The public school system ought to be abolished.
Some school district employee should go to prison for this incident.
Kids need to start beating the crap out of teachers and principals. If they fight back, they need to be fired.
As a result knowledgeable Freepers NEVER automatically assume that a kid who's been kicked out of school actually did anything bad.
Ping
Of course they are.
As a teacher in public schools, I can say that the recent rise of bullying is DIRECTLY caused by rules that punish kids equally whether they bully or defend themselves.
Consider a kid who is a chronic troublemaker. Knowing he can get a 10 day suspension, and his general apathy toward school, and the PS3 or Xbox waiting for him at home, it’s almost enticing for him to find someone to beat up.
And, at least in our school, kids who participate in any extracurricular activities like sports or organizations, know they can be kicked out of these activities if they get a suspension. So, in effect, the punishment is GREATER for kids who actually care about something and take some pride in participating in school activities.
And of course, it doesn’t matter how much the bully threatens, because if he isn’t caught in the act, all the teachers can do is document the incidents and perhaps refer the bully to the counselor. Any more, and parents will get lawyers involved, claiming that the staff is persecuting their kids.
So the effect is the bullies know they’ll have an easy 10 day vacation, and not have to risk retaliation because a good kid might be reluctant to fight back.
The good kids know that if they defend themselves, they’ll have a suspension on their permanent record and not be allowed to participate in any extracurricular activities.
Is there a sane adult that really believes this helps bullying?
But, instead of using common sense, those who make school laws (most of whom have never set foot in a classroom since graduation) decide to handle it through anti-bullying programs, which are useless. Bullies become bullies because they DON’T CARE how their actions affect others. What good will a feel-good anti-bullying program do for a bully?
It is all about conditioning students to rely on authority for everything and making them dependent.
Personally, though, I always have the bad luck of looking the other way when good kids fight back against a bully. And, if the good kid seems to be getting the better of a bully, I, with my chronic foot pain, sometimes have a hard time getting to the fight to break it up before the bully might get a few good shots in the face. Which I never see.
*wink*
A friend’s grand daughter was given that “0 Tolerance For Violence” bit. This 3rd grader had been in a gifted program. The school had Mexican students who were busily fondling her butt.
Eventually, another boy (white) did the same.
She decked the boy during recess, and was charged by the lil’ perp’s big brother. Seeing the size, and correctly identifying his out of control rage as a serious risk which she could not deal with due to size and age differences - - she tenderized his Tenders. He was taken to the hospital at once.
Had she made written complaints, she could have sued the school and won. But, as she wanted to just be left alone, she had not “exhausted administrative remedies”. Let’s just ignore the futility of how attempting to change Mexican school boys behavior with words.
Rather than deal with the festering multicultural conflict, the educrats blamed the victim and Suspended HER!
Clearly, caning educrats is long overdue.
The school is supporting the bully. You can not be nuetral. Being nuetral only supports the stronger side, which is the bully.
A teacher had this program where self defense was discouraged, actually, demonized.
I talked with her about it. She’s about 5’2” and 100 pounds and I asked her that if my son, around 6 feet tall, saw some student or man attacking her, if she would want him to beat the cr@p out of him to stop the assualt or would she rather he let it happen while waiting for the police to respond.
She didn’t know what to say. She said it’s a school required program and she needed to think about it. Young liberals do not think through the things they support. They get a cause like “non-violence” and then they march on pushing it. “Wouldn’t it be great if the world was non-violent! Let’s teach the children.”
I believe they are against self-defense while white.
My 13 year already knows that he has a right to defend himself and I told him it is better to defend himself and get suspended and have the respect of the other kids versus being a pu$$y and not defend himself.
This is the same crap I had to put up when I was in school. I had problems with some bullies and when I stand up for myself, I got in trouble. I told my son that he would expect to get in trouble but mentioned to him the schools are full of it when it come to that.
And even if the person being beat up does not fight back, that person is the one labeled as having the “problem” by the school administrators.
I got suspended once in school for fighting long ago. Of course, I almost knocked him unconscious with a history book to the face when he punched me in the back. His blood flowed like sweet red wine from his busted nose.
My mother was not amused by the actions of the school. Since it was established that the other kid started the fight and had tormented me for weeks, she asked why I was suspended. I spent the 3 days with Mom teaching me. I was not punished by her. Oh yeah, the bully never bothered me again.
First grade, I taught my son how to make a fist and told him to defend himself and that we would deal with the consequences. His school has small classes which tend to have less (not none, but less) of that sort of thing. I figure it’s better to prepare him beforehand.
Nearly the same thing happened to me 60 years ago. Yes, you read right; I was in 8th grade. A guy who had tried to intimidate me verbally, which I ignored, decided it was time to make physical contact, which he did by jumping on my back very roughly from behind. I turned and it was on. Our very brief scuffle was broken up almost immediately. At my meeting with the female principal I was told that if I was fighting again I would be suspended. She said that the other boy, Joe Wolf by name (who cares if I name him after all these years), said he was only playing. I replied that he was not a friend and that if he accosted me again I would defend myself as before. She dismissed me without any further comment that I can recall. After that Joe Wolf challenged me to a fight with boxing gloves. I told him I was not interested and to stay away from me. He never said a word to me afterwards or came near me. Hope this personal anecdote was not intrusive.
the thing today is verbal bullying is tolerated but when a kid fights back from being mercilessly taunted then he gets in trouble
wiseasses and women run the schools...too many women with no clue
a far cry from my day when you better not let your mouth overload your ass
I’m talking suburban whitebread schools
not inner city gang bangs in the bathroom sort of joints
I’m a reporter. I cover school boards as part of my work and I’ve seen how the anti-bullying policies work in theory and practice.
Having lived and worked in inner-city environments in the past, I’m not unaware of the problems of gang warfare in the schools and I understand the reasons for these zero-tolerance policies. There are situations in which it is simply impossible to tell who is the victim and who is the perpetrator because in most cases all sides in the fight are engaged in verbal or physical intimidation of other groups, and banning all violence may seem at first to make sense. In environments like that, everybody but the gangbangers is already afraid to fight back because they assume anyone threatening violence is armed and can call on numerous fellow gang members to back them up.
However, apart from gang warfare environments, these anti-bullying policies have turned schoolyard stupidity into a situation where the cure is worse than the disease. These policies are punishing victims and teaching “learned helplessness.”
I’m all for protecting victims who can’t defend themselves or for whatever reason choose not to do so, but defending oneself is not wrong.
It will take a few years before the policies change, but so many bullying victims are being punished for defending themselves that I believe parents will eventually deal with this at the voting booth if teachers don’t start rejecting the policies.