“It’s Got To Stop”
Told by Pam Gockley
Written by Laurie Grobman
In ninth grade, Pam Gockley destroyed school property, a felony. “I snapped. I literally blacked out. I now call it the bullying blackout. When you reach a point where you are so hurt and so angry. I just couldn’t wrap my head around that this is the way it was supposed to be.” Since elementary school, Pam had been put in the Special Education program because no one diagnosed her as dyslexic. The bullying she faced year after year was relentless.
The schools segregated Pam and the other students in Special Education in their classrooms. But throughout the school day, in a line, they went to gym class, walked in hallways, ate in the cafeteria, and rode the school buses. “We had a big target on our heads because we were labeled ‘The SPEDS.’ Everybody knew what a SPED was. The kids knew. The teachers knew. The principal knew. But no one ever stopped the kids from using the label.”
Her experiences are etched into her brain still today. While singing the jingle “Weebles wobble but they don’t fall down,” kids pushed her into the lockers, chanting “let’s see if she falls down.” They threw food at her. Teachers and administrators saw it happen and did nothing.
By eighth grade, Pam simply stopped going to school. Her mother left for work early, and Pam just stayed in bed. She began to overeat, and what was in the house were cans of spaghetti and meatballs, Pop-Tarts, and instant mashed potatoes. “Eating was an addiction. That was my go-to thing too.” Her weight gain put a bigger target on her in ninth grade. And after only two months in school, she committed a felony, was expelled, and never returned to high school.
Today, Pam leads the nonprofit The Camel Project, which she founded in 2018, to change the culture of bullying. That “culture,” as her own experiences show, is not exclusively kids bullying other kids. It’s system-wide, institutional bullying. Every teacher and administrator at Pam’s schools knew what was going on. They knew that putting a child in special education made them a target. And they did nothing.
Pam could not understand, mentally or emotionally, why it was happening. And then she blamed herself. Everyone told her, with words or silence, that being bullied was her fault. She “lost all sense of being and worth.”
Pam learned the hard way that bullying, without an interruption, will almost always lead to some kind of violence. Suicide and homicide are the leading cause of death of our young people. Pam believes that every kid that picks up a gun in our city is bullied. Then it becomes trauma. Unresolved trauma becomes PTSD. It is a continuing cycle.
“I understand a kid who has totally lost all hope. They’re helpless, hopeless, and they have no control. They have been rejected again and again. They have no worth or belonging. They join gangs, sets, crews to feel a sense of belonging. It’s the only way to stop the pain. And that’s what we try to give back to them.”
The Camel Project’s program, I Have a Future, discusses options and choices. Many times, youth don’t have to resort to violence if someone intervenes.
Pam believes in her heart that if she’d had access to a gun in ninth grade, she may have used that gun rather than destroy school property. “We need to do different things. We need a different approach.” The Camel Project offers critical programming to intervene in and prevent youth violence in Reading.
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When Pam destroyed school property, she was not a “bad kid.” She was mistreated and did not receive the right support. She was given a choice to leave the school, with the stigma of a “dropout,” or be charged with a felony. As she left high school for that last time, the vice principal told her she was “fat and lazy and would never graduate from high school.”
Pam’s road to the Camel Project was long and hard. She obtained her working papers at age 14 and worked as a dishwasher until she was old enough to tend bar and waitress. But she also sold drugs and took drugs. She attempted suicide. When that failed, Pam told herself there has to be something more. At 18, she obtained her GED, followed by an associate’s degree in Business Management at Reading Area Community College (RACC) and a bachelor’s degree in Political Science from Kutztown University. Soon after, in 1996, Pam and her partner started a technology business, Vigilant Corporation, which they still operate today.
Pam “woke up” to her new calling after the Parkland High School shooting in 2018. Pam had had enough with “thoughts and prayers” because she had an answer to gun violence – focusing on adults and bullying behaviors. The Camel Project’s bullying elimination programs working directly with the students were not sufficient. The Camel Project turned
their focus to adults, encouraging its clients to understand their role in bullying behaviors in schools and workplaces. “It’s a hard ask.” But then something changes. “When adults begin seeing the shift in themselves and the huge impact it will have in our youth, they take accountability for their part in bullying cultures.” Educating the influencers of our youth creates a bigger impact.
Finding no evidence of programs targeting adults, the Camel Project built their programs from scratch. Pam became certified in Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, Mental Health, and First Aid. That has all been since 2018. The programs bring together Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports, and Trauma-Informed Care so
that adults who work with youth understand bullying behaviors, where they come from, and how to deescalate them. Adults need to be self-aware so that they can build children’s and teens’ confidence and deregulation skills without causing more trauma.
Some of these adults discover that they use bullying behaviors. They are based on traumas in the adults’ past, and they cause more trauma to the children and teens they work with. With these insights and training, school personnel can create a new culture in their school aimed at reducing bullying.
Pam and the Camel Project are present in the Northwest Middle School in Reading. After 60 hours of observation to learn the school culture, Pam has begun implementing programming. She is always there for students who need her, but the main focus is on adults: “A school like the Reading school district has 18,000 students; we can’t train all those students, but we can manage and help the 2000 or so people that are employed by the school. And their new understanding of bullying behaviors will impact the students and their families.”
She is seeing results. Unsurprisingly, Pam spends part of her day in the school cafeteria. She’s asked the cafeteria workers whether they see bullying, and they say “every day.” She’s asked them what they do about it, and they say “nothing.” They have been told to do nothing. Pam is giving these kids what she desperately needed but didn’t get from her schools. All those years, she sat alone in the cafeteria. No one would sit with her because she was a “SPED. Sometimes they’d dump their trays on her. It was constant. “And you cannot tell me an adult in that room didn’t see that. So it’s institutional. And it’s got to stop.” The cafeteria staff have told her that the room is noticeably calmer when she’s present.
Pam strives for the Camel Project to be welcomed into all of Reading’s schools. And she won’t stop trying. Many people tell Pam she’s too outspoken. But she won’t stop. The Camel Project stems from the trauma Pam experienced as a child: “And now I don’t want any other child to experience it. This is my legacy. I’m not going to go away. I can’t be fired.”