Thank you for your service both in the military and in the school system. I do not agree that this is a positive exercise.
#1 The scars from bullying part is anathema. Human beings grow throughout their lives and change in response to stress, experiences etc. Being challenged often spurs children(and adults) to grow in understanding of themselves, of others, and to develop their ability to withstand stress and to use the experience to excel. Promoting that growth is the parent’s and teacher’s job and opportunity. The emphasis should be on developing self reliance, finding a way to work through situations not a pity party that makes a the target a damaged victim, that tries to shame unshameable bullies who obviously have deeper problems. The message to the class is deeply flawed and damaging to the children.
#2 This is a story about 4th grade children and desensitizing them to curse words and making them participate in mock aggression is wrong in so many ways that it is abuse. The exercise may have been typical yes, even standard, unfortunately, but was very wrong. Thinking through the situation makes it obvious that teachers are going to seminars and being wowed by the presenters and they are not filtering what they are told through their common sense meters. I would have been up in the schools faces for bullying my child and for sending the wrong messages about how to live and grow through adversity.
That is rather missing the point of why this is presented in the way it is.
Today's children are often presented with a system of discipline in schools that is based around principles of restitution or 'restorative justice'. Whether that is a good idea or not, is largely irrelevant, it's the way it is and schools and teachers are forced to work within that type of framework. Especially seeing that large numbers of parents use exactly the same approach in their homes.
One of the big issues about that type of framework is that children should apologise to others when they have harmed them. And this leads to an idea developing that "If I say I'm sorry, it doesn't matter what I did" being very common among today's children. This type of activity is intended to make it clear that just saying sorry doesn't change what you did. It doesn't magically fix it. Any damage done may still be there.
The idea of this approach is not to tell children that they cannot recover from harm. That's completely misunderstanding the point. It's to explain to them that they can't just pretend that they what they do didn't harm others, just because they are sorry.
You seem to be under the impression this is aimed at the targets of bullying. It's not - it's aimed at the perpetrators. And, yes, with some bullies it won't work, because the reasons they do it are not that simple - but it does deal effectively with a lot of milder bullying.
This is a story about 4th grade children and desensitizing them to curse words and making them participate in mock aggression is wrong in so many ways that it is abuse.
Again, it's not about desensitising them. It's the exact opposite sensitising them to the words. In a culture that is constantly surrounding them with swearing and cursing, large numbers of kids do not have a clue that these words should not be used, or why they shouldn't be used. They hear these words all the time on television and in films.
These kids were told to write down words and insults they already knew. Things they hear in their daily lives. That's how it works. Because they are all around them, they don't see the problem with them. This has to be explained to them. They have to be taught why. And unfortunately, a lot of parents aren't doing it.