Centre County School Program Picks on Bullies

March 19th, 2008 · No Comments

Bullies feel singled out and pressured with new program.

Butch Snarkey, III, of Philipsburg, gropes for the words. It isn’t easy, Butch, a 15-year old, is adept at using his fists to procure lunch money and the rapt attention from his classmates, but when it comes to verbalizing his feelings during an after-school program designed to eliminate bullies in the Philipsburg School District, he is at a loss.

“I guess I’m feeling, I don’t know, singled out, very singled out,” Snarkey said. “The whole atmosphere is repelling and coercive.”

Snarkey said being a bully is partly cultural for him and that the program fails to address the nature-nurture side of his behavior. “My granddad was a bully, my dad was a bully,” Snarkey said. “Even my sister, Butchier–it’s French–terrorizes the fourth grade. She beat up her Sunday school teacher last week for theological inconsistencies. My sister’s very old testament.”

Snarkey has been in trouble for physical confrontations in the past, sending one classmate into the Witness Protection Program and ripping several fingers off the home economics teacher. Lately, he has turned to cyber-bullying, photoshopping bruises and cuts on pictures his classmates have on their Facebook profiles.

Imogene Loco, an expert on bullying, said that Butch’s reaction to the class is normal. “Bullying is about being in control and Butch feels that if he can’t be a bully, he will lose control of his position at the top of the seventh-grade food chain,” Loco said. “We just have to teach him to learn other strategies for manipulating people… like using guilt and pessimism. It works for the Democrats.”

Snarkey returns to a table where he is instructed to create a collage representing his emotional state after a fight. “I’m just not feeling validated in this process at all,” Snarkey said.”I could really sock someone in the jaw right now.”

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