Taming Wild Girls (violence by female teens)

time ^ | 4/29 | time

[voletti]

You can tell things aren't going to end well the moment the little cluster of girls starts to talk. Amanda, a junior at Lower Dauphin Middle School in Hummelstown, Pa., is in the cafeteria, commiserating with her friends about a monster test they all just took. Her friends are sure they tanked it, but Amanda has no such worries. "I aced it," she says airily, "but that's just me." As she gets up to clear her tray, the other girls exchange narrowed looks. "Let's trip her," one suggests. Another one nods, goes after Amanda and in an instant sends her sprawling.

The scene is a nasty one--or it would be if the girls meant any harm. But they don't. There is no real tray, no real cafeteria, and Amanda's tumble was a planned pratfall. The students are merely role-playing, acting out a Kabuki version of the girl-on-girl aggression they are increasingly finding in their school. The teachers noticed it too and have taken steps to stop it.

"O.K.," says Pam Eberly, a health and physical-education teacher who helped the girls stage the exercise. "What happened here? Who was the bully? Who were the bystanders? And what could you have done so that things turned out differently?"