The Education Wonks
I think words can defeat bullies, if enough kids are willing to stand up and speak out. As with all violent behavior, though, there has to be a non-pacifist - in this case, the teacher or principal - who is willing to step in and mete out some serious punishment when an empathetic mediator gets flattened by a bully with a low EQ. Without that backup, I wouldn't want any kid of mine to be "mediating" schoolyard disputes.
Indeed, until the administrators step up to the plate, and actually do something more than talk to the bully or the bully's parents about how it is a wrong behavior, nothing will be done. A bully should be suspended, expelled if need be. This is not an issue of self esteem, it is an issue of safety. If a kid of mine was bullied, and I saw nothing was being done after pointing it out to the administration, I am definitely lining up the lawyer to sue the school and the bully's parents. And as Kimberly writes, I sure as heck don't want my kid mediating anything with some low IQ bully while the administration just watches idly.
I am absolutely against bullying of any kind. I will step in and stop it whenever I see/hear it in my school. Any child I catch bullying, in any form, will have no doubt about the lowdown vileness of their behavior and will face any and all of the cosequences of their actions that I can make fit.
I do, however, have questions:
How to handle allegations that may or may not be true? When incidents are not directly observed by adults, what can a school do? Where does innocent-until-proven-guilty come in? Witnesses? Any bully worth his or her own salt can come up with witnesses to their "innocence".
Schools have absolutely no authority over parents, who are (should be?) responsible for their children's actions and behavior in public whether those parents are present or not. Isn't it appropriate for parents of victims to go to an agency with authority for assistance as well as notifying the school of the situation?
I want very much to eliminate all the kinds of bullying from the experience of our young people, but I become frustrated when I try to think of just how this can be done in a way to avoid false allegations, lack of proof, and parental responsibility.
Bullying is not a one-time event, it's a pattern of behavior. Think of Moe in "Calvin and Hobbes."
Every time I think you guys can't post something worse about administrative flim-flam, you...well, you go and post something worse.
This is idiocy. Where are the grown-ups??
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