I wasn’t talking about taking students to trial. I was talking about taking action and reporting incidents to the principal, rather than turning a blind eye.
At my high school, there were some violent and abusive individuals who virtually tormented my friends and I. Out of sixty teachers in the school, six were supportive and willing to report these individuals.
Students get away with things that my grandparents wouldn’t have even thought of doing when they were at school. What about the human race has changed so much since then?
Well, the main problem is fear of retribution. Students won’t report problems because if the principal calls the bully into his office, the bully can often figure out who told the principal. If he’s violent/abusive enough to do something that warrants a trip to the principal’s office, he could be willing and able to get back at the first student to teach him a lesson.
Were the tormentors you mentioned harassing you and your friends in front of all 60 teachers? Did you report their actions to all 60 teachers individually?
Another problem is the lack of desire to get involved, on the part of the teachers. For example, my principal retired this June (I’ll be a HS senior in the fall). Three of my friends and I had some matter that required his approval. He never gave us a straight answer, bluffing, lying, and dodging our questions and requests for three months until…he retired. Not his problem anymore.
I would like to see a system where; when the principal is finished with the bully, they will no longer be one (a bully, that is). Or at least the majority of them (there is no way you can change everyone).
I should have been clearer; out of all of the teachers, there were only six who were interested in the students as individual human beings at all, not just my friends and I. The rest showed up, did their job (sometimes not even that), and kissed their little paycheck every other friday. If we want school to be a way of shaping the individuals who will make the world a better place, we had better fill them with teachers who are more involved than that.
See above. That man had no business being a principal. He should have taken a stand, one way or the other. It’s one of the responsibilities that goes along with the job.
Bear_Nenno
I can’t belive that’s not illegal in USA but in other posts you seem to know what you are talking about so I take your word for it. In Sweden if you raise a weapon against someone or threaten to do something criminal that is inteded to cause serious fear of own or someone elses personal safety or property you are sent to prison. Which I think is a better solution.
Students have “rights” these days. This means that teachers aren’t always able to take immediate action. Sometimes they have to hold elaborate hearings to make sure the student was punished fairly. Under these conditions I don’t doubt that many teachers would rather turn a blind eye then go through a lot of crap.
Marc
Well…you want the principal to completely change the personality and aggressiveness of a student who’s been that way for his whole life? Short of castration, I’m stumped as to what to do to the bully. I’m not saying castration is a BAD idea, per se, but there are far too many legal issues involved.
Yeah, that was my feeling too. The matter was an alternative newspaper that we wanted to publish, which he rejected sight-unseen. His explanation was that if we passed out the publication in school, he, as the principal, would be held accountable as the publisher, and therefore would be held accountable for anything in the newspaper.
We did a little checking and found that not only was he wrong, but that he knowingly lied to our faces before threatening us with suspension if we distributed the paper in school
Not that it’s relevant, but if you want to see the revolutionary paper (banned at South Side High School!), visit http://www.soapcarver.com.
Back on topic: Principals and teachers are, to the best of my knowledge, human, with shortcomings. Unfortunately, they have a job to do, and too often their humanness (is that a word?) gets in the way.
No, I was talking about beginning at the kindergarten level and teaching children to appreciate differences and setting a good exapmle for them. Principals and parents have to work together to sensitize children. Also, ideally (I know I’m dreaming here, but work with me), quashing the concept that someone has to be on top and torment the underlings.
How about, while we’re at it, teaching children to feel good about themselves based on their own accomplishments? Helping them to feel worthwhile as human beings? Teaching them to respect themselves and others?
It sounds far-fetched, I know, but I am a person who has tasted all of those things, and I have friends who have, too. If there are twenty of us, why not twenty million?
Um, what color is the sky on your planet? As a strange visitor from another world, I guess you’re unfamiliar with what principals do…They are not behavior modification experts. They are administrators. They are institutional politicians, not behavioral psychologists.
In other words, it’s not the principal’s job to change a student’s personality. Nor is it within his power (unless he runs a back-alley lobotomy clinic on the side).
Not just principals, everyone. We all need to contribute. It takes more than just two people to raise a child.
And principals usually begin their careers as teachers, who are trained in behaviour modification, and do take psychology courses.
Why abrogate the responsibility of raising a child to the schools?
Because it’s currently in vogue not to accept any responsibility for anything, including raising your own children. After all, why bother when we can just cry to uncle sam? He’ll be glad to cough up money to do everything! After all, he’s my parent, too. Why not my kid’s?
(to the uninitiated, that was sarcasm)
So the question is this: Why the hell should I pay (in the form of my taxes that are always going up and up) the government to raise YOUR (that’s the collective ‘you’) kids?It’s the parents’ job to raise children, teach them manners, teach them to be law-abiding citizens, teach them not to shoot your classmates, etc.
And it’s the parents’ job to know when their kids are stockpiling explosives in your own home!
ahem sorry, this issue gets me a little worked up.
Teachers are only with students for so many hours a day. The real responsibility lies with parents. No matter what effect teachers have, their influence is dwarfed by that of the parents.
On thing closely related to this I’d like to ask: how many of us were actually tormented mercilessly in high school (HS)? I was. And I’m going to share a minor little secret about my past (I told you I’d post to this, pepper).
It’s very possible many people here were popular, tough, too smart to get caught up in it, had a big brother or sister watching out for them, had a great school - whatever, and as a result were not tormented in HS. If you were not, please listen to the view from a person who was one of the “dregs” of her HS.
Imagine an HS in the upper-middle class suburbs of KC where a “jock and cheerleader cult of personality” rules all. And I don’t mean just the students - a school where even the teachers are almost in a hero worship mode. Where ALL of the science teachers double as football or womens track coaches. Where it was not unusual for the English teacher, the Spanish teacher, whatever, to sit and talk about “last week’s big game against so-and-so” for 30 minutes of the hour every Monday. Where if you are not on any athletic team, you are treated as second-class by the teachers.
A school that absolutely worships it’s “student athletes”, but doesn’t care at all about real academic achievement.
Imagine a school where these in the “In Crowd” decide that they don’t like you. Not only are you poor, ugly, and too smart for your own good, but you have no friends to speak of. So the torment starts. Things poured into your locker. Girls - and guys - slamming into you on purpose in the hall, knocking you into a locker while the entire hall laughs. A person that sits behind you in Spanish and takes her hairbrush and starts hitting you in the back of the head with it - hard enough to leave a knot. And when you complain, 6 cheerleaders and drill-teamers (cheerleader wanna-be’s) say with straight faces that you’re “making it up”, and the teacher tells you to grow up, to the laughter of the class. And then 5 seconds later, “Thwack!” in the head!
You complain to the principal. He listens, is sooooo concerned, and says “he’ll talk to them”. Then you get assaulted on your way to school the next day because you “narced”, and you come to school with torn clothes and hair. Your cat is spray painted with black paint, and they laugh about it in your face at school, admitting they did it. And say if you ever speak up again, they’ll kill it.
You are never invited to anyone’s parties. You can’t participate in extracurricular activites even if you wanted to, because you have to work at night at fast food since you are not one of the upper middle-class kids. You have no one to love, and are not loved, because you are ugly, ostracized, and uncertain about your sexuality - wow, what a combo for HS! You hear about the prom, homecoming, etc., but they are not for you.
Imagine fearing to go to school every day because of the torment. Imagine crying thinking about how people can be so mean, and wondering if this really is how the rest of life will be. Until finally you just can’t take it anymore.
What did I do? I did 2 things:
- I eventually recognized that in college, these people would fall by the wayside (even though they all had parents paying their full ways). So I focused on academics, putting all else aside. This part turned out true.
- I did eventually get tough. Scar tissue does get tough after all. I did fight back. And in Senior year, when I turned and punched the girl who shoved me into a locker in her pretty drill-teamer face, and her blood sprayed onto the lockers, the Senior Hall were all stunned. There was no laughing then - except mine. And then I became ostracized and completely ignored (and expelled for 10 days - not that anyone who hit me ever was). Not much different, but much better than being tormented.
I know why “trenchcoat mafias” exit. I would have joined one if it was available at my school - to be around other tormented people that could comiserate with me. To have some friends, even of a bad kind, but still friends. To plot the destruction of the “jocks”.
I’m all better now. I still won’t go to HS reunions, but this doesn’t upset me anymore.
I can’t - and am not excusing the kids who hurt and killed so many in any way. But I do know where the rage starts.
To this day, I don’t know what stopped me from taking out a few select teachers and students, especially in Jr. High. I had the weapons and the know-how.
I won’t go into details about how horrible it was, and still is to a certain extent. A lot of my experiences are similiar to Anth’s, and she’s had over 10 years to distance herself. I have not. In my old HS, I was the freaky outcast. I didn’t attend church (Big deal in a small Utah town), I had nothing to do with sporting events. I wasn’t a jock, a cheerleader, in the drill team, or a bandmember. EVERYBODY in the school fell in one of those categories but me. I had a Gasp black BF (Still do). I’m fat, and certainly not a beauty queen. I listened to the wrong music, drove the wrong car, hung out at the wrong places. Everything about me was WRONG WRONG WRONG. And everything about me still is, but now I have the added burden of “Being the new girl”
They were all victims. I hate that word, but it’s true. Do any of you know what it’s like? Do any of you know how to deal with the complete apathy of the teachers and the administrators? Do any of you wake up each morning to certain torment and harrassment? Do you realize how much it takes to push someone that far? I was tormented mercilessly for 10 years, and I STILL didn’t have it in me to actually go that far. I had fantasies, but that was as far as I got. Imagine the hell those children went through to push them that far.
Well, I don’t know how much time you spent a day in school, but there were times when I arrived at 6:30 AM and left at 7:30, and I was the most inactive person in the entire school. I had very few extra-curricular activities. Students spend a LOT of time at school, with teachers and coaches. Should they know how to deal with those children? Of course! Some students see their parents about 2 hours a day, maybe even less if the parents work.
They are also in charge of hundreds or thousands of children a day. Don’t you think they should know what the fuck they are doing? Don’t you think they should know how to correctly discipline their students? I don’t know if you noticed, but when students misbehave, they ARE (well, when students are disciplined at all) sent to the Principal’s office.
Because these students who often spend 12 hours a day at school, practices, games, events, rallies, etc etc are going to grow up and run society, and so YOU (all of you) have a vested interest in what happens to these children. You all have a vested interest in how responsible and intelligent they become.
Teachers possibley have the biggest impact on students’ lives, both negatively and positively. I think one of the biggest things that drove me crazy was the teachers that just didn’t care. The the thing that saved me was one teacher, Mr. Hayes, who had time for me, validated my emotions, and taught me so much about maturing.
So, all of you who have a problem with “paying to raise other people’s children” or think that “principals don’t need to know anything about behavioral science” can look forward to more school shootings. These students NEED help, and often they don’t have anywhere to go. My current High School has NO counselors. They came in special for the two suicides this school year to help the friends of the victims cope. Some teachers care about everybody, some only care about the ones that make the school look good, and there’s not enough to go around. I feel our principal and VPs may genuinely care, but they don’t have the funds to help anybody, and there is not enough of them to help the truly troubled students.
It really hurts me when people complain about paying taxes for schools, and say “Well, I don’t have any kids. Why should I pay for them?” Don’t you realize that these “kids” are human beings? They are frightened, insecure, unsure human beings, and the final product that the school’s turn out affect EVERYBODY’S future, not just the parents of the children.
I live through the hell that is school, and I have one more year to go. Thes last 11 years have been horrible, and for two years there I was so out of my mind I’m surprised I survived. My parents didn’t know, because I didn’t want them to know. Hear that parents? If your children don’t want you to know something, you aren’t going to find out. It doesn’t matter how great you are in the parenting department. Don’t you remember keeping secrets from your parents?
Well, I’m sorry this turned out so long…guess I had a lot to say.
Pepperlandgirl, you said it all. Thank you. You said everything I meant to, and more.
People who go into this “teachers are not parents” crap, need to think back, way waaay back, and remember how much of their life was lived at school - all of it, or at least 80% of it anyway. It is its own little world, into which adults rarely venture without putting on the “high school” mentality themselves.
I’m starting to think that reading Lord Of The Fliesin grade ten was less a study of literature, and more of an attempt at indoctrination. 
Thank you Lotus, I try.
I think some people either ignored the problems at their high schools or have since forgotten.
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For someone who hated school a lot you sure spent a lot of time there. Without extra curricular activities what possible reason would you have for being there for 13 hours?
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They can only do so much. Often times students pick on other students out of earshot of teachers.
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Possible. More likely the home environment is a bigger influence.
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School shootings are a fairly recent thing. Why are they happening now instead of 40 years ago? Teachers and principals weren’t behavioral science experts back then they were educators.
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When I was in high school, not long ago, most of us students thought that the councelors were a joke.
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If you’re so good at keeping secrets from a parent what makes you think teachers are going to pick up on things?
To everyone who was picked on in high school. Did any of you do anything to make yourselves less of a target? I swear it seemed like some of the kids that were picked on went out of the way to make themselves targets.
Marc
This right here tells all of us that you never suffered the indignities described in the above posts, and that you have no clue what you are talking about.
WTF should we have done? Corrective surgery? Liposuction? Frontal Lobotomy? To make ourselves less of a target, we would have had to change that which makes us us.
I was picked on because I was fat and smart. The fact that I didn’t really defend myself or fight back made me even more of a target.
Then I got a lot taller and bulked out with muscle instead of fat. And boy, did I defend myself.
My harrasment stopped dead. If you saw me now, you’d know exactly why.
The bullies in PLG’s and Anthracite’s posts, and probably at Columbine as well, can sniff out weakness. They pounce on it like rabid dogs.
I cannot condone what Kyle and Eric did. They were weak. However, I understand why they did it. It is a fantasy that many, many people have had. Most people, fortunately, have the strength of character to not give in to that insanity.
Well, Mock Trial practice began at 6:30, and lasted until school started. Than after school I had debate practice of acedemic Decathalon practice, till about 4:30, and then from 4:30 until 7:30 I had the school play rehearsals. I thought my life was busy, but most people arrived at the school at 5 for early morning Jazz band, and stayed until as late as nine for game practice. That’s not counting all of the games people went to. And on the days I had competitions, I would arrive at 5, leave the school at 6:30, spend 15 hours at whatever tournament I was at, go to school the next day, and be tormented because my extra-curricular activities that I worked on weren’t “cool”. None of my victories were ever acknowledged, but if someone caught a ball at last night’s football game, his praises were sung to the ceiling.
So teachers shouldn’t get involved at all? Don’t you understand? They are supposed to be the responsible adults. Children are not adults. Children cannot expect to know how to handle problems. Adults need to help them. And if the teachers don’t care, than rage builds and people die.
You are right, school is hardly an influence. That’s why we go there, because it has no effect on us whatsoever. It’s just a day care center. That’s why nobody really needs to be concerned about what happens there. Because ultimately the 13 years spent there means nothing. So what if we are spending the majority of the most formative time of our lives there? High School and teachers shouldn’t be expected to teach us how to live, they should just teach us how to read and add up some numbers, right?
(BTW, I was being sarcastic)
Yeah, you are right, violence in schools just started. Hell, violence is really an invention of the mass media, right? Are you honestly saying that children haven’t reacted to their enviroment in violent ways before?
Yeah, and I bet the kids who committed suicide last year thought the counselors were a big joke as well…wait nevermind, they weren’t even given the option.
Hmmm, I don’t tell mom that Bobby stole my bookbag and destroyed most of my books and notebooks. She doesn’t need to know. But the teacher who saw it happen might have a clue.
Well, since you know everything, what should I have done? Should I deny who I am? Should I have stopped focusing on my school work, and instead spent all my time gossiping with the cheerleaders so I could be cool? SHould I give up Acedemic Decathalon so I have time for the football games? Should I become anerexic so I could fit in the tight little clothes that the boys love so much? Should I start going to church and become a hypocrite? When I was in Utah, should I have dumped the love of my life because he was black? Should I have spent money I don’t have on a new car that I don’t need? Should I change my personal philosophy of pacifism to fight back, and possibly be injured moreso?
Well, when I have to decide between having character and being true to myself, or being “popular”, I’m going to take the first option. True, my life is hell, but I shouldn’t have to change to the decree of others.
MGibson, that was probably the most ignorant, self-absorbed statement I have ever heard, and I just got in a big flame war with Sneevil, so you know I’ve heard some real shit lately. But that comment truly takes the cake. I’m happy tht you were able to conform with society so you could be popular. And I’m sorry us freaks haven’t changed so we would be less of a target.
There is really only one solution to problems like these.
that is, of course, to sterilize all of the irresponsible or ignorant people, or all people who are otherwise not an assett to the world.
but seriously…
As a student, I dont see why everyone is talking about/suing the principal. I mean, he’s the guy that sits in his office and does paper work or something, or attends meetings or generally represents the school. But he doesnt know the names of any of the students. he doesnt even know what grade the students are in! he really has nothing to do with the matter of raising specific individuals.
[I appologise for using the word “he”, but justify it by saying that it is shorter than “she” or “he/she” and i am lazy ]