Posted on 04/01/2010 9:59:00 AM PDT by Niuhuru
What sort of punishment should these bullies face and what punishments do you think should be meted out. Let's also discuss what other school systems in other countries deal with bullying in schools.
They should be strapped down and their victims allowed to have at it.
My youngest was bullied at the first of his years in middle school. Spoke to the parents, principal, superintendent but the bullying continued. Finally his older brother went to the school, found the two boys outside and told them that if they didn’t lay off he’d kick their asses, and he could and would. The bullying stopped immediately.
Personally I would hook up electric machines and then hook needles up and then put the needles in the veins in their head and give them so many electric shocks until they have full blown personality changes to where they don’t bully anymore.
One of my kids was continuously bullied in Middle School. Interestingly, the administration (Principal/Vice Principal) really got on it and a few kids were suspended. The classroom teachers could have cared less. Like the teachers in this MA case, those teachers had observed the bullying and provocative behavior but did not intervene.
It eventually worked itself out when said karate-trained son grew to 6’4” while the primary bully stayed around 5’6”
They decided to leave him alone.
I think a distinction needs to be made between bullying by one or two people, and bullying by a larger group. The more people involved, the more pervasive it can be. When I was in elementary school, the “in” clique decided to pick on me. Whether I was in the bathroom, the classroom, the playground, or walking home, one of them was often there. Once a few of them got away with it, it became a sport in which others would join. This is not the same thing as having one kid pick on a child. Group bullying can be a nearly continuous thing from the time the kid steps on school property/gets on the bus until they get home in the afternoon: that’s potentially six straight hours of being bullied.
When it’s one kid, it’s a bad thing and action needs to be taken. I’d favor a suspension. When it’s a group, it’s a cultural thing. I don’t know that that type of attitude can be easily changed.
The cultural issue is a key point. I have raised happy, curious children who take on the world like excited kittens. They are also extremely smart. Both have had bullying issues with the clique. A quick left solves the short term issues (followed by the kid being taken to the ice cream shop on the way home from my visit to the principal’s office after mine got in trouble for fighting back). Clique bullying is harder.
The issue is whether we raise our own children to join in, which is a sign of weakness, or to defend others, which takes real courage. My son noticed that when he defended other victims, that the group backed off on him a bit. Why do most kids follow the bully instead of the victim? Is this more recent or did the greatest generation, for example, do the same thing and they learned courage later?
Regardless, teach your kids to take the brave road, stand up for others who are on the “outs,” and they will be respected/feared by the popular ones in many cases.
“Why do most kids follow the bully instead of the victim?”
Maybe it’s Stockholm Syndrome. The thing is, in the fifties, sixties, and seventies and eighties bullying was dealt with. For some reason these kids are getting more feral, demonic.
It’s not just name calling, exclusion, or maybe a schoolyard fight. It’s systematic and after one is sepcifically targeted, they show no mercy.
I actually read that Phoebe had dated a popular high school jock and the girls decided that Phoebe didn’t know ‘her place’ in the pecking order of the school. So it’s not like this is about lunch money being stolen. This is about some demented idea of ‘remembering your place’ that is insane.
Somehow in this culture we’ve accepted this feral behavior and we need to start treating them like out of control animals.
Since they are presumably minors, they should be removed from group schools (whether public or private) and receive a solitary education.
If damage is done (i.e. they kill or hurt someone, take their bike or money) then whatever juvenile justice would normally be applied to these crimes should be applied.
But they should be kept out of the general school population until maturity.
I teach in a public school. In my opinion, we could solve a lot of these problems by returning to the disciplinary measures of the past- corporal punishment in grades K-8, and suspension/expulsion in high school. In conjunction with similar action taken at home, it actually at one time helped maintain civilized behavior. In my opinion it would go a long way toward improving public school, instead of half-a$$ed rubbish such as counseling or In-School Suspension.
In my experience it's the cool kids who do much of the bullying, as in Phoebe not knowing "her place". Kids and peer pressure yields kids either siding with the bully or ignoring the problem. Siding with the victim means being treated similarly. Also, kids see that there's no real punishment given to the bully.
Bullying is all about power and control. Humans seek power and control, rather than weakness and no control. When one child bullies another, then the bully has the power and control. It feels good (as long as one can ignore one's conscience).
“In conjunction with similar action taken at home, it actually at one time helped maintain civilized behavior”
I just can’t understand why it has come to this. Literally the schools are filled with sociopaths in training. It’s not like harmless taunting, it’s literally systematic stalking. I might be 26, but I would think that in the fifties things were a lot less malicious in schools.
Well, I wasn’t around then- but I do teach history, and note a marked difference in society and education between then and now. My parents lived in that vanished world, and they lived in a world where criminals got punished, bad children got a spanking, and people could walk the streets safely, leave doors unlocked, and even leave your keys in the car. Cause trouble in school? You either got spanked or sent home.... I was among the last (1970s) where spankings were given in elementary school. I sometimes think I belong to the last generation that has anything like sense.
I’m just in shock over this. I’m thrilled that these people are being named and shamed. They deserve it and I hope it ruins their lives. It’s like in the fifties and sixties things made sense. Things were the way they were and they were a solid, stable society.
I’m working on my own business and to be perfectly frank I hope this enables me to be as far away from the rat race as possible. These bullies are literal sociopaths now, not just people who tease.
Well, that’s because of another problem in our society- the power of the lawyer industry. A lot of school systems are lawsuit-shy to the point of doing things that are quite unnecessary except when being sued, and not doing things that are worthwhile just on the chance someone might.
And on the parent thing, I’ve experienced that personally. A lot of parents absolutely refuse to believe their offspring could possibly be at fault. That usually lasts until the cuffs get put on at some point, and in many cases after. There’s a lot of reasons why, but suffice to say if we had some serious tort reform, school administrators could do their job, and then folks like me can do ours.
Worked in a large corporation lately? This tendency to obey the (often self-appointed) tribal chief is Human Psychology 101, and everyone from Peter Drucker to Ayn Rand has commented on it. It's the default state of unenlightened humanity, and school teachers thirty years ago were more aware of the need to rein it in because today's administrators belong to a very similar tribe of their own - the NEA.
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