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Bullying Discussion Thread

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Do schools need to do more about bullying?

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ElectroYoshi
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Bullying Discussion Thread

Post by ElectroYoshi »

Last week at one of the middle schools in my town, a kid was beaten really badly by a bully and ended up spending a week in the hospital as a result. This happened an entire month after the victim's parents reported the bully to the district. The people in my town are not happy with the district, and that got me thinking:

As the story was making the rounds, I got to thinking: This is unfortunately not the first time I've ever heard of incredibly heinous bullying getting swept under the rug. Not even close. I don't think schools do NEARLY enough to prevent bullying.

What are your thoughts on this subject?
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Phantomboy
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Post by Phantomboy »

As a result of my relationship with schooling, which is probably a story for another time, I genuinely struggle with the motivation behind bullying or how an institution which really should be just corridors connecting halls for lecture and study becomes this cultural enigma with a hierarchical system complete with all the feuds and group based rhetoric that comes with it. So, I genuinely struggle to understand the environment that is created.

With that in mind, my response pretty much what I would suggest any institution with a security problem. Install camera security systems, limit times in which students are left simply unattended on school grounds, buckle down on reported issues. Crimes need to be taken seriously, when behaviour which would be considered physical assault in any workplace is left improperly reprehended that is a fundamental oversight in the organisation filtering these individuals. It is irresponsible to simply gloss over misbehaviour as "character-building" or "just how kids are" and it is lazy to assume that it isn't the duty of the institution to tighten down on assault crimes.
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papaya
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Post by papaya »

I don't ever remember bullying being that big of a deal, at my school at least. The people who were your stereotypical bullies were kinda outcasts themselves, drug abusers and people trying to act 'tough'.

I also don't think the question should be 'Should schools do more about bullying?'. The first issue is that, of course, no normal person should really say no to that question. It'd be like asking 'is racism bad?'. Of course it is. Second, I think this is really on a school-by-school basis. Having counsellors on staff, training teachers to spot and deal with bullying or just even having more people patrolling the corridors are all good enough to cut down on a good amount of bullying. If the bullied can talk to a teacher or other figure of authority about it, and something can be done, then the school is doing enough.

What we don't want is the horror stories I so frequently read of 'zero-tolerance' policies in schools over in america where if a fight breaks out, both the bully and the bullied get in the same amount of trouble.

I think the middle school you mentioned where someone was bullied for a month with no intervention from the school is the exception rather than the norm (if it wasn't, then we'd hear way more of these stories). It's not indicative of every school.
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ElectroYoshi
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Post by ElectroYoshi »

Phantomboy wrote:It is irresponsible to simply gloss over misbehaviour as "character-building" or "just how kids are" and it is lazy to assume that it isn't the duty of the institution to tighten down on assault crimes.
Well said. If your students are annoyed by certain people, that's one thing, but if they're afraid to be doing something they will be doing on a daily basis for at the very least 13 years, you're doing something very wrong.
papaya wrote:I also don't think the question should be 'Should schools do more about bullying?'. The first issue is that, of course, no normal person should really say no to that question. It'd be like asking 'is racism bad?'. Of course it is. Second, I think this is really on a school-by-school basis. Having counsellors on staff, training teachers to spot and deal with bullying or just even having more people patrolling the corridors are all good enough to cut down on a good amount of bullying. If the bullied can talk to a teacher or other figure of authority about it, and something can be done, then the school is doing enough.

Yeah, I agree. I know that not all schools are painfully passive about it. My main concern is that these schools that don't take it seriously, at least not as seriously as they should, seem like they're becoming more common. Maybe I'm just biased because of my disgust at the situation in my town.

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What I've seen personally, is that teachers are often really hesitant to admit that bullying is a problem. The whole "No child left behind" thing seems to lead people to believe that they aren't allowed to call kids out when they do something stupid unless it concern academics in some way. Granted, this is an understandable mindset (notice I said understandable, not agreeable), but a school essentially has two goals: teach students, and make sure they're safe. While bullies are not as much of a threat as, say, an intruder or a fire (which schools also work to protect students from), the threat is very real, and it can become very dangerous if you stand by and do nothing out of fear.
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