Tag Archives | schools

We need to stop referring to abuse as bullying and schools need to stop doing nothing about it

Picture this, if you will, as disturbing as it is: A woman sits in a hospital room with a fractured skull, broken jaw and leaking spinal fluid. Everyone knows who her attacker is but no one is doing anything. No arrests. No charges. The attacker is free to do as he pleases.

Make sense?

Well, the truth is that it wasn’t a woman. It was a 12 year old boy with Aspergers and his attacker was an older boy, in grade 8. Because this happened between kids in school and not adults, instead of being abuse, this is just bullying…. “just bullying”.

Wait, he has a fractured skull. He was almost killed. How is this “just bullying” when, if this was a grown man doing this to a grown woman, it would be abuse? or manslaughter? or attempted murder?

You can read about this in the news, although, it’s not easy to watch: http://www.cbs12.com/news/top-stories/stories/boy-aspergers-syndrome-hospitalized-after-bully-attacks-him-at-school-parents-23752.shtml?wap=0

You’d like to think that this is an isolated incident since we don’t read about this in the news every day but it’s not. This happens ALL. THE. TIME.

Let me break some of this down for you.

  • » 64 per cent of kids had been bullied at school.
  • » 12 per cent were bullied regularly (once or more a week).
  • » 13 per cent bullied other students regularly (once or more a week).
  • » 72 per cent observed bullying at school at least once in a while.
  • » 40 per cent tried to intervene.
  • » 64 per cent considered bullying a normal part of school life.
  • » 20-50 per cent said bullying can be a good thing (makes people tougher, is a good way to solve problems, etc.).
  • » 25-33 per cent said bullying is sometimes OK and/or that it is OK to pick on losers.
  • » 61-80 per cent said bullies are often popular and enjoy high status among their peers.

(Source: Centre For Youth Social Development, UBC Faculty of Education)

The core problem here is that bullying is very rarely, if ever, witnessed by a teacher. This means that even as a child is lying in a hospital bed, the only real ‘evidence’ anyone has to go on is a bully’s story versus a victim’s story. The school board “business heads” send a mandate down to the schools telling them that they can do nothing. They can’t make any statements, they can’t hand out any punishments. The most they can do is “investigate” which is to say, ask around and see if anyone else saw anything but none of that circumstantial hear-say really holds any weight either way anyway.

And so this becomes school yard bullying. A “normal part of school life” where both victims and the parents of the victims are powerless to stop or prevent it.

This is very similar to another phenomenon happening within hospitals around the world where doctors are having their hands tied while their administrators are forced to make decisions based on funding and stature. For example, several times in the past we’ve seen doctors refuse to do life saving procedures on good people with special needs based solely on the fact that they do have special needs and therefore, do not merit having their life saved versus someone else that might need the same procedure and does not have “anything wrong with them.”

Don’t believe that happens? I’ve written about it before.

A teacher that does nothing to stop bullying because of the rules from their administrators is in the exact same position as a doctor that does nothing to help save someone’s life because of their administrators. I don’t blame them… sort of.

Still though, I’m reminded of something that John Stuart Mill once said:

Bad men need nothing more to compass their ends, than that good men should look on and do nothing.

I sit and watch as parent after parent on social media cries out for justice, that the bully be charged, expelled or much much worse. (“if it was my child that he did that too…“)
But nothing is done. Nothing will be done. Schools will continue to sit on their hands, unable to make statements, unable to stop it.

To the teachers, counsellors, principals and everyone else involved at the school level, please help us.

I get it. The administrators sitting at the top, they won’t let you do anything. But I’m calling on you to do something anyway.
This has to stop. Now.
And the schools are holding all the cards to do that.

Until the schools all step up to do something more than assemblies or “anti-bullying awareness campaigns”, this will continue to get worse and worse.

Maybe the school board tells you no. Maybe you will get fired for it.
But do something anyway. Because the next child to fall victim might be yours.

If the person that did the bullying is not to be blamed, then surely those that stood around and did nothing about it are.

When it’s a man and a woman and even when it’s a man and another man, this is abuse. But when it’s two children, it’s bullying.
We must stop looking at this way. Abuse is abuse. A human life is a human life. Let’s stop trying to make it sound like it’s not important just because it’s between children.

If a teacher can’t get away with breaking the skull of another teacher without consequences then a student should not be able to do it to another student.

Stop saying “just bullying” and let’s call it what it is. Abuse.
And let’s start treating it as such.

 

For more heart breaking statistics and information, please visit http://www.stopabully.ca/bullying-statistics.html

Einstein Quote

Comments { 6 }

Dear HP, I have a proposal for you

I have an idea for HP and their TouchPads, but first…

First, a bit of back story

HP-Touchpad-TabletRecently, HP found that their sales of the TouchPad tablet were less than satisfactory and decided to scrap the whole project. Not just the tablets, but their entire computer making efforts… computers, tablets.. the works. To prove their point, they dropped the price of the TouchPad from $399 to just $99 to get them out of the stores.

Not only did they go out of the stores, they left burning trails behind them (you know, because they left so fast). People scrambled like mad to get themselves some discount technology.

As a result of that, plus, some rumours of a need to use up remaining inventory and parts and such… HP announced just a couple weeks later that they’d make some more TouchPads for sale in the last part of this year.

My Proposition

One would assume that HP is going to be selling these for $399, or at the very least, higher than $99. They can’t possibly be intending to run all this manufacturing to churn out tablets that will make less money than it costs to make.

If that’s true, and keep in mind, I have no background in business or marketing or anything but, wouldn’t that be some really bad business thinking? To take a tablet that couldn’t sell, drop the price insanely low so that the people that did want one got it… and then to put more out there right back at the same price that they were before and didn’t sell?

My idea is this… donate them to special needs programs/schools. Or at the very least, sell it to them at a great discount.

Did you know that Apple used to market their computers to schools? They even donated (and still do) old computers that were used or no longer current to schools that could use them.

Not only is it great for public image, not only is it great for the company (donations are always beneficial) but when you think about it, how brilliant is it?

Well, think about all of those students using those machines for several years… when they need something similar at home, what are they going to use? When they graduate and need to use a computer.. what will they want to use?

Granted, that’s not really the focus for HP since WebOS probably won’t be around much longer nor will HP’s computer/tablet devices. But still, the idea is sound.

Special Needs schools, teachers and students need your help

Special needs schools have very little funding… certainly less than colleges. There is simply never enough money to get all of the supplies they need, sometimes they even can’t take as many children as they’d like.

And if there’s anything we’ve learned since the release of the iPad, special needs children can work miracles on a tablet!

They learn quicker, more easily and generally have more fun doing it when they have a device that they can touch and interact with.

I believe the number of apps on the iPad makes it the best choice but not the only choice. Any tablet would work.

If a school was given tablets, they could even hire developers to make what they need… since they could divert some funds from other supplies which would no longer be needed due to the tablets.

Please consider it

You’d be helping the special needs, helping the future and best of all, putting these devices to the best possible use they could ever have.

Don’t put them on a shelf where they’ll sit until you’re forced to drop the price again.

I’m not asking for me, I don’t need one. I’m asking for the community, for many communities… for the future.

Do something really great with this. It’s your moment to really shine.

 

If you work at or are involved with HP, thank you for reading.
If not, can you help me in getting this message to HP? I’d like for them to at least consider it. Thank you! 

Comments { 2 }