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Treating bullying as everyone's problem reduces incidence in primary schools

(phys.org)
175 points PaulHoule | 2 comments | 16 Nov 24 14:34 UTC | HN request time: 0.533s | source
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dijit ◴[16 Nov 24 21:07 UTC] No.42159330[source]▶
I always found it really frustrating that a "zero tolerance" policy to bullying seemed to disproportionately affect people who eventually fight back.

I would guess it's a combination of "nobody sees the first hit" (since your attention is elsewhere, of course) and that bullies get quite good at testing boundaries and thus know how to avoid detection.

But, really, it's truly frustrating that as I child I was bullied relentlessly, and when I finally took my parents advice and stood my ground, I was expelled from school (due to zero tolerance). Those bullies continued to torment some other kids, of course.

This is far from an uncommon situation, over the years I've heard many more scenarios like this.

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anonymousiam ◴[16 Nov 24 22:26 UTC] No.42159927[source]▶
Defending yourself is always the right move. When one of my sons was being bullied in elementary school, I taught him how to fight and encouraged him to do so. The bullying ended, but he was suspended. I confronted his principal and got her to admit that she would defend herself if someone was pummeling her. She didn't like this, and subsequently expelled my son, who later won honors awards after transferring to a different school.
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1. rustcleaner ◴[17 Nov 24 03:21 UTC] No.42161740[source]▶
>She didn't like this, and subsequently expelled my son

Name and shame the principal and school. Nothing changes otherwise!

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2. anonymousiam ◴[17 Nov 24 05:35 UTC] No.42162218[source]▶
I'm not going to name her, but I left out some even more damning information about the incident. She torpedoed our efforts to get my son moved to another school within the same district, and was trying to push him into a (LA County) school for troubled kids. She also called a SARB (School Attendance Review Board) meeting because he was absent (because of his suspension). It was the first SARB meeting for a student as young as my son. We were illegally forbidden from having our psychologist present during the meeting, and I was threatened with arrest for questioning the authority of a police officer who was present.

After all of that, I contacted my friend who happened to be on the School Board. He got me in touch with the Deputy Superintendent, who got my son placed in another (excellent) in-district school, where he excelled.

Both of my parents were teachers, and I'm familiar with school politics and their fiefdoms. If I had not had the benefit of this knowledge, we probably would have switched to a private school.