Posted on 10/08/2010 12:42:51 PM PDT by Mind Freed
Well, that’s the problem. Bullies aren’t born, they are created. They LEARNED this behavior from their parents.
Would love to see some program that the bullies AND their parents have to be involved in. Something that would SHAME them all.
Exactly!
Toward the end of the article one student mentioned that the school has 3,000 students! What is this "school"? A Perdue chicken farm?
If we house children in prison-like structures, march them around to the sound of bells like prisoners, Strip them of their fundamental rights to free speech, free press, free assembly, free expression of their religion, and even ( like prisoners) regulate when they can eat, use the restroom, and exercise, WHY ARE CITIZENS SURPRISED THAT THEY ACT LIKE PRISONERS!!! ( Is a "duh" necessary?)
This school seems to be in a "good" area and would likely be considered a "good" school. Nearly all of the school outrage stories seem to be from "good" schools...yet...There are Freepers who insist that this isn't happening at their child's school. I suppose the free babysitting is powerfully addicting.
Our Founding Fathers supported public education, but what they had in mind was likely the education they enjoyed. Our Founding Fathers never attended prison-like schools that are, today, the size of a colonial **CITY**.
If you put children into buildings that look like prisons, are the size of prisons, and march them around like prisons, we should not be at all surprised that they ACT like prisoners.
You may have a point there.
Last I heard MHS is the largest HS in Ohio. We live in a district close by. When we moved to this area we purposely stayed away from Mentor for that reason. We had come from an even larger HS in TX and daughter wanted a small school.
With a small school there are different problems. Kids that have known eachother since they were born and much tighter cliques. Anyone outside that group or a newcomer is more likely (IMO) to be subject to bullying.
Have lived through both types. All my kids thought that in larger schools it’s easier to find a group to fit into and kids more friendly. BUT you are one amongst many and the opportunities are limited.
I can see both sides of the issue when it comes to larger vs. smaller yet I do agree in a large school these issues are more difficult to handle simply because of the sheer multitudes.
There is going to be some bullying. The bullies need to be immediately removed. Our daughters should not have to brace to return assault every day as their only defense.
I wholeheartedly agree – but the reality is different and we have to live in the real world. Bullies will not be immediately removed, even if the incident is seen by an administrator or teacher. Filing a complaint with the school seldom accomplishes anything. A better approach might be to file the complaint with the police.
It’s been my experience that bullying stops when the victim fights back. Bullies prefer meek, safe victims.
In a healthy family, the parents are in control and there is no bullying for position like in a pack of feral dogs.
When I was in school the two groups who were the worst bullies were the popular kids a the top of the social order trying to maintain position and the loser kids at the bottom trying to move up. The ones from well-grounded, functional families rarely participated in the kind of world-shattering psychological bullying that is prompting suicides.
Their sense self worth was actuallized by their family, not position within the pack.
I agree with you. Maybe back in the 1950s, it was enough to punch a bully in the nose. These days, you are likely to get a gang of kids after you with guns and knives. At best, YOUR child, the victim, will be the one getting the suspension or even expulsion in this touchy-feely climate of "zero tolerance" for violence.
This "zero tolerance" policy for violence is a joke by the way. It is far more damaging for a child to be verbally taunted and shunned by his/her classmates day after day than to be involved in a schoolyard fistfight. Yet under the "no tolerance for violence" policy, this sort of psychological bullying is running rampant and there is absolutely nothing the victim can do about it because as a resort of this bullying, the victim is all alone and isolated.
Further, in this age of technology, the victims of this type of bullying cannot get away from it once they leave the school property. They must contend with it online as well and must deal with the fact that no matter where they go online, their tormentors will be sure to follow them, unless they find a way to be totally anonymous or take on a fake identity.
That said, let me tell you a personal story that goes back to 1978. At that time, I was still in high school and I became the target of a gang of bullies. One kid in particular was especially vicious and in chemistry class, he spend the entire period shooting spitballs into the back of my head and calling me names, getting lots of giggles from the kids around him. He was just having a grand old time while the teacher totally ignored what was happening. Well after class, I stood outside the door and when he came out, I smashed him in the face with my fist as hard as I could.
You can predict the results. The chemistry teacher marched me to the principal's office and told him he did not want "my type" in his class anymore. I was suspended from school for a week and had to spend the rest of the school year in study hall and retake chemistry in summer school with a different teacher.
But that's not the worst of it. A few nights later, the kid who I punched brought some of his friends by my house (when we weren't home) and tossed bricks through my front windows. They spray-painted obscene graffiti (using my name doing obscene sexual acts) across my front door and did other vandalism about the property.
I knew it was them because the next few days at school, that particular gang get smiling at me in the hallways and asked me how I liked the "redecorating" of my house.
Now my parents were hard-working people who didn't have much money. SO I had to watch them spend what little money they had to fix up the house as they didn't have insurance for that sort of thing. That was the worst punishment of all. So for the remainder of my school years, I learned to suck it up and tolerate the bullying because I didn't have a "gang" to back me up. Needless to say, my "public education" was pretty much a hell on earth as the bullies basically ran the school. The teachers did nothing - they just wanted to collect their paychecks and go home at night.
SO for all those who sit in their easy chairs and post here how victims should just "punch the bullies in the nose", they can go back to watching their movies like "Christmas Story" and "Back to the Future." In the real world, getting rid of bullies is not that easy.
What we need to do is toss bullies out of school, period. Society does not owe bullies an education. Let them spend their adult lives pumping gas and picking up garbage.
If a kid hits another, even in self defense, they'll be punished for it.
All this touchy-feely bullsh*t has painted the kids into the corner.
Time to chuck the sociology texts, dump the dimestore counseling and psychology, and let the victims kick the crap out of the bully on the playground early on. Everyone will be better off for it.
THat is a horrible story. Wonder what happened to the bullies. Your positon of having to suck it up to protect your parents is so sad but so brave.
The advice to throw a punch may work with a single bully. WHat I am hearing is bullies run in gangs and that is a whole other story.
When my grandson was 4, there was a kid at nursery school who would walk thru the bathroom and knock him off the pot. No kidding. He did it every day!! Then my grandson got up one day and threw a punch right in his face, bloodying his nose. Grandson got sent to the head man, parents called in for a “serious” conference and the head man gave them a lecture on violence and then said, “good job,,this will stop that little creep” and winked.
But that doesn’t happen nowadays.
I went to high school in the East Boston area growing up. If you remember the 1970s show "Welcome Back Kotter", well that was what my high school was like, except the "sweathogs" weren't as charming!
Sadly, now, it isn't a question of merely sorting out the pecking order and establishing dominance in the pack, but one of the bullies working in concert to seriously injure the kid. Back when, killing someone would get you the chair, the gas chamber, or a date with a rope.
I blame TV and movies for the sort of behaviour that would not have been tolerated in a John Wayne movie. We lived to a different, more chivalrous, and frankly, better standard, even in our entertainment.
THANK YOU for sharing that.
I spent enough of my years on the receiving end of bullying, and our house has also been the target of anonymous bullies who didn’t like one of my kids (as we found out years later) although not as bad as your situation.
It’s time to BLAME THE BULLIES and put a stop to them.
The bad parents are the ones who raised the animals, not the ones who *didn’t teach their kids to fight back* (an ASSumtion if I ever heard one)
>>SO for all those who sit in their easy chairs and post here how victims should just “punch the bullies in the nose”, they can go back to watching their movies like “Christmas Story” and “Back to the Future.” In the real world, getting rid of bullies is not that easy. <<
>>SO for all those who sit in their easy chairs and post here how victims should just “punch the bullies in the nose”, they can go back to watching their movies like “Christmas Story” and “Back to the Future.” In the real world, getting rid of bullies is not that easy. <<
>>SO for all those who sit in their easy chairs and post here how victims should just “punch the bullies in the nose”, they can go back to watching their movies like “Christmas Story” and “Back to the Future.” In the real world, getting rid of bullies is not that easy. <<
TRUTH BE TOLD!
At the first sign of bullying, I snapped my daughter out of school quicker than a heartbeat.
She will go back to “society” when she is 18 and has abuse laws behind her. As well as a self-defense course and an education that makes her valued at her job,
I don’t know about that. I’ve read these opinions, and I don’t see it at all. Of course we all blame the bullies for their foul actions.
But if the school and the judicial aurhorities won’t help, you should do it yourself. You have to do it yourself.
.
For some reason, the violence by the bullies isn’t addressed at all, even when it’s physical. It’s only the retaliation.
Churches are the worst in enabling bullies. My son was getting bullied by kids at church and would just hear *We need to be forgiving* and chewed out. Well, one day in winter, the kids were all outside playing in the snow, and this one kid tried it again with my son, who was always good size and solid for his age (NOT fat, just genetics of being built solid) and he buried the kid in the snow.
The asst. pastor (who had sons himself) just watched and laughed. No other adults Saw it that I know of and it did help stop it.
My daughter bruised some kid once who was two years older and a head taller cause he wouldn’t leave her alone and she never got in trouble for it. The coach saw it and didn’t give her any trouble. The guy had to live with sporting a bruise and ALL the other kids on the team knew where he got it. That put HIM in line and the rest of the boys backed off from her.
But having adults who will back up a kid handling it themselves makes ALL the difference. If they had enabled the bully by punishing my kids, their lives would have been hell.
At least these kids are getting the socialization they need to excel in today’s modern workforce. I mean, just the other day in the five minutes between meetings, one of my co-workers knocked the laptop out of the hands of another co-worker and called him “homo”. We all made it back to our next meeting before the bell rang. Our supervisor didn’t see it, so everything is cool.
I mean, these things just happen in the workplace. Just like in government schools.
(Maybe you have to have it pointed out to you that the above is absurdity. I think stories like this are another reason why government schools should be abolished. Most FReepers won’t agree because they know their kid is going to a “better than average” or “great” school and getting taught by “excellent” teachers.)
What were these losers doing at her funeral? Who let those idiots in? I can’t imagine anything worse than being a parent and watching your dead child’s tormenters practically dancing around her casket (may as well have been) and laughing. I’m afraid I’d start hurling those nice vases they have in funeral parlors.
Some of the public schools in our area are so bad that someone told me it’s literally like going to a third-world country. To walk back out their doors is like returning to America. Some are nothing more than human warehouses and breeding grounds for the basest behavior imaginable. Often, what you get is know-nothing kids pooling their ill breeding and animalistic behavior.
You know, MC, I fully agree with you. The behemoth Dept. of Ed. was one of the worst things to ever happen to this country. Small neighborhood schools are best if we HAVE to have public education. And before THAT, the one-room schools produced some of the finest citizens this country has ever had. Home schooling is superior to all, of course. I get so tired of seeing young skulls full of mush warehoused together. All they end up doing is pooling their ignorance. And that’s just the teachers! Never mind the students! :-)
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