Editorial: A mother's gift with a message for all on bullying
The Fremd High School Class of 1975 hardly invented teenage bullying. Moreover, it is unfair and doubtless inaccurate to blame whatever bullying John Trout suffered on every member of his class. Yet, the collective conscience of that class brought attention to the topic when, planning their 40th-anniversary reunion this spring, the graduates initiated a scholarship in Trout's memory. Now, their actions have been punctuated by a $50,000 bequest to Fremd's new John Trout Anti-Bullying Scholarship from his mother Jeanne, who died this month at the age of 94.
The size of Jeanne Trout's gift puts an emphasis on the blight of bullying that goes beyond merely demonstrating the magnitude of a mother's love. It also indicates that, as Fremd's Class of '75 project inherently acknowledges, combating bullying is not just the province of the bullied and the bully but of all society. It is not merely the challenge of inhibiting would-be bullies or teaching the bullied how to respond, but also that of discouraging passive tolerance by the rest of us.
The lesson is a timely one even 40 years after the adolescent abuses that John Trout endured. Far from having declined in that time, bullying appears to be on the rise, abetted by the particularly insidious advent of cyberbullying in the age of social media. Today, U.S. government studies cited on the website stopbullying.gov show that nearly one in five high school students experiences bullying, and the proportion is even greater in middle school. Nearly 71 percent of students - and virtually the same percentage of teachers - witness bullying in their schools, and 41 percent witness it once a week or more.
Some studies link increasing suicides among teenagers to bullying, but experts are careful to note that more-common effects of bullying are bad enough - depression, anxiety, poor performance at school and a sense of isolation that can last into adulthood. By some measures, John Trout, who died four years ago at the age of 53, would appear to have overcome the taunts he suffered from students who enjoyed watching the noise-sensitive teenager cower as they hissed at him. He went on to become a successful accountant with a loyal following of appreciative clients. But that doesn't diminish the sympathy we feel for what he endured, and the size of his mother's bequest provides some insight into the impact it must have had.
The Fremd scholarship rose not necessarily from the consciences of those who bullied John Trout, but from those who witnessed it and wished they'd intervened. So they developed an award that doesn't just compensate those who endure bullying but also rewards those who stand up to it. Two students received $5,000 grants this May, and Jeanne Trout's gift should help ensure that similar awards can continue well into the future - though we hopefully note that if this award serves its purpose, the day will come when no student can be found who stood up to bullies because no student can be found who was bullied.
Granted, it's a faint hope now. But buoyed by efforts like the John Trout Anti-Bullying Scholarship and the remembrance of a mother's love for her bullied son, perhaps it's not too outrageous to envision such a day not only at Fremd but at schools all throughout the suburbs.