Bullying isn’t a new problem.
When I was a teenager, I was bullied. My parents talked to the school. I talked to the school and told my teachers about the bullies in each of my classes in junior high. Every single time that someone called me a name, or hit me, they got caught doing it. Every single time, they got suspended and a phone call went to their parents that grounded them until the end of the school year.
I was never bullied by the same person twice.
When my kids went through a similar experience, I noted that the students that were bullying them were often not handed any disciplinary action. When I demanded action and insisted that a meeting be held between myself and my husband and the parents of the other child, I was informed that they would not be telling the parents of the other child and I was told that the school believed there may be abuse in the home and they were afraid of making it worse on the student.
I still see that parent and their child at school functions. If there was abuse in that home, why is the kid still in that home? Why didn’t the school call CPS if they believed there was abuse?
So when I sat down and read this Time magazine article, that describes the inaction of the school district as “troublesome, but not criminally so” I almost spat.
I’m beginning to think that it should be a crime to simply stand by and do nothing when you see another person getting hurt because it seems like no one in our society gives a damn about what happens to anyone else anymore.
I hear a lot that teachers do everything they can, but their hands are tied. I hear this from teachers who don’t live or work in my area. I don’t think they actually know anything about where I live and work. I’ve met a handful of teachers here that care about the kids they teach. The rest of them have never bothered to return my phone calls.
Teachers don’t supervise the hallways in between classes at our district and I am told this is now common practice, that teachers are required to stay in their rooms. Teachers don’t step in and say “Hey! Knock it off!” when they overhear something that might sound like someone getting picked on. There is no one to tell these children that this behavior is NOT okay.
Unions and teachers are too busy covering their legal backsides and worrying about their tenure and retirement plans to prioritize the children that they are supposed to be teaching.
I learned so much more from school than just the three R’s. I learned how to function in society. I learned how to treat other people with respect, even if I didn’t like them, because we all have to live in this world together. The current generation of children are too wrapped up in themselves to give a damn about anyone else and at least a small part of that is caused by no one demanding that they consider the world from another person’s point of view.
Bullying is a problem, simply because people stopped caring enough about it to eliminate the threat.
In Japanese schools, bullying is such a problem that these scant couple of suicides we’ve had here in America are NOTHING compared to what some of the students in Japan have done to themselves, or to the bullies.
These sorts of things should cause western culture to stand up and take notice. We should act now before this gets worse. It’s certainly not going to get better on its own.
