WILLIAMSBURG, BROOKLYN — Johnny Arce was a good kid with a bad problem — he was hounded by bullies. They beat him up, they made fun of his sneakers and his "nerdy" haircut, then they demanded, "What do you have to say?"

Arce was too scared to answer. But Jeffrey Pflaum — an English teacher at Williamsburg's PS 16 back in 1991, when Arce was a sixth grader — saw something brewing in the kid's head, so he asked the same question in a different way.

Pflaum asked Arce to write a poem. Untitled haiku by Johnny Arce

The howling wind

leaf flies away

never seen again Years have passed since Arce penned his first poem, but Pflaum hasn't given up on his innovative program that drew out kids he saw were having a tough time, made headlines and earned his students bylines in Newsday and Seventeen magazine.

The retired teacher is now trying to publish an anthology of his students' work so that teachers, parents and children can better understand what happens inside the mind of the bullied kid. "The kids really surprised me with their work," said Pflaum. "The kids have a nihilistic attitude toward things — they accepted a lot of the pushing around and the taunts."

Pflaum's students are among an uncountable number of American children who face bullying — a phenomenon Patch will continue to examine in a year-long reporting project, "The Menace of Bullies: Can We Stop This?"

And while many children resort to self harm — 160,000 kids stay home every day to avoid bullying while others, such as 12-year-old Gabriella Green, have even commited suicide — Arce and his classmates found another way to escape.



Untitled haiku by Nicole Agostini

alone

still

frozen Pflaum first began his poetry workshops back in the mid-1970s — not for the love of poetry but as an attempt to help his students cope with poverty, violent homes, a tough Brooklyn neighborhood and relentless taunting from other kids, he said. Every week, the students would have a contemplation session — listening to classical music or reading a poem — then talk about their thoughts and write about them.