Bullying in School

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Beyond_Ideologies

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Dec 7, 2015, 4:37:01 PM12/7/15

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Bullying in School

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Of course I don't know much about your or your life situation. If you are talking about getting bullied in school, then understand that such schools are a creation of our society. Bullying is not inadvertent. It goes on because the adults allow it. Our schools are designed to use bullying to socialize. And so nothing is going to change until we start holding the adult school administrators, and our whole society responsible.

A couple of years ago I spent a long time reading the following:

http://www.amazon.com/Adolescence-Laurence-Steinberg/dp/0073532118/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1449516080&sr=1-1&keywords=adolescence

Steinberg is actually quite middle of the road, not an extremist by any stretch. He exonerates adolescents of most of the usual allegations. He shows how all the issues are the result of the strange age segregated and devoid of any real responsibility world they are forced to live in.

And then a fascinating book which spans continents and cultures. It shows how in some situations, children in school are the society's exploited workers.

http://www.amazon.com/Children-Politics-Culture-Sharon-Stephens/dp/0691043280/ref=sr_1_fkmr1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1449517971&sr=8-2-fkmr1&keywords=Children+and+the+politics+of+culture+%2F+Sharon+Stephens%2C+editor#reader_0691043280

And then something most forward looking:

http://www.amazon.com/Childrens-Rights-Powers-Charging-Children/dp/1853026581/ref=sr_1_4?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1449517558&sr=1-4&keywords=mary+john+children+in+change#reader_1853026581

Let me tell you something which really opened my eyes. I was in my last year of high school. We had one new freshman Craig. People were teasing and bullying him something horrible. Some of the worst of it was in an Industrial Arts class, where students did need to move around some and where there were lots of high benches blocking lines of sight. So people were hitting Craig. Someone proclaimed a hitting contest against Craig and they were keeping score on the blackboard.

But then a few weeks later something remarkable happened. It seems that Craig's parents had gotten involved.

Now they could have just opened the Yellow Pages to psychotherapists. This is what the school would have wanted. And then if the School Districts psychotherapists had gotten involved, then Craig would have most certainly have been accessed with something, like ADHD, Asperger's, Autism, Bipolar, or who knows what.

And then of course if Craig's parents had approached school administrators themselves, this is how it would have ended up.

I knew Criag's older brother, and so I had some idea what the family was like, and this would not be the only time when they impressed me.

Craig's parents did open the Yellow Pages. But they didn't look under psychologists or psychotherapists, they opened to the beginning and looked under attorneys.

So the School Board had received a letter informing them that hazing, teasing people as a group, was illegal, and then with words to the effect that this was their last and final warning before they are to be served.

So one of the effects this had was to place Craig off limits to the school's counselors and therapists. The second effect was that from that moment forwards those teachers who had been impotent to do anything about the bullying were now all places at all times. Before it was "Well

Craig has to learn to stand up for himself, and Craig has to learn how not to take teasing personally." But now these teachers knew that they had to make the bullying stop. So they were out in the hallways, and that Industrial Arts Teacher, who told us about the letter when he should not have, now he had eyes everywhere.

Now sure the kids who were doing the bullying were giving a good talking to, and the leaders might have gotten a one day suspension. But as was now clear, it never was these kids who were the real problem. Bulling doesn't have to happen. When it does, you always have to look to the administrators and teachers as the cause. And so I have never forgotten that lesson.

So *************, if you've got friends or friends of friends who are being inappropriate with you and not respecting your boundaries, then you shouldn't take that. You just need to keep away from them. And then if there are problems with people in school or other places you need to go, you shouldn't take that either.

I'm reading "The Casual Vacancy" now. I expect it to be a book which makes fun of muggles.