Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
12 year old boy from Elgin, Illinois (a Chicago suburb) was beaten in school by another classmate when he accidentally bumped into him! Injuries were so bad that he had to be put into a medically induced coma! Truly sickening! My question is, where were these teachers during all of this? The other boy had a history of reckless behavior.
We should combine this with another thread (perhaps it was in the education sub-forum) where a few were doubting that students needed to be closely supervised by teachers and administrators at all times.
Obviously there could be a negligence factor involved here, but not necessarily. School personnel can't watch every kid every minute. Students and parents often contentiously complain if gym locker rooms are being patrolled by PE teachers (often calling them perverts). You don't want teachers watching inside bathrooms. There are often odd hallways where supervision is difficult because teachers also have to watch the hallway by their classroom while also keeping an eye on their classroom. And there are plenty of areas around the school (on the outside) that can't be adequately supervised. Sometimes schools just have to do the best they can in supervising all of a building and property.
Teachers should not have to deal with the trash that enters the classroom. Parents of "said" violent snowflake should have to post a bond if the turd goes nuts and threatens anyone. There should also be a one strike rule. You hurt someone, bye bye.
A violent snowflake. That doesn't even make sense.
I wasn't suggesting this is a trend, just that this is quite disturbing that this would happen in middle school. The child is in 7th grade, not high school. Furthermore, the child who beat him had previous problems at the school, so as a parent it's very concerning that schools are not more prepared to deal with children with behavioral problems.
In general, the most suspensions occur in grades 7-9. In high school there are actually fewer suspensions, perhaps because students begin to get a little more mature in their decision making...although some of the violations in high schools are whoppers.
My grandad was born in 1900 and died in '91. He used to tell me stories about what it was like to grow up in those days, on the tough streets of Brooklyn.
There were plenty of fights, all right. But they were "fair fights". They didn't keep beating on someone once he was down. If 2 or more boys were beating up one boy, the other kids would intervene and break it up. Knives were rare, guns were unheard of.
It was a different world. A better one, in some ways. Sure, there was some nasty bullying, but the majority of kids quickly learned to defend themselves, and to have a sense of fair play that today seems all but forgotten.
I attended some pretty rough schools. Mostly low income, lots of welfare kids. There was no violence in those schools. If any child showed any hostile behavior, he was suspended and not allowed on the school grounds. If he was violent outside the school, the police arrested him and he was placed in the Juvenile Hall (kiddie jail).
Now, if a child is a trouble maker, he gets placed in a special education class and is still on the school grounds. Teachers and the principal are not legally allowed to discipline a child, no matter what the child does. Instead of discipline, everyone tries to understand why it is not the child's fault. Believe me, when I was growing up, we were all terrified of the principal and one glance from her eye would stop any undesirable behavior. As far as I know, she never did anything more violent to her students than to clap her hands and we all scurried to stop whatever it was we were doing that brought her attention.
If a child got into trouble at school, their parent was going to take it up with them when they got home. No parent went storming into school threatening to sue because their little darling wasn't receiving special treatment.
Class sizes were huge where I went to school. Class sizes are not the cause of violence in the schools. Large classes might or might not make it more difficult to teach, but large classes don't have anything to do with children being sociopaths.
What happened to reform school? Back in the day, I went to schools that had all types of kids. Those who could not behave were suspended. If they did not shape up, they were sent to reform school or military schools, if their parent had enough money.
One of the problems is kids can't be spanked with a paddle like they were when I was in school. The threat of that in itself kept kids in line most of the time.
Add to that kids not being taught to behave, to be respectful to adults and authority, and treating others the way they would want to be treated, you get what we have now with too many kids believing they can say whatever they want and be as violent as they want with no or little consequence. There's been a great degradation of our society and its only getting worse.
I will also say though, we weren't living in a perfectly polite society when I went to school either, or the generations before. There were nasty fights, sometimes with someone getting a jaw broke that I witnessed, but compared to the hateful violence I see today it just didn't happen as often as it does now. Due to the larger population as someone said? Perhaps to some degree, however its more likely due to the other issues I described above.
And there's another issue in play but some would deem it too controversial to acknowledge in this forum. This place is for tea and crumpets it appears. But these issues aren't fixable until they are acknowledged, discussed and addressed.
If this was my kid in the coma I'd find the kid that did that to him and beat his a$$. Then find his parents and beat the $hit out of them too. I don't care if I go to jail. No one does that to my kid.
And if my kid was the one that put this kid in a coma I'd beat the crap out of him, take him over to the parents house of the kid he put in a coma and ask them if there is any punishment I could deal out to this kid to make up for what he did.
I wasn't suggesting this is a trend, just that this is quite disturbing that this would happen in middle school. The child is in 7th grade, not high school. Furthermore, the child who beat him had previous problems at the school, so as a parent it's very concerning that schools are not more prepared to deal with children with behavioral problems.
Our school district actually does have a separate school for this type of child. Notice I am using the term separate not special.
In general, the most suspensions occur in grades 7-9. In high school there are actually fewer suspensions, perhaps because students begin to get a little more mature in their decision making...although some of the violations in high schools are whoppers.
I believe that another reason for this is that many students who are likely to commit criminal acts in school are chronically truant or have dropped out by the upper grades.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
