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As a person who was bullied in the past, I understand everything the other poster is saying about being bullied. But I'm not going to sit back and say that bullying is the fault of administrators. I'd say bullying is the fault of bullies
Behind every child bully is an adult who either encourages or enables the bullying. I don't blame the kids, since they had to learn the bullying from an adult.
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...and teachers who look the other way or excuse bullying with "boys will be boys"...and parents who aren't involved enough with their children's lives to see what may be happening to them...and parents whose children are bullies and like that about their kids...
I agree with you there.
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and yes, sometimes administrators who ignore the issue.
So we do agree there too. So why do you keep attacking me?
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Bullying has changed a great deal over the past 60-some years. When I was a kid we only thought about bullying as physical aggression. Now many people see bullying as any social slight. For example, I had a parent come in for a conference because her 7th grade daughter was being bullied. As the conference began I asked the mother what the bullying consisted of. "She wasn't invited to Susan's birthday party." Huh???? And yes, that was the full extent of the "bullying".
That isn't bullying. However, if somebody is going to invite almost an entire class, minus 1 or 2 kids, it's best to be sensitive about it. I remember when I was in college, a girl in my hallway had a birthday party where she invited the entire hallway except for me and my roommate. I was definitely not close friends with that girl, but neither were most of the other people that she invited. For weeks before and after the party, it seemed that the party was the only thing that anybody from the hallway would talk about. I always felt that it would have been polite for the people in the hallway to refrain from talking about the party so much around me, knowing that I was being excluded from the party. I was never really angry at the girl whose party it was, since, for all I know, there may have been a reason why she absolutely could not have invited 2 more people to the party. But the others should have had the decency to not talk about it so much around me. But to reiterate before I am misquoted: No, I do not consider such scenarios to be bullying.
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I will reiterate something I posted at least once before in one of the bullying threads. If one thinks the school isn't doing anything about "your" child being bullied,
The problem isn't schools not doing anything about "your" child being bullied. The problem is that they do nothing about anybody being bullied, and have subtle ways of encouraging bullying, while giving the appearance of stopping bullying.
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write a well-thought-out letter to the principal, cc it to the teachers that may be ignoring the behavior. That will usually work as fast as an enema in changing school behavior; people get very nervous about things being put in writing because it implies lawsuit. If nothing still happens, write a follow-up letter to the principal, and this time cc it to the superintendent and, if necessary, the Board of Education.
But what about kids, such as myself, who had parents who refused to intervene, so that I would learn that "life isn't fair", and so that I would learn that my parents "can't fight my battles for me"? I guess nowadays a student could send an e-mail to the superintendent, but my experiences with bullying were all before e-mail was common. And, I suspect that a superintendent and even a principal would almost certainly ignore almost all e-mail, saying that he/she "doesn't have the time".
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But at the same time, parents need to be aware that what a kid says (often under pressure) to a parent may not always be the whole truth, either, whether it be the bully or the bullied saying it. Frankly, it's rare that I met totally objective parents when it came to their kid.
Phetaroi, you must have been reading my posts. I have often suggested putting this kind of stuff in writing for the reasons that are implied in what I highlighted in your post. As I also posted, when Charlie pulled the high stool out from under me, my father's phone call to the parents brought a very swift end to the conduct. The incident with the stool was in September 1972. Charlie died in 2012 after years of drug abuse. It seems he needed something to abuse.
But still, nobody has any advice for kids, such as myself, who had parents who, for whatever reason would not intervene.
I never said that an assistant principal is an inane position. I said that they like to give us inane assignments such as me having to look for woodchucks in a waiting room with no access to the outside, and another poster had to write about life inside a ping pong ball. They felt that those inane assignments would put them in control of us. But all it did was show what idiots they were. How can you not agree that those assignments were inane? And why do you say that I called their position inherently inane?
To be fair, in my case, I pretty well deserved the "life inside a ping pong ball" essay. A small group of us was driving one teacher crazy and he was giving us detention repeatedly but we continued. So I guess the dean thought a little stronger medicine was needed. He was right about that. It's hard to be a school administrator now that they can't just beat the kids the way they used to...
What led to your "woodchuck" punishment? Was it standing up to a bully or something else?
To be fair, in my case, I pretty well deserved the "life inside a ping pong ball" essay. A small group of us was driving one teacher crazy and he was giving us detention repeatedly but we continued. So I guess the dean thought a little stronger medicine was needed. He was right about that. It's hard to be a school administrator now that they can't just beat the kids the way they used to...
What led to your "woodchuck" punishment? Was it standing up to a bully or something else?
It was during that incident that I mentioned where another student and myself were erroneously assigned to the same seat in the cafeteria. I had to do the "woodchuck assignment" on the Tuesday of that week, after I was kicked out of the computer room, but before the assistant principal had me go into his office. I'm guessing that he had to go somewhere else (maybe a meeting), and he used the woodchuck assignment to keep me occupied until he had the chance to meet with me. When he finally met me, he told me that he was intentionally acting absurd with the woodchuck assignment since I was acting absurd.
Sitting looking for woodchucks reminds me how I quickly learned to always go for the window seat when I was in detention. The time passed better if there was something to look out at, rather than being "landlocked" in the room and only being able to see walls or other students. Other people figured this out too, since the window row in the detention room always filled up first. When I had detention, I usually got there early so I could scout out my window seat, but also to see if any of my friends were there too, and if so, to make plans to do something fun after we got out. I found that if I went for burgers (or beers...) with a couple of friends after getting out of detention, it pretty much negated the effect of the punishment. Failing that, I tried to break another rule on the way out without getting caught, like exiting through the main office door as a short cut to the parking lot, a door students were forbidden to use.
This wasn't in a detention room with a window. This was in the waiting room of the main office, which had no windows to the outside (the offices all had windows, but the waiting room did not). And, I was watching the door which led to an indoor hallway. No chance of any woodchucks getting in there.
This wasn't in a detention room with a window. This was in the waiting room of the main office, which had no windows to the outside (the offices all had windows, but the waiting room did not). And, I was watching the door which led to an indoor hallway. No chance of any woodchucks getting in there.
What if you had gotten up and started yelling that you saw swarms of woodchucks heading into the office, like in the movie, "The Birds?"
What if you had gotten up and started yelling that you saw swarms of woodchucks heading into the office, like in the movie, "The Birds?"
Given that the assistant principal made it very clear that any further talking back or non-compliance with punishment would result in a 5 day suspension (the longest allowed by law) for insubordination, I would suspect it would have resulted in a 5 day suspension.
I did not realize it at the time, but I've been told that legally, only the principal (not an assistant principal) can suspend a student. In this case, I wonder whether the principal would have functioned as a rubber stamp or as an appeals court. Probably the former. But if the later, maybe I should have just rolled the dice with the principal.
I'm curious to see how certain teachers and school administrators on this forum defend the school in this incident, and how exactly they feel that I acted "absurd".
Last edited by mitsguy2001; 11-02-2016 at 10:28 AM..
Given that the assistant principal made it very clear that any further talking back or non-compliance with punishment would result in a 5 day suspension (the longest allowed by law) for insubordination, I would suspect it would have resulted in a 5 day suspension.
I did not realize it at the time, but I've been told that legally, only the principal (not an assistant principal) can suspend a student. In this case, I wonder whether the principal would have functioned as a rubber stamp or as an appeals court. Probably the former. But if the later, maybe I should have just rolled the dice with the principal.
I'm curious to see how certain teachers and school administrators on this forum defend the school in this incident, and how exactly they feel that I acted "absurd".
Would the suspension have been in-school or out-of-school?
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