P7
August 2012
Like
many people, GCU’s dean of
theology,
Dr. Steven Gerali
, was
shocked and appalled when a
video of junior high students bullying a 68-year-old
woman on a school bus in Greece, N.Y., surfaced on the
Internet this summer.
The students maliciously taunted and degraded
school bus monitor
Karen Klein
with a stream of
insults, profanities and threats. At one point, they
demanded to know her address so they could
steal from her and deface her property. One boy,
ridiculing Klein about her weight, said that if he
stabbed her with a knife, hamburgers would slide
out of her stomach.
And, in what may have been the most stinging
remark, one of the boys said, “You don’t have a
family because they all killed themselves because
they didn’t want to be near you.”
Klein’s son committed suicide about 10 years ago.
“It was an overt display of unfiltered, unrestrained,
boundary-less kids,” said Gerali, who has been
sought out in radio interviews during recent
months as an expert on the subject of bullying. The
interviews were aired on nearly 600 stations and
reached roughly 2.5 million listeners.
“There is a lot we can learn from an incident like
that,” Gerali added. “What I hope is that parents
and people who work with kids become very
aware that online social networks are unfiltered
and they allow kids to practice some things that can
translate to real time.”
Gerali, who came to GCU in January of 2012 as
dean of what was then the College of Christian
Studies, has published several books, including
“The Struggle” (2001), “How to Stay Christian in High
School” (2004), “Teenage Guys: Exploring Issues
that Teenage Guys Face and the Strategies to Help
Them” (2006) and what he called his pride and joy:
“The Crest: Book 1 in the Mentor Chronicles” (2011).
In 2009-10, he also published a series of six books
geared toward parents and youth workers titled
“What Do I Do When Teenagers …” Each hits on
a critical issue facing teens, including bullying. That
book delves into gender differences in bullying,
warning signs, prevention strategies and how to
help disordered teens, among other things.
Bullying has been around forever but reached new
heights after the shooting at Columbine (Colo.)
High School in 1999 in which two students who
had complained of being bullied lashed out, killing
12 students and one teacher while injuring 21
others before committing suicide.
“A lot of times these kids feel backed into a
corner and they feel terrorized and they really
are threatened to the point of death,” Gerali said.
“They really think they are going to die, so the only
way out is to come out fighting or to take their lives,
or both.
“That’s what started a lot of this. I started digging in
and researching it, and it became more apparent
that bullying was reaching new heights and taking
on new forms.”
Bullying, Gerali said, is more than the pushing,
shoving, name-calling, steal-your-lunch-money kinds
of things that many people have endured. “We’re
now talking about kids who terrorize other kids.”
And the Internet has opened up even greater
opportunities for bullying, allowing kids to question
someone’s sexuality or make accusations on social
media outlets that live in cyberspace forever.
“For a teenager who is just developing an identity,
things like that are just deadly,” Gerali said.
“My passion has always been for kids who are
hurting or feel marginalized. I really believe that
people who work in Christian ministry with kids
need to stand as advocates for them. God’s Word
says that He gives us our ministry of reconciliation.
If we don’t bring reconciliation into the lives of
these kids, their families and our society, then
nobody is going to do it.”
Dr. Steven Gerali shared his expertise on the issue of bullying in radio interviews that aired
on nearly 600 stations and reached roughly 2.5 million listeners this summer.
