trying to create a bill making bullying illegal
tomboy4good
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23 Sep 2011, 12:05 pm
jojobean wrote:
Dox47 wrote:
The laws required for such an undertaking would be far worse than the behavior they're trying to prevent.
you all have a point...legislation is not going to solve anything.
Tomboy4good:
you are right about that...many bullies are rarely seen in action.
So how bout a diffferent approach, creating a climate of acceptance of differences in schools and respect for each other
Also training teachers on the true nature of bullying, and how to spot the signs.
And I am just throwing this out there, dont shoot me, but teachers can look out for those kids who are at high risk of being bullied because of a lack of social network or are different. They can also have meeting with parents of those kids and teach the kids ways to respond to a bully that disfuse the "testing period" often used by bullies. Once bullying is off and running, it is hard to stop short of moving to a different school, but there is a period of time that bullies test their prospective prey...if they dont get the reaction they are looking for,, then they move on.
what do you think about these suggestions??
Teachers can also be part of the bullying problem. If they take a dislike to the bullied student, what is to stop them from allowing other kids to pick on the bullied kid, or for the teacher to also get involved in the bullying? I've seen this happen firsthand.
The other problem is that labels can follow a child from grade to grade, school to school. Teachers often read those reports & make snap judgements based on past reports once they get their student roster: " Johnny is a wonderful student, who is a natural born leader & takes control both in the classroom & during recess. Mary is shy, quiet, & is socially backwards for her age/prefers to stay by herself & read books instead of interacting with her peers. Joe is an oddball who doesn't know how to deal with his peers....is a trouble maker, & a handful both in class & on the playground."
My point of the reports above is that Johnny could easily be a well-liked bully. Mary, a shy awkward child, who is pretty much ignored by everyone including teachers, & lucky Joe gets singled out for being the problem child. Labels like these can do so much harm to a child who knows he/she is different, but not why he/she gets singled out/bullied. Teachers could use past reports as a useful tool but are more often used as a tool to negatively label a child which is both unfair & harmful.
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jojobean
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23 Sep 2011, 12:22 pm
tomboy4good wrote:
jojobean wrote:
Dox47 wrote:
The laws required for such an undertaking would be far worse than the behavior they're trying to prevent.
you all have a point...legislation is not going to solve anything.
Tomboy4good:
you are right about that...many bullies are rarely seen in action.
So how bout a diffferent approach, creating a climate of acceptance of differences in schools and respect for each other
Also training teachers on the true nature of bullying, and how to spot the signs.
And I am just throwing this out there, dont shoot me, but teachers can look out for those kids who are at high risk of being bullied because of a lack of social network or are different. They can also have meeting with parents of those kids and teach the kids ways to respond to a bully that disfuse the "testing period" often used by bullies. Once bullying is off and running, it is hard to stop short of moving to a different school, but there is a period of time that bullies test their prospective prey...if they dont get the reaction they are looking for,, then they move on.
what do you think about these suggestions??
Teachers can also be part of the bullying problem. If they take a dislike to the bullied student, what is to stop them from allowing other kids to pick on the bullied kid, or for the teacher to also get involved in the bullying? I've seen this happen firsthand.
The other problem is that labels can follow a child from grade to grade, school to school. Teachers often read those reports & make snap judgements based on past reports once they get their student roster: " Johnny is a wonderful student, who is a natural born leader & takes control both in the classroom & during recess. Mary is shy, quiet, & is socially backwards for her age/prefers to stay by herself & read books instead of interacting with her peers. Joe is an oddball who doesn't know how to deal with his peers....is a trouble maker, & a handful both in class & on the playground."
My point of the reports above is that Johnny could easily be a well-liked bully. Mary, a shy awkward child, who is pretty much ignored by everyone including teachers, & lucky Joe gets singled out for being the problem child. Labels like these can do so much harm to a child who knows he/she is different, but not why he/she gets singled out/bullied. Teachers could use past reports as a useful tool but are more often used as a tool to negatively label a child which is both unfair & harmful.
So do you think getting rid of past reports can help each teacher evaluate each child with his/her own eyes?
Yes I have seen teachers participate in bullying...the should not be teaching.
Jojo
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tomboy4good
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23 Sep 2011, 12:35 pm
jojobean wrote:
So do you think getting rid of past reports can help each teacher evaluate each child with his/her own eyes?
Yes I have seen teachers participate in bullying...the should not be teaching.
Jojo
Yes I have seen teachers participate in bullying...the should not be teaching.
Jojo
No teacher should ever engage in bullying....it should be punished (infractions first/firing if it continues). Some teachers are much better at being objective about their students than others. Being that teachers are only humans, they do make mistakes....I know I wouldn't want to be a teacher with access to reports on children before the school year even starts (I am one of those who is likely to judge unfortunately & reports would definitey color my opinions).
So maybe those reports should not be available to teachers. Maybe awkward/bullied kids would have a better chance. However, some teachers also make some pretty harsh judgements based on what they observe too. Remember, teachers are prone to make mistakes just like anyone else. Not sure how to keep teachers objective...or if we can?
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Sweetleaf
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23 Sep 2011, 2:19 pm
tomboy4good wrote:
jojobean wrote:
Dox47 wrote:
The laws required for such an undertaking would be far worse than the behavior they're trying to prevent.
you all have a point...legislation is not going to solve anything.
Tomboy4good:
you are right about that...many bullies are rarely seen in action.
So how bout a diffferent approach, creating a climate of acceptance of differences in schools and respect for each other
Also training teachers on the true nature of bullying, and how to spot the signs.
And I am just throwing this out there, dont shoot me, but teachers can look out for those kids who are at high risk of being bullied because of a lack of social network or are different. They can also have meeting with parents of those kids and teach the kids ways to respond to a bully that disfuse the "testing period" often used by bullies. Once bullying is off and running, it is hard to stop short of moving to a different school, but there is a period of time that bullies test their prospective prey...if they dont get the reaction they are looking for,, then they move on.
what do you think about these suggestions??
Teachers can also be part of the bullying problem. If they take a dislike to the bullied student, what is to stop them from allowing other kids to pick on the bullied kid, or for the teacher to also get involved in the bullying? I've seen this happen firsthand.
The other problem is that labels can follow a child from grade to grade, school to school. Teachers often read those reports & make snap judgements based on past reports once they get their student roster: " Johnny is a wonderful student, who is a natural born leader & takes control both in the classroom & during recess. Mary is shy, quiet, & is socially backwards for her age/prefers to stay by herself & read books instead of interacting with her peers. Joe is an oddball who doesn't know how to deal with his peers....is a trouble maker, & a handful both in class & on the playground."
My point of the reports above is that Johnny could easily be a well-liked bully. Mary, a shy awkward child, who is pretty much ignored by everyone including teachers, & lucky Joe gets singled out for being the problem child. Labels like these can do so much harm to a child who knows he/she is different, but not why he/she gets singled out/bullied. Teachers could use past reports as a useful tool but are more often used as a tool to negatively label a child which is both unfair & harmful.
I have experianced first hand having teachers in on the bullying.....that is actually one of my first memories of being in a public school setting.....a pre-school teacher did that to me, its like she thought it was fun to single me out so the other kids could laugh at me or so I could feel singled out and alienated from the group. A lot of times its the 'good' successful kids doing the bullying but they put on a nice front for anyone who might challenge how they treat other people. So yeah teachers definatly can contribute to this behavior.
tomboy4good
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23 Sep 2011, 2:36 pm
Sweetleaf wrote:
I have experianced first hand having teachers in on the bullying.....that is actually one of my first memories of being in a public school setting.....a pre-school teacher did that to me, its like she thought it was fun to single me out so the other kids could laugh at me or so I could feel singled out and alienated from the group. A lot of times its the 'good' successful kids doing the bullying but they put on a nice front for anyone who might challenge how they treat other people. So yeah teachers definatly can contribute to this behavior.
This is exactly my point. I experienced it at different times during my school years (K-HS). I also witnessed a professor in a college course who constantly singled out a fellow classmate to torment/bully. I ended up dropping the class because her (yes it was a woman professor) constant belittling of this one student made me ill. She was also arrogant & condescending. Don't know what happened to her, but she should have been fired. Her behavior was anything but professional & should not have been tolerated.
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Sweetleaf
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23 Sep 2011, 2:49 pm
Inuyasha wrote:
Dox47 wrote:
The laws required for such an undertaking would be far worse than the behavior they're trying to prevent.
Agreed.
I can see far worse things coming from this law, what people need to learn to do is stand up to bullies, not give government even more power.
It goes both ways, yes it would be helpful to teach people skills to deal with bullying and stand up to those bullying them in an effective way........But it is also important to educate people on why it might not be a good idea to bully someone. Don't know that a law is a good way to go about it there already are laws against harrasment and such...but education is certainly a good thing.
Not to mention though what about when teachers are in on it.....how's a little kid supposed to stand up to a teacher?
tomboy4good
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23 Sep 2011, 2:54 pm
Sweetleaf wrote:
It goes both ways, yes it would be helpful to teach people skills to deal with bullying and stand up to those bullying them in an effective way........But it is also important to educate people on why it might not be a good idea to bully someone. Don't know that a law is a good way to go about it there already are laws against harrasment and such...but education is certainly a good thing.
Not to mention though what about when teachers are in on it.....how's a little kid supposed to stand up to a teacher?
Not to mention though what about when teachers are in on it.....how's a little kid supposed to stand up to a teacher?
And how does a little kid make it known that he/she is being bullied to others like parents or other authority teachers? When it happened to me, I was just dumbstruck & said nothing because I was so blind-sided by the whole incident (2nd grade). Kids are taught from a young age that they are to respect elders such as their teachers.
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23 Sep 2011, 2:58 pm
I will pick up on jojobean's theme and start to look at positive approaches.
First and foremost, I am not persuaded that a single approach will work. Urban schools are culturally distinct from rural schools. Schools in city centres face different challenges than schools in suburbs. Schools in different areas have different demographics. Bullying by children differs from bullying by adolescents. Bullying by girls differs from bullying by boys. We give it all a common label, but that does not mean that there is a single approach.
Secondly, bullying is somewhat subjective. What one child will understand to be horseplay and fun, another child will view as abusive. As with harassment, bullying is in the eye of the beholder. Unfortunately, though, the eyes of the beholder may be young and unsophisticated.
Third, school environments are about learning; not merely academic learning, but learning social skills, as well. An approach to bullying that emphasizes "zero tolerance" and "punishment" might not be as effective as an approach that is remedial.
I see a few key components to an overall strategy:
All stakeholders must approach this in the development of a common strategy: departments of education; school boards; administrators; teachers; parents and students. It is not enough for the school board to say, "thou shalt not bully," if they fail to give the teachers the tools to enforce that.
Teachers' unions must be engaged to ensure that there is an appropriate trade off between incentives to teachers to stop bullying and disciplinary measures against teachers who fail to do so.
Educators must become empowered to act proactively
Parents must be engaged so that teachers are not vulnerable to reprisals when children are disciplined for bullying behavior.
Students must be educated to find acceptable ways to stand up to bullies, and must be empowered (particularly by their peers) to take those steps.
If you are going to change a culture, you have to change the minds of the substantial majority of those who participate in that culture, and you must give the institutions that are fostering that cultural change the legal room to effect that change.
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Sweetleaf
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23 Sep 2011, 3:06 pm
tomboy4good wrote:
Sweetleaf wrote:
It goes both ways, yes it would be helpful to teach people skills to deal with bullying and stand up to those bullying them in an effective way........But it is also important to educate people on why it might not be a good idea to bully someone. Don't know that a law is a good way to go about it there already are laws against harrasment and such...but education is certainly a good thing.
Not to mention though what about when teachers are in on it.....how's a little kid supposed to stand up to a teacher?
Not to mention though what about when teachers are in on it.....how's a little kid supposed to stand up to a teacher?
And how does a little kid make it known that he/she is being bullied to others like parents or other authority teachers? When it happened to me, I was just dumbstruck & said nothing because I was so blind-sided by the whole incident (2nd grade). Kids are taught from a young age that they are to respect elders such as their teachers.
Well considering I was about 4-5 can't quite remember I did not really know how to identify if I was being mistreated or not, so I ended up not saying anything to my mom......she just ended up getting concerned and started asking me about it and came to that conclusion so I switched to a different school I thik I don't quite remember the process.
23 Sep 2011, 6:31 pm
visagrunt wrote:
Quote:
Secondly, bullying is somewhat subjective. What one child will understand to be horseplay and fun, another child will view as abusive. As with harassment, bullying is in the eye of the beholder. Unfortunately, though, the eyes of the beholder may be young and unsophisticated.
I've going to consign myself to hell and agree with visagrunt on this one point.
Laws like that, no matter how well written or intended, are too subjective.
You'll end up throwing the wrong people under the bus over a misunderstanding on one hand and letting others get away with it because they found a way around the law to bully anyway.
Best advice on bullying is to make yourself less of a tempting target.
jojobean
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24 Sep 2011, 9:48 am
visagrunt wrote:
I will pick up on jojobean's theme and start to look at positive approaches.
First and foremost, I am not persuaded that a single approach will work. Urban schools are culturally distinct from rural schools. Schools in city centres face different challenges than schools in suburbs. Schools in different areas have different demographics. Bullying by children differs from bullying by adolescents. Bullying by girls differs from bullying by boys. We give it all a common label, but that does not mean that there is a single approach.
Secondly, bullying is somewhat subjective. What one child will understand to be horseplay and fun, another child will view as abusive. As with harassment, bullying is in the eye of the beholder. Unfortunately, though, the eyes of the beholder may be young and unsophisticated.
Third, school environments are about learning; not merely academic learning, but learning social skills, as well. An approach to bullying that emphasizes "zero tolerance" and "punishment" might not be as effective as an approach that is remedial.
I see a few key components to an overall strategy:
All stakeholders must approach this in the development of a common strategy: departments of education; school boards; administrators; teachers; parents and students. It is not enough for the school board to say, "thou shalt not bully," if they fail to give the teachers the tools to enforce that.
Teachers' unions must be engaged to ensure that there is an appropriate trade off between incentives to teachers to stop bullying and disciplinary measures against teachers who fail to do so.
Educators must become empowered to act proactively
Parents must be engaged so that teachers are not vulnerable to reprisals when children are disciplined for bullying behavior.
Students must be educated to find acceptable ways to stand up to bullies, and must be empowered (particularly by their peers) to take those steps.
If you are going to change a culture, you have to change the minds of the substantial majority of those who participate in that culture, and you must give the institutions that are fostering that cultural change the legal room to effect that change.
First and foremost, I am not persuaded that a single approach will work. Urban schools are culturally distinct from rural schools. Schools in city centres face different challenges than schools in suburbs. Schools in different areas have different demographics. Bullying by children differs from bullying by adolescents. Bullying by girls differs from bullying by boys. We give it all a common label, but that does not mean that there is a single approach.
Secondly, bullying is somewhat subjective. What one child will understand to be horseplay and fun, another child will view as abusive. As with harassment, bullying is in the eye of the beholder. Unfortunately, though, the eyes of the beholder may be young and unsophisticated.
Third, school environments are about learning; not merely academic learning, but learning social skills, as well. An approach to bullying that emphasizes "zero tolerance" and "punishment" might not be as effective as an approach that is remedial.
I see a few key components to an overall strategy:
All stakeholders must approach this in the development of a common strategy: departments of education; school boards; administrators; teachers; parents and students. It is not enough for the school board to say, "thou shalt not bully," if they fail to give the teachers the tools to enforce that.
Teachers' unions must be engaged to ensure that there is an appropriate trade off between incentives to teachers to stop bullying and disciplinary measures against teachers who fail to do so.
Educators must become empowered to act proactively
Parents must be engaged so that teachers are not vulnerable to reprisals when children are disciplined for bullying behavior.
Students must be educated to find acceptable ways to stand up to bullies, and must be empowered (particularly by their peers) to take those steps.
If you are going to change a culture, you have to change the minds of the substantial majority of those who participate in that culture, and you must give the institutions that are fostering that cultural change the legal room to effect that change.
thank you...finally some problem solving thinking
After reading alot of this thread...I have learned that teachers play a bigger role than I thought. How is the best way to weed out the bad apple teachers??
The teacher union is a tight bunch and teachers rarely get fired, most just get transfered to title 1 schools.
How do we get around that??
Also I think there needs to be more awareness of teacher bullying and to teach kids it is ok to tell parents.
Cultural changing is hard work, but it is best done as a grass roots project.
I think an pilot project should be started in a few schools around the country in different demographic schools
Work these schools till everything is fine tuned,
Have a quarterly anoymous questionare about bullying to gather data
But on the questionare ask things like age, grade, sex, sexual orientation, social interaction, whether they have a 504 plan, race, religion, family problems, anything that would make them a target...and ask if they experience bullying by peers or teachers or both and measure severity. Also ask if bullying has been addressed properly by athorities, and if not what is the the athorities response
based on this data, you can calibrate the program to eliminate bullying.
Once it is tweeked to perfection, in the different pilot schools picked by different demographics to address the range of issues in each major demographic, then it can be implemented on a large scale and the legal side can be adapted to make this possible.
What do you think??
Jojo
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Sweetleaf
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24 Sep 2011, 10:56 am
Raptor wrote:
visagrunt wrote:
I've going to consign myself to hell and agree with visagrunt on this one point.
Laws like that, no matter how well written or intended, are too subjective.
You'll end up throwing the wrong people under the bus over a misunderstanding on one hand and letting others get away with it because they found a way around the law to bully anyway.
Best advice on bullying is to make yourself less of a tempting target.
Quote:
Secondly, bullying is somewhat subjective. What one child will understand to be horseplay and fun, another child will view as abusive. As with harassment, bullying is in the eye of the beholder. Unfortunately, though, the eyes of the beholder may be young and unsophisticated.
I've going to consign myself to hell and agree with visagrunt on this one point.
Laws like that, no matter how well written or intended, are too subjective.
You'll end up throwing the wrong people under the bus over a misunderstanding on one hand and letting others get away with it because they found a way around the law to bully anyway.
Best advice on bullying is to make yourself less of a tempting target.
I think that is something that can help, but not everyone has the ability to do that......trust me I tried quite hard to not be a tempting target but it didn't work. So though that certainly can help the situation, it is also important that bullying is not just veiwed as something that is Ok to do.
24 Sep 2011, 6:09 pm
I'm in agreement that the majority of bullying is motivated by adults such as parents and teachers doing nothing to intervene. If anything there should be a law dictating that if teachers fail to discipline a bullying incident properly, and if it can be proven that they were either aware of or encouraged the situation, it could cost them their job.
Also I think in severe bullying incidents, parents should have the right to sue other parents. It's very irritating when parents of bullies deny that they're being bullies. That's not teaching your kid responsibility in the slightest, but if a lawsuit risk is involved maybe parents of bullies will start forcing their kids to own up.
24 Sep 2011, 7:03 pm
raisedbyignorance wrote:
I'm in agreement that the majority of bullying is motivated by adults such as parents and teachers doing nothing to intervene. If anything there should be a law dictating that if teachers fail to discipline a bullying incident properly, and if it can be proven that they were either aware of or encouraged the situation, it could cost them their job.
Also I think in severe bullying incidents, parents should have the right to sue other parents. It's very irritating when parents of bullies deny that they're being bullies. That's not teaching your kid responsibility in the slightest, but if a lawsuit risk is involved maybe parents of bullies will start forcing their kids to own up.
Also I think in severe bullying incidents, parents should have the right to sue other parents. It's very irritating when parents of bullies deny that they're being bullies. That's not teaching your kid responsibility in the slightest, but if a lawsuit risk is involved maybe parents of bullies will start forcing their kids to own up.
Have you given any thought to what it takes to draft a law then get it passed?
In the event that it gets passed it has to be enforced so you have to look at all the details and variables in each case (e.g. proof, intent, motivation, etc...).
Right or wrong, bullying is human nature and most people will engage in to some degree it if given enough of an opportunity and motive.
You may as well try to legislate farting.
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24 Sep 2011, 11:15 pm
What is needed first is research mapping out how people with different amounts of authority manage to get away with bullying in a workplace. That would provide a lot of answers about bullying in schools.
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