I started a thread about this kind of thing a while back.
Is there a difference in school policy between retaliation and defense? There’s a very thin, fine border between the two acts, but the difference is extremely important.
**Retaliation **= *“He punched me, so I punched him.” *I can understand a school cracking down on that sort of retaliation, even if I disagree - but it’s in the school’s interest for there to be no retaliation, just like how you can’t shoot a robber after he has stopped robbing you and is fleeing.
**Self-defense: *** “He was punching me, so I raised my arms to block his punches, and I also used my arms to deflect and push away his punches” *- now if a school wants to crack down on THAT - to *not even permit a victim to block the blows *- then that is flat-out bully-enabling.
I understand that there have been some instances of “domestic abuse” where an abuser would punch or assault a victim, and if the victim even tried to deflect or parry the blows - not hitting back, just blocking - then the abuser suddenly ran to the police and played victim.
We usually just had a bunch of our friends from karate class dress up in skeleton costumes and took turns beating the kid and calling him a “fag”.
That only works if you have a an older Japanese sensei to watch your back.
I recall once reading about an architectural firm that went and asked school kids what was wrong with the physical design of their school building. The second most common answer was that there too many places for bullies to hide.
Maybe one step toward the answer is simply more surveillance. Bring venues for opportunistic bullying out into the open, where there are more corroborating witnesses.
In my school (in the 1990s), it didn’t matter if you fought back or not. If you were “part of the fight” (i.e., you got beat up), you were just as culpable as the bully who attacked you. Fuck that. I’m glad I’m done with school and I can afford to send my kids to a private school. Public school administrators can go to hell.
If you get raped, you are part of the rape! :rolleyes::rolleyes::rolleyes:
In the immortal words of Bill Cosby, “parents are not interested in justice - they want quiet!” Same for school administrators. They want the problem to go away. Certainly they don’t want bullying, and if it becomes visible, they want it to end. Or least, not be visible again. Sometimes the standard approach works, sometimes it doesn’t. If the problem stops coming up, the assumption is going to be that it worked. Even if it just stopped becoming visible.
I also had the experience of being bullied, and doing what I was supposed to do - ignore it, avoid the bully, complain to the teacher. It didn’t work. So, one day, I lost my temper and fought back. Very hard - the bully didn’t expect the reaction, and it caught him very much by surprise, and I was very, very angry, and I beat up him up pretty badly. And I got into trouble for fighting. We had to meet with the authorities, and I got the standard lecture and we were both punished. I wasn’t defiant, I wasn’t even angry. What I said was, “great, let’s do what you suggest and if the bullying ends, fine. But the bullying is going to end, one way or other. If you can’t stop it, I will.”
Regards,
Shodan
It’s weird. As a teacher, this doesn’t match my experiences at all. When there’s something going on, I’ll often talk to five or six different kids and get statements from them before deciding how to handle the situation. Yes, I use what I know about a kid in making my decision–a kid that’s lied to get out of trouble before is going to get a lot less credence from me next time. But I also try to recognize that a kid who’s gotten into it with other kids before can become a target for exactly this reason.
I reserve strict punishments like office referrals for clear-cut situations: one kid spits on another, one kid slaps another as the beginning of a fight, one kid throws a bag full of cans at another because (as they both agree) the victim kid said the aggressor kid’s name when the aggressor kid wanted to be left alone. When I can’t get a clear sense of what happened, I’m much likelier to sit down with the kids and try to act as a mediator rather than a disciplinarian.
It ain’t perfect, but given the fact that law enforcement is only one of my duties, and that while I’m trying to resolve things I’ve got a class that’s not getting attention, it’s what I can do.
Zero tolerance is not at all something I practice.
I was severely bullied at school. I did not fight back. I should have fought back. I knew I would get suspended - I was the bigger boy. What I failed to see - I was only 8 - was that after the suspension things would have been very different. People would have known I would stand up for myself and I would have gained a measure of respect. Instead, I endured a decade of hell. A hell of partly my own making.