Clearly we’re not discussing those ZT policies. I for one have never been in a school where the particulars of the case did not figure into the punishment given. Claims to the contrary run counter to what I know to be true.
Here’s a cite from Indiana’s ZT policy. I picked this because it was the first one to come up on Google.
I hope this quells the continued claims that ZT=everyone gets the same punishment regardless of context. BTW, I agree with the site’s feelings about the effectiveness of suspensions on changing behavior. Schools are working in that too.
Rubystreak, I’ll admit my idea of ZT policies may not be entirely correct, but I don’t think that kids who fight back (defensively, not retaliation) should be punished at all, even if it’s only a detention compared to the other kid’s suspension.
My views on ZT have been formed by many instances of idiotic cases where there was no room for case-by-case review. I remember one student being suspended after a teacher saw him swallow mouthwash. He normally used mouthwash after lunch, but was running late for class and didn’t have time to run to the bathroom. So he used the mouthwash at his locker and chose to swallow it instead of spitting it on the floor or in the trashcan, and by doing so violated the school’s ZT for alcohol policy.
That’s what I have a problem with- if the kid had been seen drinking a large amount of mouthwash, or had done it repeatedly, then I’d worry about a drinking problem. But this case doesn’t seem like the kid needed to be suspended for practicing oral hygiene. At most, the teacher should have taken him aside and explained that mouthwash is not meant to be ingested, and can be dangerous if drunk in large quantities.
Similarly, a victim of bullying, who uses force for self-defense, should be given a lecture about how violence is only to be used as a last resort and that s/he should report any incidents to a teacher, with the understanding that a teacher is not always nearby and if s/he finds him/herself in imminent danger a minimum amount of force is justified.
Yeah. If there aren’t witnesses to corroborate the story and your knuckles are just as bruised as the other kid’s, and this is not a repeated pattern of behavior that you’ve already complained to the teacher or principal about, then it sucks that you get the same punishment as the other kid, but what can be done?
It works the same in the criminal justice system- if you can’t prove you acted in self-defense you’ll probably get convicted. I just don’t like the idea of teachers and principles having their hands tied when it comes to bullying- even if both parties don’t get punished equally, I don’t like the idea of the victim being punished.
In 90% of cases, everyone knows exactly who did the bullying. When you confront two children fighting, and one of them is the bully who is caught fighting routinely, and the other is the nerdy honors student, and they both point at each other and say, “He started it!”, I think we can make a fair judgement as to who is likely to blame.
That’s the way it was done in my day. If occasionally the teachers got it wrong, well, c’est la vie. Getting it wrong on occasion is better than ALWAYS getting it wrong, which is what zero tolerance achieves.
Frankly, I think there are several related problems here - one is the almost complete lack of males in primary education. In my day (1970’s, mostly), female teachers outnumbered the men by probably 2 to 1 or 3 to 1. But today, the ratio is much, much higher. In fact, in my daughter’s school there isn’t a single male teacher. As a result, little boys are often misunderstood, they’re expected to behave like girls, and they don’t do so well. On the last standardized tests administered at her school the boys scored an average of 13 points below the girls - a HUGE gap.
Unfortunately, a lot of the most troubled boys also come from broken homes, which means they don’t have father figures at home, either.
Add in zero tolerance policies that prevent schools from singling out bullying behaviour and allowing other kids to protect themselves, and you’ve got a bad situation.
Yeah, they should learn that whenever they have a problem they should appeal to an ineffective bureaucracy. Nothing shows a bully what’s what like filling out forms in triplicate.
Something that came up in a self-defense discussion elsewhere was that the actions you take in self-defense are to stop the attacker. Someone responded with something to the effect of “I don’t spend my weekends at Wild Bill’s Fancy Shooting Academy. I doubt I could shoot a gun out of someone’s hand or ‘wing’ them”. At which point it is clarified: Follow your training. Two shots to center of mass? Sure. But don’t shoot to killthem, shoot to stop them.
If I’ve got two kids, one who looks pretty beat up but has no serious injuries and another who looks okay except that he’s had his knee kicked through… I’d give the kid with the broken leg suspension for fighting in school and the other kid nothing more harsh than some suggestions for less destructive methods of self-defense. And then I’d wait to get sued.
The outcome of zero tolerance under my observation has been that administrators overlook more “minor” stuff because the mandatory minimum for punishment has been raised. They can’t take action on “minor” stuff because it’s an over-reaction due to policy requirements. Then, when something does cross that “minor” threshold, they drop the hammer on whoever is involved.
What thought process does this give to the victims of the “minor” abuse?
If they’re going to retaliate, they better do it big.
It just creates the environment where things stew until they boil over.
<pet peeve>Negative reinforcement is the removal of adverse stimuli when the subject performs the correct action. It is a way of encouraging a behaviour you do like. It is, as noted in popular culture, way less effective than positive reinforcement. Oddly, I’d say the bullying of the kids that are “different” is a form of negative reinforcement.
Beating the crap out of a bully for performing undesirably is punishment, not negative reinforcement. Punishment works for discouraging undesired behaviours approximately as well as positive reinforcement works for encouraging desired behaviours. Yay conditioning!</pet peeve>
No, really. It’s often pretty hard to tell because there’s a lot of crap leading up to an outbreak of violence. Very rarely is any kid a pure victim or a pure bully. Usually, shit flies both ways. If there’s a clear size differential, or a weapon is used, or if there are uneven numbers of kids on each side, then it becomes easier to tell. Also, if one kid is all fucked up and the other kid is totally unscathed… I mean, there are sometimes ways to tell, sometimes it’s just one kid’s word against another’s.
I wonder how many people expressing all these opinions have any recent experience in schools, or if all this negativity is knee-jerkery from memories of how hard you all had it when you were in school.
Or from representing bullies who are up on charges, and having learned from this that many of them are brutish animals who are so mentally unballanced that they will continue to assault weaker people regardless of what counseling and medication they are given.
To expect victims to be punished for reasonably defending themselves from such attackers is absurd. The courts certainly do not arbitrarily punish victims, so it is unfortunate that some teachers would have schools punish victims simply because the assaults took place without witnesses.
I suppose we could brand bullies’ foreheads with “Poor anger management”, and then throw stones at them when the approach within twenty feet, but then that would be as silly as arbitrarily suspending victims for fighting when they were doing no more than reasonably defending themselves under the law.
Hereabouts, 4% of students commit violent acts on other students http://www.lfcc.on.ca/when_teens_hurt_teens.pdf . I don’t have any figures handy on how many of those are mentally ill, but from my own experience in having represented a lot of them in court, the ones who are arrested usually are mentally ill (I never represented one who was not) – the question usually being are they so bat shit crazy that they have to be locked up, or can they be let loose under close supervision and medication.
I urge you to read the following study on youth-on-youth criminal violence: http://www.lfcc.on.ca/when_teens_hurt_teens.pdf , which points out that reasons for victims of youth-on-youth violence not reporting being assaulted include: “fear of not being believed” and “fear of being blamed.”
And don’t think for a second that blocking, covering up, or running will necessarily protect a person from an assault. Sometimes fighting back is the only immediate and effective defence. A child should not expect “consequences” for such defence.
A very low number. You haven’t said what constitutes a violent act. It must be pretty bad for it to go to the police. Either that, or people are more litigious/less likely to trust school authorities to take care of it internally. I’m not sure you’ve proven your point here.
Don’t you think that your sample group (kids who are so batshit crazy they wind up in court contolled care) is rather a skewed view of who the average bully is? These are extreme cases. They are pretty rare.
You have all these cites of things I said. They don’t prove what you think they prove. I’m sorry, but since you just put tags here and no actual words from me, I’m not going to do your work for you. Suffice it to say, I don’t think kids who are hurt by kids should arbitrarily be punished. You are vastly oversimplifying how the process works.
This is the human condition. Kids are also choosing not to tell their parents in this cite. The world is an imperfect place. Bullying and violence are going to happen. I don’t think it’s fair to say that’s because of the indifference or negligence of schools.
It depends on the circumstances. This is what I’ve said all along.
Utter bullshit. There were absolutely pure bullies when I was a kid, and everybody knew it. When a tussle broke out, everybody knew who the prick was, 9 times out of 10. Very rarely, my ass.
What namby-pamby, nanny bullshit. If someone inflicts physical violence on you, you have the absolute right to retaliate. You don’t want to be punched in the nose? Here’s some basic advice. Don’t punch somebody else in the nose. If you do, tough shit for what happens to you.
The PC, nanny bullshit rules that exist–give me a break! When I wanted someone to stop hitting me, I found the absolute best way to stop it was to hit him back. I don’t give a shit what anyone says, I don’t believe that dynamic has changed. God almighty.
No, what you have said all along is that if a child hits back or harms the other, then there will be consequences. Please review the above cited quotes from your posts.
There is a world of difference between stating that it depends on the circumstances, and stating that if a child hits back or harms the other, then there will be consequences. The former is reasonable; the latter simply further victimizes the victim, by not believing the victim and by blaming the victim.
Not when I was a parent, when I was a kid. There were prick bullies around, and everyone knew who they were. Of course your objective “this is a rare occurrence” assertion is supported by volumes of evidence, eh? Whatever yourself.
The consequences for someone defending himself ought to be nothing. That this is not the case doesn’t make it right.
No, that is not true. A person who is assaulted in the adult (or children’s) world has every right to defend one’s self, provided that the person only uses as much force as is necessary (e.g. walk away rather than hit back, hit back rather than shoot, etc.).