How might we build empathy in bullies?

Bullying in schools is a topic that has recently became popularized by the Netflix series, 13 Reasons Why. As students in the internet age are unable to seperate physical locations for digital ones, students find themselves in digital environments were bullying follows them via their smartphone. With this comes a new set of problem for administrators and teachers who are responsible for keeping their students safe. 

Unfortunately, today much of the bullying that happens at schools finds its way into a student's digital environments where other classmates and friends participate. This shifts bullying in schools from visible forms to invisible forms and makes it difficult for administrators and teachers to police or prevent bullying in ways that worked well before smartphones. This is why I believe we cannot prevent bullying. We can only educate our students to be more empathetic and have voice inside of their physical and digital communities. 

From my experiences, the level of bullying has a direct relationship to its acceptance by the communities that students participate in or the community's culture. When I think about the recent #metoo movement, I think of individuals who found a voice to create a cultural shift around a problem that existed, but largely wasn't recognized. I wonder how we as leaders and teachers might be able to learn from this movement and apply it to bullying within our schools.

Teachers we cannot prevent bullying. However, if we educate our students to be more empathetic, respectful, and responsible in the way they participate in their communities, we can create a culture within our schools that can recognize bullying, reject it, and render it unacceptable. 

A great place to start is to look at some programs that are currently doing this, like Roots of Empathy.