Some say bullying is something new or at least vastly different than in the " Good Old Days" that people did not kill themselves over bullying,they say they miss those times.
There were no such times, only times when you didn't hear of such things.I do feel it's a bigger problem than it ever was and it's only going to get MUCH worse.
This kind of shit could stop tomorrow. Holler all you like about rights and liberties, but much of the source of school bullying and poor educational quality, as well, incidentally, of the bloated cost, stems from what's called FAPE -- free and appropriate public education, required by law. Schools have little or no real power to actually remove trouble making and disruptive students. There are no teeth in the law that would hold PARENTS -- the REAL villians of these tragedies -- criminally and financially liable for the behavior of their children.
If a kid is an incorrigible bully, he's out, gone, FOREVER. If he is consistently disruptive or does not care about being educated, he's out. Not suspended. Not expelled(which is, in reality no more than long term suspension during which, in this juris diction anyway, schools are required to provide tutoring AT THEIR EXPENSE); his public education is OVER. If he wants schooling after that or his parents decide they don't want an ignoramus for a kid, they can choose some private educational option and pay for it themselves.
Incompetent parents who empower their kids to misbehave by raising hell at the school if a teacher so much as raises a voice to their little darlings would be told to leave the building and take their brat with them when they go.
Public education ought NOT to be a right. It's a responsibility and the greatest single asset of a full and contented life that there is. Until we stop treating it like an automatic result of breathing that can be ignored, abused, and shaped by anyone's whim with impunity, we will increasingly have to deal with what it has become -- the private reserve of adolescent thugs and fools in which civilized behavior is a liability and the law of the jungle is the only real authority.
Some say that if a person chooses to commit suicide because of bullying, that's that person's choice, no one else's that bullying is only a contributing factor but no one can be bullied to death.
I believe they can and quite easily. Events in the past have proved that anyone-- you, me, anyone, can be driven to do almost anything by psychological pressure. Techniques of "brain washing" like the so-called "Stockholm Syndrome -- nothing more really, than isolation in an environment where all stimuli seem to be controlled by one person, will eventually lead to that one person's total control of the victim who becomes completely devoted to his tormentor. Not might. Will.
And we aren't talking about professional methodologies applied by psychologists or torturers. We are talking about placing children in closed environments like the school from which they are unable to escape and in which they are continually in fear of harm or derision. If you don't think that situation is capable of causing ANYONE, potentially, to rather end life than continue it, then, simply, you have never been in it or you believe that chidren are somehow capable of mounting the same cognitive defenses against stress as a well balanced educated adult. They aren't. On the contrary, children are typically unsure of themselves and the world around them. They are used to relying upon others for their self image and their understanding of things: their parents, friends, AND school mates. Indeed, even adults typically require the acceptance by others of what they do and say. On my notes, some come to express themselves in order to have their views vindicated or agreed with by others, because we all need approval for what we do,IN VARIOUS DEGREES the same as a child.
Imagine, if you can, a world where everything you say and do is mocked, where everything you do is derided as a mistake or blunder, where any word you utter, any move you make, might lead to being beaten, where there is no escape, no one to help. No one, whether they succumb to it or not, is ever NOT seriously affected by such experience.
Grown strong men have killed themselves rather than face less severe situations. There are people who were victims of this kind of terror who would tell you, in fact, that LIVING with the psychological and physiological damage that it caused often made suicide seem like it would have been the better choice.
This wasn't "schoolyard taunts", this was pervasive full on bigotry and hatred Sure, the gay young man "chose" to kill himself, but, in his situation it was like choosing to jump out of a burning building; it was to him the best of nothing but bad alternatives. Until we are in that same situation, I don't see how we can fairly conclude anything else.
Some say bullying is a form of terrorism.
On that I'm not so sure. On one hand ,terrorism is based often on misguided political motives. Bullying is just plain meanness. Terrorists have some kind of cause or movement to strive for. Bullies are just getting their rocks off by intimidating people
On the other hand, terrorism is the use of violence and fear of violence to intimidate others. As such there is no difference between it and bullying. The terrorism some speak of is different only in it's larger scope. As such calling bullying a form of terrorism is spot on.
So,I suppose that is a topic for another day.At present,I'm simply not sure.
I would welcome your thoughts,as always.
Cheers,ABH
24 October,2010
