Muffin, you son of a bitch, I have a whole new attitude about you. Up till now I thought you were a bit of a soft pansy priveleged lawyer. (I’m probably exaggerating). You are obviously priveleged, with the private school education, but you risked serious injury to set things right for your life. Yes that appeals to my youthful sentiments generating respect. You did good.
However, I still think they should have suspended you.
Privileged as a child yes, lawyer yes, pansy no (though a strong proponent of gay rights), soft . . . you make me laugh – I throw you off waterfall last . . . but I admit I look like a typical dumpy middle aged suit.
The thing about the private school was that it helped me learn to always strive to be the best I could be, focusing extensively on building sound character, strong body and strong mind. It left me with the backbone to get the job done, whatever that job might be. In the two public schools and three public high schools I attended, this was not the case, for the teachers in the public system were too busy dealing with bad acting students to spend much time helping good kids learn to soar.
If you had expelled me, I expect that you would be facing a lawsuit from my parents for failing to protect me from a clearly foreseeable serious assault while in your care (bear in mind they were front and centre in having the public school principal fired for not preventing bullying). More to the point, one of the virtues promoted at that school was that one should stand up for one’s self and for others. Punishing a person for defending against a bully would run contrary to the values that the school was trying to instill.
Preach! Here’s what I think it boils down to: these “no violence” policies are, in reality, “no fighting” policies. A single individual getting his or her ass kicked by a bully is not technically a “fight”, and it doesn’t draw a crowd of onlookers (in fact, I suspect most bullies go out of their way to make sure there are no witnesses beyond their own buddies). Most kids will look the other way when a bully is handing out a smackdown out of fear of being the next victim. If the victim fights back, however, it’s suddenly an actual “fight”, and that tends to draw a crowd. Suddenly, it has become a “situation” that the faculty has to deal with, and really, they don’t want to have to deal with it.
Oh go shove a pineapple up your ass, you condescending fuckwit. For fuck’s sake, what a totally asinine cheapshot to take in a thread about kindergarten spats.
Sorry for the delay, IPAW.
Ah, I was partly right (Sarafina). I was wrong where I thought it was in reference to the movie Sarafina!, or the highly controversial South African play Sarafina II. 
http://www.sarafina.co.za/frameset.asp?pageName=factsOnTheFilm
As for mine, I have a great admiration for the honey badger, particulary its reputation as a <ahem> ferocious fighter.
Jesus. I’m not particulary attentive on Mondays, it seems.
You rock! It would have been even cooler if you had just come up to that asshiole on the first day of school and beat the crap out of him. Who would believe the known bully didn’t start it? Hospitalize that bully, get him caned and then expelled, then hoot it up with your classmates.
Wow, priveleged scion, lawyer, wit and deadly fisticuffier. You remind me of Ernest Hemingway.
Remember, each school has it’s own bullying policy…my son’s high school was pretty damn stringent…“Zero Tolerence”. Although my son was attacked from behind fairly quickly (three blows to the head) before he could respond in ANY fashion, he had the wherewithall to put his arms up and defend himself from further injury. When the two boys got sent to the office, the other kid claimed that my son started it. Since no teachers actually saw the incident and both kids claimed that the other started it, they decided that “Zero Tolerence” meant that both should be suspended. Good thing that this policy included contacting the parents, because I was the only one with a shred of logic who pointed out that this was not a fight, but an attack. After taking the admin and cop through some simple steps in logic, I got them to reason that the other kid was at fault. Had my son retaliated or fought back, I would not have been able to logically show that he was defending himself. My son missed one day, while the other kid got the full week of suspension and the eventual expulsion when he tried to pull that same tired shit again.
I also forgot to mention that my son has played hockey until about that time…he has had far worse things (both, allowable [like getting a 70 mph slapshot above his ankle] and non-allowable [getting a 2 handed slash with a stick on his neck]) done to him there than what this kid did to him. It really depends on how tough your kid is, I guess. My kid knew that 3 punches to the head is nothing compared to getting the boot by the school and being discarded at some school for delinquents. I applaud him for that. YMMV, depending on your kid and what you teach him.
Sitting back? When did I ever advocate this? That’s the worse thing you can do!
There are 3 things you can do:
My son made the right choice while sacrificing the minimal - a few bumps compared to suspension/expulsion.
Hey, Marc…remember this thread?
My kid has learned over the years that physical violence (attacking or retaliation) puts you in:
A. The Penalty Box
B. Some crappy school for delinquents
C. Jail
D. All the above, when repeated as the years go by.
My kid also learned that defense is:
A. Stopping the puck from being advanced by the other team
B. Protecting yourself from physical harm without harming the attacker (by retaliating)
C. Adjusting to idiotic policies by short-sighted administrators/lawmakers to preserve his own freedoms and privileges.
D. All the above, when repeated as the years go by.
Our daughter has been taught that if she’s bullied she should go to the authorities. However, if she can’t, or if they won’t do anything, she has every right to defend herself and fight back if necessary. It’s not the first option - it’s the last. But it IS an option.
She’s also been taught that there are only two ways that violence will ever be excused by us - if she’s defending herself, or if she’s going to the aid of a smaller child who needs defending.
What I think is wrong with the ‘never fight back!’ attitude is that it’s really preaching a culture of passivity - that ultimately, it’s the job of someone in authority to look after you, and that when there is conflict your only thought is to stay away from it while the people in charge deal with it.
This is not healthy for society. I can remember when I was younger, it was considered cowardly to not step in and help someone who was being physically coerced. If you saw someone being mugged, by God you had better help him or her. About 20 years ago, there was a case of a woman who was raped in a public place, and a bunch of bystanders did nothing about it. They were excoriated both in the media and in the court of public opinion. But that attitude seems to be gone now. “Don’t get involved” is the key word.
When Marc Lepine decided to shoot a bunch of women, he walked into a classroom with a gun, and ordered the men to get up and leave. They did. Once they were all out of the room, Lepine began shooting women. Not one of those men tried to stop him. When he left the room, he walked right past all those men, and not one tried to stop him.
In the recent Virginia Tech shootings, only one person tried to stop the shooter - a 78 year old Holocaust survivor. He was killed by the shooter, but his class was spared. It would appear that he learned a lesson about being passive in the face of violence somewhat earlier in life.
What I want to instill most in my daughter is that she is responsible for her own destiny, that ultimately she is responsible for her own safety, and that defending the defenseless is a virtue.
“‘The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.” - Edmund Burke
Now, being a young child who still needs to develop good judgement, we teach her that her first step is to go to an authority figure and explain what happened. But if she can’t, if she’s in imminent danger and there are no teachers around, well, she does what she has to do. But there will be no, “It’s always wrong to use violence” lectures from me, because I don’t believe it. It’s always wrong to initiate violence.
'Cuz, as we all know, science has taught us how to completely eliminate violence from everyday life, and there is no need whatsoever to prepare yourself for dealing with violent situations. :rolleyes: Say, what’s the street address for your ivory tower?
When I was in school, reporting a bully would cause a call to your parents. “Your child isn’t getting along with the other children,” they would say. The bully would not get so much as a talking-to.
Whereas if you punched back, the other kid wouldn’t tattle and the other kids would stop picking on you for a year. Generally you had to punch a kid about once a year–that was just for violence, by the way. Didn’t stop verbal bullying.
Sigh. When was this, 1956?
This ain’t how it works anymore. Bullying is taken much more seriously than it was then, or when I was a kid (1980s). Believe it or not, the world has moved on in its thinking about how schools should work. We call this the “post-Columbine era.”
Remember, often identifying which kid is the bully really depends on the POV of the person. Also, kids lie. It’s sometimes pretty hard for the school to determine who started it, especially if both kids have hit each other. Every villain is the hero of his own story, so both kids may think the other kid started it, with varying degrees of legitimacy. Unless one of the kids has a history of violence, it’s each kid’s word against the others. Witnesses are often not that useful either.
What do you think, that schools can change human nature and prevent all bullying, verbal and physical? Can’t win for losing: zero tolerance for violence is wrong, punishing hitting whenever it happens is wrong, but bullying is also wrong, and bullies should be punished. Teachers and administrators must have perfect knowledge of who did what to whom, and apply discipline with absolute justice. All for salaries half of what people with equivalent educational levels make in the private sector.
Really. I realize a lot of Dopers had a bad time in school and were picked on. This has distorted a lot of people’s idea of how schools work and how discipline is/should be meted out, often advocating some unwittingly inconsistent and unworkable policy ideals for schools. This has been a very frustrating thread to read, for me.
I try to teach my daughter what my Tae Kwon Do teacher taught us: do not escalate a situation unnecessarily, but you can and may remove someone’s hands from your person, and here’s how.
We originally told her, “Don’t hit people!” when she would have a shoving match over a toy or whatever, but then I would find her standing/lying stock still while even a much smaller kid whaled on her. So now I tell her it is absolutely unacceptable to hit someone because you’re mad, but you can do what’s necessary to stop someone from hitting you.
I’m curious what the more non-violence-pushing folks think about this: is blocking someone from hitting or kicking you “violence” which should be punished? What about removing someone’s hand from your body or clothes?
In another vein entirely, I wonder if the “pummel someone, and you’re no longer a target” phenomenon stems from some kind of vestigial expectation of social groups to have an omega member. Reading this thread brings to mind Robert Sapolsky’s stuff about baboons, who basically have a pecking order based on a combination of brute strength, social networking, and other factors, and where there’s someone who’s lowest on the ladder and gets roughed up whenever other group members are cranky and want to take it out on someone.
I think we can agree that some kids send out “omega member” signals, usually some combination of not being athletic, and clearly being really bothered or scared by intimidation and insults. I’m not saying retaliation is justified, just wondering if somewhere in the sub-human areas of their brains, bullies remove the omega label from a kid who fights back.
Incidentally, my husband was a smart, quiet kid, and he was mercilessly harassed by a bully - usually minor physical attacks, nothing really dangerous, just humiliating, scary, and designed to wear him down over time. Well, over time, Mr. Cinnamon also transformed into a 6’4", 200 lb gorilla of a young man, but this in itself did nothing to change the situation. What changed it was one day he snapped and gave the kid a savage beating. That changed how that kid and others defined him, once and for all. I’m in no way saying what he did was right (nor does he think it was), but it’s an illustration of my armchair evolutionary biology theory.
Has anyone, I mean ANYONE, in this thread advocated allowing yourself to be pummeled with absolutely no resistance? I think this is a straw man, which has been advanced numerous times during this thread. Of course you should defend yourself and try not to get hurt. If you do this by hitting back, then expect consequences. Grappling/blocking a blow isn’t the same as a punch or kick.
How apt. I agree that some people who have posted to this thread are advocating baboon-like behavior.
Or it illustrates that no one likes to get their ass kicked. If you give someone a savage beating, I bet that person won’t fuck with you again. Negative reinforcement is a classic way to discourage behavior you don’t like. But all that does it make you the alpha baboon. Understandably, if you do this in school, you will be suspended if anyone finds out about it, no matter how mean the bully was leading up to the savage beating.
Ruby all I can say is I’m glad my kids had teachers that seemed to be a lot like you.
Thank you. I can’t tell you how much I appreciate you saying this.
I admit I did not go back and dissect each post, but honestly, I couldn’t tell if you and one or two other people were allowing for, as you say, grappling and blocking. My impression of your posts on self defense was that you were saying self defense is okay, but also saying it’s OK to punish kids for it (that they should defend themselves, but fully expect to be punished for it). I may well have misread you, and I’m grateful for the clarification.
If I may, I’d like to go a step further with self defense and offer that sometimes, the only way to prevent someone from harming you is to hit, kick, punch, etc. Not retaliation, and not overreaction, but truly, in some situations you have to inflict harm to avoid being harmed yourself. And sometimes the harm to you is so imminent that it’s unreasonable to appeal to outside help. This is generally acknowledged in criminal law, to the extent that we find it perfectly acceptable for a woman to shoot a potential rapist in the head, if need be.
As for the alpha/omega thing, I freely admit I’m just throwing it out there, with no proof or scientific evidence, just as something that struck me.
I honestly appreciate the problems you have with this thread, I really do. I (and I’m guessing many others in this discussion) just think it’s really sad that it took a mass murder to make the education system wake up to the reality of what some of their charges have to put up with day in and day out.
Granted, the Columbine killers were whacked out in other ways, and I can’t blame “easy access to firearms” at all. I had much easier access to guns than most kids I knew - my dad had a whole bunch of them, and taught me how to use them. I was an excellent shot; at 12 years old I could (and did) place two shots less than an inch apart at a range of 300 yards. But it never even crossed my mind to shoot anybody. Still, when I heard about Columbine and learned of the shooters’ motivations, I confess that I easily empathized with them, even while I sympathized with the victims. [Note: I know you didn’t say anything about “easy access to firearms”; I’m just addressing a factor that frequently comes up when school shootings are mentioned, not trying to attribute to you something you didn’t say.]
For me, the bullying mostly stopped when I got to high school, for unknown reasons. I wasn’t doing anything different AFAIK; it just stopped. Maybe the bullies grew up or something, or ended up at a different high school. Or maybe it’s because I took up smoking and started hanging out with the “thugs” 
Actually, that may have been a big part of it: I found a group to fit into, something I never really managed in elementary school or junior high.
It depends on what you choose to do in your own defense. If you punch or kick someone in the face in “self-defense,” then you should expect to be suspended from school. If you block/parry, then you will not hurt the other kid and will probably have defensive marks to show when the other kid says you started it.
That’s fine, but this is SCHOOL, not a dark alley when you’re surrounded by armed thugs, or being menaced by a grown man who wants to rape you. The OP’s niece is in KINDERGARTEN. School is a much more controlled environment than the big wide world. I know that really bad, violent things do occasionally happen in school, and that’s usually because someone wasn’t doing their job. You should be able to get away from the bully and find an adult who can help you within minutes, if not seconds, in school.
This is the problem. If we’re discussing zero-tolerance policies where both parties are punished, then the only available alternative to getting pummeled when one is unable to get away is to fight back- and get detention or suspension or whatever.
That’s what I personally have an issue with- this situation forces kids- sometimes very small children- to choose between getting hurt or fighting back and getting punished. Obviously not every situation includes the only options of take a pounding or hit back. There might be teachers nearby, or you might be able to outrun your attacker, or something similar. But kids who are bullies understand this, and choose to attack other kids when there are no adults around and (preferably) where there is little opportunity to escape- e.g. the bathroom. So if a kid is cornered by a bully, he risks either physical injury or punishment.
My problem (and I assume, many other posters feel the same way) is that ZT policies don’t allow those in authority to use their good (or any) judgement. I also have a problem with the idea that schools somehow operate in their own universe and the rules/laws of the real world don’t apply.
If I am accosted on the street by a man trying to rape or kill me or harm me in any way, I am allowed to use reasonable force to protect myself. Which means, I can kick him in the balls or punch him in the face until he no longer poses a threat. If I knock him down (or knock him out) but continue to hit him then it’s no longer reasonable- it’s hard to argue self-defense when you’re kicking a guy on the ground.
I think it’s unreasonable to effectively remove the possibility of self-defense from the school environment. Obviously, schools don’t have the benefit of a judicial system, but to assume that a reasonably intelligent adult is incapable of weighing the facts and deciding Johnny was acting in self-defense is stupid.
Finally, for the whole grappling/blocking punches vs. striking back argument- useful skills, definitely, but have you ever actually been in a fight? Those are skills that boxers/martial artists practice for years without mastering, so you can’t assume that a kid who goes to karate on Saturdays will always be able to prevent physical harm to him/herself without actually striking the attacker.
I’ve been in quite a few fights, I’ve always been a bit “different” and got picked on a lot. I can tell you, when the adrenaline starts pumping and I go into self-preservation mode, I don’t have the time or cognitive ability to consider deftly dodging or blocking the blows- if I can dodge a punch, I will absolutely do it, but at the same time I’ll be drawing back my right hand and winding up a Haymaker to make sure that guy doesn’t try to hit me again.
In short, if, as adults, we realize that force is sometimes necessary to protect yourself, why do we exclude children from that realization?