Blame victim much??
Isn’t that like saying someone is emotionally attached to a character created in a roll playing game? That doesn’t sound healthy.
I don’t understand all the people saying that going to the school doesn’t help. If that really is the problem (now, not a hundred years ago when you were at school) then there is apparently an enormous problem with schools failing in their duties. Guaranteeing a safe learning environment is step one, it’s necessary for any teaching to even take place. If that is really the problem I think some serious suits should be coming the way of the school.
And schools can do something about bullying.
I used to work in a children’s home where we dealt with this problem. One day we had several children come in at once, from a different orphanage. They brought the bullying with them. When we found out we talked about it and doled out some consequences and thought that would do the trick. Of course it didn’t, the problem moved to where we couldn’t see it. When we realised that we knew we needed to come down like a ton of bricks, and we did. We had the police over to make it clear that even just saying you will hurt someone is a threat, and is against the law. We made it clear that standing by is exactly as bad as doing the bullying. That means that if there is any bullying at all, everyone will spend Saturday in silence in the cafeteria writing writing writing about what you did, how you made someone feel, how you feel about that, what you will do differently in future etc. It means no tv, no fun activities. It means your life will be shit until you learn.
And that worked. You want to get to the point where everyone is literally scared to bully. Where if someone criticises someone’s socks, the others immediately say: “dude, be careful what you say, you don’t want to bully them or we’ll end up sitting in the cafeteria all Saturday again!”
I’ve worked in quite a few schools, and most of them have bullying policies. I’ve never observed them in action (I worked on testing, I was never around for long), but if apparently schools are reneging on their responsibilities that needs to be taken very seriously. I think that requires some serious consequences for the school and also personally for the teachers/head involved.
If it were my school and I heard there was any bullying going on at all the kids wouldn’t know what had hit them. Bullying only works if almost everyone is complicit, that means everyone stays behind to write in silence, that means everyone’s parents come over to the school and receive phone calls, it means the police come over to make clear what the law is. It means that until it is over, everyone’s life is shit. That means that after it is over children will turn on anyone who threatens to put them back in that position and keep each other in check.
The death of this poor girl might be an opportunity to make it clear to the adult world that if responsibility is reneged on there will be serious consequences.
What an odd thing to say. Serious question: do you consider your participation on this message board to be equivalent to playing a character in a game?
Thinking more about this, I remember this happening this year on my annual trip to a Romanian orphanage for children with developmental disabilities.
There is this gorgeous boy called Utze, and I call him “Utze-putze-poppedijn”, not teasingly but lovingly, in a sing-song way if I’m rocking him or jiggling him on my knee. (Poppedijn is a Dutch term of endearment for children.)
There is another, older boy who is very shy, very sensitive and who adores me. When he heard me say Utze’s nickname he wagged his finger at me and chided me for saying a rhyming name.
I was so impressed that he stood up to me in that way! Even if he misunderstood the interaction, what courage, to say what you know is right to an adult who you look up to!
No. I’m not married to the name I chose. Wouldn’t matter to me if I abandon it because of stalkers but I’m also pretty immune to bullying. So, don’t care either way.
Do you see the persona of an electronic character as having any meaning in the real world?
+1
Charges against the bullies have been dropped.
StG
Take a look at the case in South Hadley Massachusetts when a teen girl, Phoebe Prince, was bullied to suicide. In spite of the clear knowledge by administration abosolutely fuck-all was done to provide a safe learning environment for her. Additionally, because of Massachusetts law the administrators and staff at the school are lawsuit proof. And even though the DA went after the bullies fuck-all happened to any of the adults who should have tried to shut that shit down.
There is a huge problem with bullying in schools being condoned and encouraged by teachers and administrators. It’s not everywhere. It’s not everyone. And it is, thanks be, changing I believe. But to blithely claim that going to the school is going to automatically result in efforts being taken to create that safe learning environment you mentioned is denial of reality.
Jose Baez strikes again. :eek: