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gothelittle November 6 2010, 14:13:49 UTC
I've got another one. Actually treat all bullying incidences as bullying, instead of focusing on people who are of a proper Politically Correct Victim Status and ignoring the people who are tormented despite not being black, Hispanic, or gay.

When a bully targets a kid, he's going to pick anything he can. If you're white and straight, it'll be your freckles. If you've got a clear complexion, it'll be your ears. If your ears are small and close to your head, it'll be the size of your feet. If you don't play chess, don't draw pictures, don't write stories, and don't wear glasses, he'll jump on your habit of tapping your nose with the side of your pencil when you're thinking.

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kishiriadgr November 6 2010, 16:57:43 UTC
Weird, glasses and braces here.

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gothelittle November 6 2010, 23:03:02 UTC
For me it was glasses, hand-me-downs, and story-writing during breaktime. Sixth was the hardest, and it took nearly five years of homeschooling afterwards (half of 7th, all of 8-11) to turn me into someone who could actually socialize with other people again.

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ford_prefect42 November 7 2010, 06:21:55 UTC
You too? I was home-schooled for 3/4 of 7th, til I turned 16 and started college.

Same reason, parents not religious.

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eric_hinkle November 6 2010, 15:17:56 UTC
This reminds me of my old school, which was awful on this regard. The year before I went up one kid got hammered to a pulp by several members of the football team. When the angry parents went to the principal, he handwaved their complaints away with a "Boys will be boys!"

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polaris93 November 7 2010, 05:23:00 UTC
Yeah, well, they must have been boy demons. I'd have sued the bastards blind.

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eric_hinkle November 7 2010, 15:33:19 UTC
Tha parents of the boy who got beaten told the parents of the players what happened, and they handled it. Suffice to say that the kids got yanked from the team and ended up very, very sorry for what they'd done.

But the nastiness itself was rather normal for that school. It happened to me, it happened to everyone except for a few at the very top. My own parents warned me that it was a rough place and "you'll have to learn to live with it."

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polaris93 November 7 2010, 19:08:53 UTC
But the nastiness itself was rather normal for that school. It happened to me, it happened to everyone except for a few at the very top. My own parents warned me that it was a rough place and "you'll have to learn to live with it."

The problem today is that it's gotten so bad that children are killing themselves -- and/or others in their schools, a la Columbine -- to get out from under the bullying. When it gets so bad that our children can't live with it, things have gone so wrong that there had damned well better be an intervention.

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chocolate_frapp November 6 2010, 16:32:37 UTC
I agree with you completely.

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kishiriadgr November 6 2010, 16:56:59 UTC
IAWTC. Although bullying doesn't always have to be physical. I was the target of just about every kind there is, yes the principals knew about it but "what could they do?"

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ford_prefect42 November 7 2010, 06:26:52 UTC
In my case... The principles just honestly didn't like me either. I am an abrasive know-it-all, and I always was.

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ford_prefect42 November 6 2010, 17:14:33 UTC
Gets tough. I can't really see sending 6 year olds to prison, or even separating them from their families for this type of action.

I would probably go with permitting the schools to expell permanently students that are violent or excessively unpleasant. The problem there is that we have this deluded notion that education is a "right", where it is more apropriately an earned service. Also, reinstituting corporal punishment and public shaming in the schools would work wonders. On society as a whole as well as the school environment.

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kishiriadgr November 6 2010, 17:37:39 UTC
How are kids supposed to "earn the right" to go to school? I'll grant I'm a big fan of public schooling.

I don't agree that "corporal punishment and public shaming in the schools would work wonders". Violent bullies are often abused at home, you would advocate letting them get abused at school as well? They'd only take it out on the victims more because hey, they're going to get punishe
anyway so why not keep committing the crime? Second, how does this apply to purely emotional bullying?

I think restraining orders could work. You don't come within arm's reach of me and you never address a word to me directly. Otherwise, juvenile hall. That would have worked in my situations. I was bullied from about 4th to 10th grades.

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ford_prefect42 November 6 2010, 21:51:54 UTC
The child would "earn the right" by being a "good" student. By learning the material, by being decently behaved, etcetera. Failing that, they are dragging the rest of the class down ( ... )

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marycatelli November 6 2010, 18:59:10 UTC
Separating them -- and their siblings -- from their parents is exactly the right thing to do if their parents can't or won't be bothered to raise them properly.

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