Community Chat

[Deanie]

I like to distill things to lessons learned.  It has been my experience that Bullying works. No matter what any social scientist says, it works.  The parents of the bully may be afraid or encourage it, teachers are afraid, other kids in school are afraid.  How many of us have seen in our grown up lives examples of bosses who are bullies, or co workers as bullies?  Aren't others afraid to confront them even as adults?  And, if confronted, don't they always make some excuse, find out who "tattle told" on them and make that persons existence a misery? To me it is endemic of a larger issue that exists.  My lesson learned about bullies is younger bullies grow up to be adult bullies.  They are in every walk of life.  Some professions encourage bulling behavior and they never stop, unless stopped.  How to do that?????

[qualitygal]

It is disturbing! I had hoped to never read this again, by now. I had hoped...

Parent's need to speak to the children. So many don't want the school's telling their children what to do. JMPO but it's up to the parent's to teach kids. Not all kids listen, but I think parents words go further than teachers unless there isn't a good parental leader for the child. It's just so sad.

[violann]

Over a career that spanned a whole LOT of years, I developed a teaching vocabulary that excluded certain words, and one of those words was "lazy".

Why did I exclude it? Because part of being a teacher is being a motivator, and part of my job is finding things that motivate.

Calling a kid "lazy" is using a nebulous, meaningless, negative term for saying I didn't motivate him.

I wasn't a "great" among teachers, but  don't think I was a negative teacher either.

And. Wish I hadn't known as many as I did who were.

[SahmIam]

I attended a small, Catholic school from 1-8th grades. I will say only this:

NOTHING in his story did I find surprising.

My heart breaks for this child. NO ONE stood up for him. Not even his parents.

[sidsmom]

The family seems to blame everyone under the sun....except themselves.  And that attitude can be taught to their children, as well.  The child was probably in a questionable home environment, as well.  He probably experienced 'bullying' from his own parents.

Homeschool

Change of private schools

Public school

Patents had so many different choices, but yet...they continued along this same-school destructive path.  Not only did they let it happen, but they paid good money to let it happen...well over $4,000/yr to allow their son to be distressed.   It's one thing to cry 'foul' when it's out of your control, but they had ALL the control, so they now have ALL the blame. 

[Say Nay]

Poor kid. Bullied by his peers and his teachers. Shameful.

[wildcat fan]

I'm not an insider who can comment on this particular story.  However, I've found that the longer I work in education, the more children I meet who seem to have deep psychological issues.  Every new year brings a larger group of them.  Unfortunately, there aren't enough counselors to make an impact, and most teachers don't have the training to handle the numerous incidents on a daily basis. I've seen some kids spin some outrageous stories about being bullied by other students and teachers when all that really happened was the kids did/said outlandish things then got embarrassed when people took notice.  If a teacher says anything about missing work (or heaven forbid record a zero for that missing work), many kids around here spin the "teacher hates me" story.  All they have to do is pull the bully card and they get their way. It's like a modern spin of the Boy Who Cried Wolf.  Of course, I'm saddened by the number who turn to suicide, but I think it's wrong to assume all problems lie with the schools and to expect the schools to fix all the problems.  Around here I've seen a paradigm shift from schools as primarily academic institutions to schools as primarily social institutions.  It will be interesting to see what our world looks like in 10-15 years.

[itiswhatitis]

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@wildcat fan wrote:

I'm not an insider who can comment on this particular story.  However, I've found that the longer I work in education, the more children I meet who seem to have deep psychological issues.  Every new year brings a larger group of them.  Unfortunately, there aren't enough counselors to make an impact, and most teachers don't have the training to handle the numerous incidents on a daily basis. I've seen some kids spin some outrageous stories about being bullied by other students and teachers when all that really happened was the kids did/said outlandish things then got embarrassed when people took notice.  If a teacher says anything about missing work (or heaven forbid record a zero for that missing work), many kids around here spin the "teacher hates me" story.  All they have to do is pull the bully card and they get their way. It's like a modern spin of the Boy Who Cried Wolf.  Of course, I'm saddened by the number who turn to suicide, but I think it's wrong to assume all problems lie with the schools and to expect the schools to fix all the problems.  Around here I've seen a paradigm shift from schools as primarily academic institutions to schools as primarily social institutions.  It will be interesting to see what our world looks like in 10-15 years.

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No doubt.  However, those little liars are not likely to hang themselves.

[itiswhatitis]

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@sidsmom wrote:

The family seems to blame everyone under the sun....except themselves.  And that attitude can be taught to their children, as well.  The child was probably in a questionable home environment, as well.  He probably experienced 'bullying' from his own parents.

Homeschool

Change of private schools

Public school

Patents had so many different choices, but yet...they continued along this same-school destructive path.  Not only did they let it happen, but they paid good money to let it happen...well over $4,000/yr to allow their son to be distressed.   It's one thing to cry 'foul' when it's out of your control, but they had ALL the control, so they now have ALL the blame. 

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Careful not to mistake bullying for chastizing and parenting.  

With those other options: Many parents (especially NYC) everyone in the house has to WORK.  What time would they have for home schooling?

You can't switch children out of a school after a certain amount of time during the school year.  You'd have to understand "education" in general as it relates to NY, in order to know seats are lacking in chosen schools.  First come, first served basis.  This applies to public and parochial schools.

[reiki604]

Bullying has unfortunately become the standard of behavior these days. We see it everywhere and applaud and encourage it. The bullies at the school are probably the popular kids and no one will ever go against them because of there entitlement to behave the way they want. Just turn on the TV to see how bullies are revered by some.