The Bangor Daily News ran an article about the tragic situation in Mass, where a young lady took her life because of the interminable bullying of 6 other students. Many lives are now in ruins because the school officials didn't take the situation seriously enough.
I would also blame the multitude of the students and teachers that knew what was going on and did nothing to aid Phoebe Prince. It says in the article, that it was common knowledge that she was being bullied regularly. One can understandably deduce that none of these people made a real effort to help this girl in the form of kind words, or God forbid stand up to the little pukes. I've had my trips to the principles office and suspensions for standing up to bullies on my and others behalves. Funny thing, once I called them out on their shit, they left me and mine alone.
Bullies are insecure, cowards. Dave Ramsey says the best way to deal with a bully is to "pop'm in the nose." I may be a pacifist but I tend to agree with this sentiment. We've already had to deal with a child that was pushing our daughter around. We taught, nay drilled, her to scream out loud, "DON'T PUSH ME!" Alerting all in the area of the problem. Guess who doesn't get pushed anymore. However, if that didn't work, I was more than willing to teach my little girl how to take down a male significantly bigger than her. We would deal with the consequences of course, but she also would no longer be a victim.
Our schools and even society at large seem ill equipped to deal with the issue of bullying. Rules and laws seem to focus mainly on dealing with the issue, after it has gone too far. Therefore, like sex and money, it must fall to parents to do the real teaching. We must teach our kids that comments like "Boys will be boys," are not acceptable from teachers and principles. That you don't have to be a victim, and to stand up for what is right, even if there are consequences.
Who is this nut?
- kired
- "You need to believe in things that aren't true. How else can they become?" T. Pratchett
2 comments:
I think you were using "boys will be boys" simply as an illustration of a societal attitude, but still want to point out that bullying is hardly limited by gender.
While females may not tend to be physically threatening, they can be devastating in terms of mental abuse which can be much more difficult to call attention to and defend against.
Everyone needs to speak out against bullying, ignoring it is tantamount to implying approval. Schools in particular have to step up and deal with the issue since that is where the behavior starts and when people are likely to be the most vulnerable.
I didn't teach very long but I'd like to think three 7th grade vultures remembered a little private chat we had about making themselves feel superior at the expense of others whenever the urge to do so hit as they got older. While my rant wasn't public or as forceful it certainly came from the example of a favorite teacher who had no problem with chewing people out right in the hallway if he thought he saw bullying behavior. Had a chance to talk to him about it as a student teacher . . his thought was that by making it public it drove home how they were making their victim feel.
Dearly loved that chalk-throwing temper-challenged man who cared so very much about all the kids who passed through his life. He was a great teacher as a bonus.
Unfortunately he would probably be run out of most of today's school systems due to complaints from the parents of the bullies. Of course those same schools would give nothing but lip-service to the complaints of the victims' parents.
(dealing with parents = #1 reason why I got out of teaching)
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