Wednesday, September 18, 2024

Nineteen Minutes by Jodi Picoult

 


 A few weeks ago, I received an email from PEN America informing me that Nineteen Minutes by Jodi Picoult had been banned in some places. The notification piqued my curiosity, so I requested the book from my local library. In the story there is a school shooting in which several people die. However, the book is not about gun legislation. The novel focuses on an issue that is often neglected: bullying.

  After reading the beginning of the novel, I wondered if I would be motivated enough to finish it. Why? The reason for my skepticism was that the behaviors of the teenagers showed an astounding degree of shallowness and frivolity. Their relationships were superficial and devoid of empathy and curiosity about the world around them. Their purpose was to be popular and to denigrate those who were different from them.

 The teenagers at Sterling High School behave in ways that follow a tyrannical set of social hierarchies in which a few students are considered "popular" and of higher status, and the ones who do not fit in are abused and treated with disrespect and contempt. Bullying is normalized as part of this “culture.”

   My thirst for justice along with Jodi Picoult’s captivating writing style held my interest, so I finished the read with a flow of reflections and the motivation to research the topic of bullying further, to support those who are trapped in this horrifying pattern. 

   My thirst for justice was not quenched when I reached the end of the novel. 

  The read left me with a sense of hopelessness.

  Jodi Picoult’s Nineteen Minutes deserves attention and can be used to share honest discussions on the issue of bullying in schools and everywhere.

  Peter Houghton was only five years old when he became the target of school bullies, on his first day of kindergarten. It was heartbreaking to learn that his Superman lunch box was thrown out the school bus window. No adult cared to intervene to help him. Peter was bullied on a daily basis for many years:

 “From that first day in kindergarten, Peter experienced a daily barrage of taunting, tormenting, threatening and bullying. This child had been stuffed into lockers, had his head shoved into toilets. He had been tripped and punched and kicked. He had a private email spammed out to an entire school. He’s had his pants pulled down in the middle of the school cafeteria. Peter’s reality was a world where, no matter what he did—no matter how small and insignificant he made himself—he was still always the victim. And as a result, he started to turn into an alternate world: one created by himself in the safety of HTML code. Peter set up his own website, created video games and filled them with the kind of people he wished were surrounding him.”

  Somehow his creative skills and sensitive nature were not valued by the standards of the school he attended. 

   It was shocking to read how the parents of the teenagers portrayed in the novel were detached from their own children. The communication between parents and teenagers lacked authenticity. It was as superficial as the relationships with the teenagers’ school friends.

  The teenagers did not communicate with their parents in genuine ways; a false sense of independence appears to cloud the potential for honest conversations between parents and teenagers. Hiding away issues from their parents is considered an acceptable indicator of their sense of independence. This detachment stems from the false notion of providing that state of the so-called independence. It is used to excuse, ignore and/or condone all kinds of behaviors that taint their process of growth and maturation. Some of these teenagers become sexually active at age 15, drink alcohol, take drugs and/or resort to all kinds of senseless behaviors at school. In some cases, their parents seem to condone or ignore these behaviors; they even seem to consider them acceptable or inevitable.

  At school, these teenagers did not have any kind of guide on how to behave toward one another. In fact, the school environment resembled that of a prison. It reminded me of John Taylor Gatto’s book Dumbing us Down, which I read over ten years ago, in which he compared schools to prisons.

  The fact that school staff are complicit in the bullying or even choose to punish Peter when he defends himself and never advocate for him leaves a very distressing feeling in the reader.

    For example, the gym teacher has a very distorted view of bullying. Dusty Spears, the gym teacher at Sterling School, understands bullies and is on their side. He thinks that bullying is a normal part of growing up and that bullies are supposed to be rewarded. This is clearly stated on page 656 of the large print edition, “Dusty Spears understands kids like Drew Girard because he had once been one. The way he saw it, bullies either were good enough to get football scholarships to big ten schools, where they could make the business connections...”

  One of the main characters is Josie Cormier. Her behavior changes through the years. She used to be Peter’s best friend, but during her teenage years, her behavior shifts in unpredictable ways as a result of a toxic relationship with her boyfriend and her motivation to be one of the popular girls. She becomes the girlfriend of one of the most violent bullies: Matt Royston. The most disturbing aspect of their relationship is that he abuses her emotionally and even threatens her physically. Everybody thinks they have an ideal romantic relationship when this is not the case. Matt and Josie are sexually active and Josie’s mother appears to be okay with that.

  Picoult exposes the abuse of Josie by Matt Royston by showing it through various unsettling situations, but Picoult does little to discuss the matter openly through the characters in a direct way to avoid the normalization of such a toxic relationship. I feel this is a weakness of the book. 

  The relationship between Josie Cormier and Matt Royston calls for a thorough discussion about respect in romantic relationships.  I was expecting that would happen at some point, but it never happened. The way I see it, this void in the book requires the work of mentors, parents, teachers and counselors.

    I was hoping and expecting that Alex, Josie’s mother, would have an insightful conversation with Josie on this, and that there would be a reflection on the relationship that was masked as “love.”

  The book was published in 2007. Has bullying changed since then? Are schools doing more to address it?  As I researched the topic to write this blog post, I was shocked to find an endless list of children and teenagers who committed suicide after they had been bullied. You can check this link yourself to verify my statement:

https://duckduckgo.com/?t=h_&q=cases+of+children+who+committed+suicide+after+being+bullied&ia=web

 If you come across people who underestimate and dismiss the serious effects of bullying, I encourage you to educate the deniers on the impact that bullying has. First of all, bullying is not a normal part of growing up. Bullying can lead to depression, anxiety, post-traumatic stress disorder, and other consequences. It can lead to suicidal ideation, and even suicide. It can rarely cause what Peter did. Peter followed the pressure of the social context in which he grew up and ended up doing what he did…

 There is a twist at the end of the novel that could have been fleshed out to shed light on the abusive relationship that Matt had with Josie, but not much is said about it.

  As explained in an article published by Frontiers in Public Health in 2019 bullying may include verbal hostility, teasing, physical violence and social exclusion, and the consequences of bullying can be severe:

 “Many studies have found that bullying is the root of severe negative psychological and physical consequences, including depression, anxiety, reduced self-esteem, decreased school attendance, somatization, as well as suicide, suicide ideation and attempts.” Some researchers claim that school bullying can cause symptoms such as those experienced by survivors of child maltreatment and abuse. It can even hamper bio-psycho-social growth.

 


 When bullying happens there is an imbalance of power between the perpetrator and victim, which can lead into a sense of helplessness and weakness. The pattern of bullying can undermine a victim’s sense of self and can cause short-term and long-term consequences.

 Why do bullies bully? They bully because they can. Lea Page says that it takes a village to make a bully… and it takes a village to stop one. Nineteen Minutes elucidates the roles that bystanders play in the social dynamics of bullying. I am now referring to those who witness the bullying without standing up to the bully. Some of the onlookers feel fear and guilt due to their own lack of response, so it is important to discuss this topic and to address it. Banning a book that deals with the topic is not the solution. Some bystanders celebrate the bully. They even support the bully and act in ways that perpetuate the pattern of bullying. I noticed that the “popular” girls had a positive attitude toward the revolting behaviors of Matt Royston and Drew Girard. They celebrated them.

When dangerous behaviors are normalized and celebrated, the pattern of bullying is established, creating an atmosphere where respect and kindness no longer matter.  

 In 2016 somebody said that he could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody and his supporters would still support him. Take a moment to reflect on this comment. What does it imply? This comment was made by a presidential candidate: Donald Trump. It implies that violence is acceptable in the eyes of his supporters. It implies that as long as he is responsible for the violence, his supporters will condone it and normalize it. This is dangerous. How can we teach ethical behaviors to children and teenagers when a pattern is set to make it acceptable for a man to do this?  How is it acceptable to make him president?  There is no way we can live in a civilized society when we empower a bully. In fact, one of his own 2016 supporters even tried to shoot him recently, which proves my point. (What goes around, comes around).

  The girls who cheered Matt Royston are not different from the adult women who celebrate and support a bully trying to become president, so I can see a pattern that needs to be addressed, because the ways adults behave are not ignored by teenagers, and they will make a difference in the way we live our lives.

   I hope this blog post will be a helpful resource to raise awareness on the topic of bullying. Bullying awareness month is coming up, so this is an opportunity to work to both prevent and address bullying in schools and everywhere.

 

 Supplementary links:

 https://www.unesco.org/en/articles/what-you-need-know-about-school-violence-and-bullying

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/experimentations/202010/us-high-school-bullying-rates-arent-going-down

https://hr.nih.gov/working-nih/civil/national-bullying-awareness-month

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/daughter-bullied-school-adult-bystanders_n_664fcce1e4b058247fa22914#

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6465416/

 

https://time.com/4191598/donald-trump-says-he-could-shoot-somebody-and-not-lose-voters/

https://www.cnn.com/2016/01/23/politics/donald-trump-shoot-somebody-support/index.html


 https://www.cbsnews.com/chicago/news/15-year-old-boy-cyberbullying-suicide-latin-school-chicago-lawsuit/

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/texas-child-died-suicide-online-game-cyberbullying-authorities-said-rcna129247

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/adriana-kuch-new-jersey-online-attack-video-four-charged/

https://wsbt.com/news/operation-education/rio-allred-bully-anxiety-depression-suicide-behavior-prevention-cyber-bullying-report-schools-respond-rios-rainbow-elkhart-indiana