Do schools handle bullying properly?

[Nick]

Do schools handle bullying properly?

 

[Sweet Smoochum]

No. At my high school, and middle school, the teachers just advised not to snitch. ... I'm not even going to make a comment based on what they said or say whether or not I agree or not.

 

[Nihilego]

Mine handles it quickly since a recent suicide we had related to bullying. Before we were pathetically lenient on it, but now, we just kick out anyone we know is bullying.

But, that's an extreme response which we're mostly using because we're scared of having the **** sued out of us. Very weirdly, the parents of the kid who died didn't press charges. And I think that shows that we handle bullying badly - the fact that it gets to that sort of stage shows that not enough was done.

I think that's probably because teachers are scared of doing stuff; no parent wants to know that their kid is a bully. There'll almost certainly be some sort of backlash from angry parents, worse bullying on the kid who 'snitched', etc. Sometimes trying to deal with bullying can create a much worse situation that not dealing with it... So I guess, in that way, bullying isn't well handled a lot of the time. It's often ignored.

 

[Timbjerr]

The public schools I went to were decent enough. In the sixth grade, when my parents told the school administrators that they suspected that I was being bullied, the counselors talked to me and offered to have the kid expelled.

I refused the offer, mainly because I didn't want to screw up the poor kid's permanent record, but also because my dad had become adamant about teaching me to fight to defend myself.

That was fourteen years ago though. times are different now, and I don't know what schools do these days. XD

 

[Shining Raichu]

So much as one unkind word to another kid and you are out on your arse. That's the only way to properly handle bullying.

 

[Nihilego]

How do you differentiate banter from bullying if that's the case? Teachers suck with that kinda thing - to most of them, there's no difference between banter and bullying.

Besides, you can't force kids to be nice to each other. The world doesn't work that way.

 

[TRIFORCE89]

I wasn't bullied in high school, so no comment there.

But I was when I was in elementary school. The school does absolutely nothing. Lazy lazy lazy teachers and administration. If I tried to talk to the teach I got one of two stock answers:

1) "We frown upon tattle-tales"
2) "No! Don't tell us the name of the person who is bullying you! We'll figure it out on our own."

My parents would try to talk to them too. Same answer. Even when we'd approach the principal; same answer. Essentially, they don't want to know if you're bullied otherwise they have to get involved which they don't want to do. They come short of putting their fingers in their ears and shouting "lalalala not listening" if we tried to name names (they would keep interrupting you though so that you could never get a name out).

They also blame the victim. One time a teacher said to my mom, "Well, I'm sure he must be doing something to bring that on himself". No. That's stupid.

Didn't happen in my case, but other kids who were bullied or pick on would try to fight back since the teachers do absolutely nothing. And they'd be the one to get in trouble. Suspended and what not. Bully gets off scot-free.

*sigh*

 

[Timbjerr]

So much as one unkind word to another kid and you are out on your arse. That's the only way to properly handle bullying.

...and deprive the kid of a proper education? That's pretty harsh.

The proper way to handle bullying is to build up the bullied kid's self-esteem and teach them to defend themselves. It worked for me, and after the aforementioned sixth-grade incident, I was never bullied again.

Of course, this solution begins at home. If you've got a crappy home life and an apathetic school, I don't have a clue what to do. >_>

 

[-ty-]

...and deprive the kid of a proper education? That's pretty harsh.

The proper way to handle bullying is to build up the bullied kid's self-esteem and teach them to defend themselves. It worked for me, and after the aforementioned sixth-grade incident, I was never bullied again.

Of course, this solution begins at home. If you've got a crappy home life and an apathetic school, I don't have a clue what to do. >_>

Actually, the bullied children are deprived of a proper education when bullies are enabled. I agree with Shiny, if you are obstructing another child's education you should be kicked out of class. If the issue persists, and the bully continues to obstruct other children in the educational endeavors, then the child should be kicked out of the school. The bully has the choice to stop; the bullied child does not.

 

[Blue Nocturne]

It depends on the school really. My school liked to project the image of having no real problems with bullying, and this was for the most part true... Because they rarely picked up on it. The problem doesn't exist if we can't see it, right?

With that said, as soon as they start to pick up on it, my school does get involved pretty quickly, though how successful the intervention goes is largely dependant on the teacher responsible for the situation. When some guys ramped up the homophobia against me about two years ago now, I went straight to the now Vice Principle and... Well, it ended pretty quickly, lets put it that way. Though it may also have been down to me pulling off an needlessly complicated stunt to expose them all as horrible, horrible people in front of the entire school. It was great fun.

However, my friends sister was being bullied for a long time by a number of different people and it went mostly unnoticed because it was mostly emotional. When the school finally caught wind to what was going on, the teacher who was involved was completely useless. Information wasn't passed along properly - her science teacher didn't have a clue what was going on and it led to a really dangerous brawl in the lesson; nothing was ultimately solved and the closest we got to a solution was the suggestion that she move to a different school. Really.


As for my primary school, they just sort of let it happen. I was bullied on and off by a group of really vicious girls for pretty much all of primary school without much more that a quick talk. Can't say much more about that, really.

 

[Oryx]

...and deprive the kid of a proper education? That's pretty harsh.

The proper way to handle bullying is to build up the bullied kid's self-esteem and teach them to defend themselves. It worked for me, and after the aforementioned sixth-grade incident, I was never bullied again.

Of course, this solution begins at home. If you've got a crappy home life and an apathetic school, I don't have a clue what to do. >_>

And if the bullied child has no interest in getting involved in a fight? I don't have any interest in fighting and I don't have low self-esteem. I just don't want to fight. Saying that because of the messed up choice of the bully, a bullied kid should have no choice but to resort to violence is pretty warped tbh.

 

[Alley Cat]

^ Yes.. but you do realize that it is just a word you're proposing to possibly ruin someone's future for when all the kid has to do is walk by with his head up and ignore the m-f'er.


My school has a zero tolerance policy on bullying. They follow up pretty well on it, but they aren't exactly the master of knowing what's going down(unless it's a fight because all the idiots talk about it all day long in their classes, right in front of their teachers). So if someone is getting seriously bullied(which doesn't even really happen where I live...) they probably wouldn't know. But if they actually have evidence that there was significant bullying(i.e. the bully-ee not just overreacting to something petty) then they toss the kid out immediately.

If people do get in fights, they also try to get them to work it out. Such examples are in-school suspension with the other person you fought. They know you won't fight again because you're being watched and will get in massive trouble rather than being able to return to school the next day. AND it works. One of my friends got in a fight with this girl, and they worked together to get some space cakes in the room they were in and they just chilled for the rest of the day became friends.

There is no definite solution to handle bullying. Because the people in my school are different from the people in your school, and etc.