s on creating a climate of peace. I like to focus on the positive, doing all we can to create a school climate in which the kids feel safe. I don’t usually talk about the problems. I like to focus on the solutions.”
Van Gurp practices what she preaches. “Sometimes people ask,” says Van Gurp, “Why didn’t you sue? Why didn’t you get angry? That just wasn’t an option. I wanted to do something that would make me feel better. I knew taking the opposite approach would make me feel worse. In other words, I think I’d be punishing myself.”
“I have this little idea,” says Van Gurp, “that the human being is not capable of holding two opposing emotions at the same time. The emotion that was overwhelming me was grief and sadness. I didn’t have room for anger and bitterness and even the feeling of retribution.”
Asked about the bully who caused her son’s death, she says, “He was moved to another school. I don’t really know what happened to him or where he is now.”
Photo Credits
All photos courtesy of www.peacefulschoolsinternational.org
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