Student commits suicide after school refuses to do anything about bullying

[RaikuFA]

I'm glad people are discussing this. Last time this happened, people pretty much ignored it.

 

[Saelune]

I have nothing to contribute but i just wanted to say i fully enjoyed reading your rants in this thread.

Glad to entertain. I fully enjoy your lack of meaningful contribution either. Bullies bully because they get away with it. Pretty timeless, teachers being unnecessarily hamstrung by bureaucracy only means the bullying continues. People can say they're on the side of bullied kids but that rarely seems to correlate to schools and teachers having more powers to stop it. Merely pick up the pieces.

Less ranty, for you?

I want to add, that I also think Teachers should actually be able to do something, when I say teachers should do something.

I don't think being physically aggressive with students who simply underperform is ok, but if a teacher just straight up lifted a bully tormenting me and yelled at them to stop while doing so...Id be glad for the teacher's actions, even if the bully's parents wouldn't.

I do see that bullies seem to be getting more protection than anyone. Its why I disagree with "zero tolerance" policies. I don't remember if I brought it up here or not, but one bully pushed me to the point that I threw my textbook at him then basically jumped on him. While the principal did say that clearly the bully was a bully, I still got the same punishment as he. (Week's detention) Had it been a more severe one, Id be very pissed off.

I also remember a news report of a student who was bullied, took a gun to school, shot his bully...and stopped. He didn't shoot up the whole school, he didn't shoot anyone but the bully. The school hadn't done anything to stop the bullying, and its a shame it got to that point, but I hope he got off scot free. The bully survived, but I hope he is thankful for his life as he likely did physical therapy. Its a dark thing to feel, but here we are. (Wish I could find the article, but it was from awhile back)

 

[Addendum_Forthcoming]

"I gave up,"
"The teachers . . . they didn't do anything,"

Downright insulting indeed. It's like you ignored the words of the child involved to make a strawman about policing the world. It's kind of a new low strawmanning dead kids, huh? Did they teach you that move when studying for your qualification? I'm sure it did extend to the internet too. And that's bad. But there are ways of dealing with bullies in schools, and there are ways of helping suicidal 13 year olds. There's even ways of *gasp* educating kids not to be cunts.

It's almost as if you ignored both my post, the person I wrote to, and the article itself. 'Downright insulting' fits. For starters, pray tell. How can you educate kids to not be cunts? The number of kids who commit suicide are nothing resembling the total number of kids who are bullied. Moreover, what do you expect a teacher to do if a child is being ostracised? You should, absolutely, police against physical bullying ... but when it goes to the realm of ostracism... unless you have proof it's incredibly hard to act on.

All of which competent teachers are trained in. I know teachers too. It's my mother's career. She's worked in schools, in special ed, and as a support teaching dealing with disabled or problem children. I've worked as a teacher's aide. It is absolutely a part of a teacher's training and professional responsibility to ensure something like this doesn't happen.

Teachers are meant to stop bullying. And frankly, special needs is a league different from the public school I taught in. For starters, we were a dumping ground for a whole lot of kids from elsewhere. The worst offenders were dumped in 'IM'. For which we were eager to thin out where possible Yr. 9 and up. Because you can't just force kids to go special needs, nor their parents to consider it.

Tell me, what do you expect your average high school teacher to do about the most likely incident of bullying... the ones which they don't see? Apart from refer the student to talking to the year co-ord, that is... After that, aside from a sympathetic ear, or perhaps talking to the counsellor yourself about why a kid seems unusually depressed or disconnected, what can you do about all the stuff you're not there for? Thing is ... unless you have a piece of paper with direct information from the school concerning the status of some child, how is a teacher magically supposed to deal with the unknown if it's unseen?

Suicidal ideation is something that occurs over prolonged periods of mental instability. If a student seems depressed and you as a teacher see it everyday... the natural response is; "Yeah, yoj should act!" But if you have no notice from above, nor any immediate signs of danger, sometimes that depression will naturally get written up as; "Regular teenage despondency..."

You can tell the parents. You can't make kids to be naturally nice to eachother. You can keep the peace, but niceties isn't realistic.

A lot of teachers have it hard, and a lot of parents are really shit. Really shit. Teachers are also inveterate whiners however, so take their complaints with a grain of salt. The amount of them who feel they have the hardest job imaginable beggars belief. I'm serious, it can be a stressful job at times, parents in particular are nasty to deal with, and it's as subject to workplace nonsense as any other, but teachers are very vocal about their complaining. But yeah shit parents do exist. They're fucking awful, and some of them are violent and intimidating. Those harassing phone calls aren't fun. Neither is it when the drunk Dad comes in to talk before school about their kids grade. But you know what? Fuck it. If that parent wants to stalk the teacher, harass them, maybe even assault them, fuck it. It's probably on the internet anyway. Even the police should do nothing. They can feel small and alone, with no way out, victimised by someone who's fucked up. Who gives a fuck? It's beyond the powers of the police, of society to mitigate it. It's not possible. Some teachers are just going to kill themselves. Some parents are just going to bully.

That's just the thing. You can't make a parent not harass them *without proof*. One teacher resorted to going to the courts because the police said it didn't justify anything more than cautioning. Thing is... plenty of us get bullied in our daily lives and it doesn't ever cross a line where police can act or for which corporate regs do not see it crossing a boundary. Parents tend to kick it up a notch. Your rambling diatribe tends to ignore the living reality of those both in and out of the system.

One co-worker (pre government service, mind) spread the rumour someone was looking to get pregnant because they were a rival for the same position. I sent anonymously a complaint about him and fortunately others came forward, too, with complaints. He got the axe when it was uncovered he did other stuff to sabotage other people's chances of promotion. Like, really disgusting stuff. Ringing up people repeatedly at night, and defacing their car. Just to pile on the stress and cause someone endless strife while pretending to be their friend. That happens in adult life. And for the most part it's invisible to police, invisible to all ... it only comes out when someone stops regularly coming into work. Looks ragged and unkempt when they do. They start snapping at people and become downright unpleasant to work with (at no fault of their own). And the psychopath's sabotage is complete.

That happens to adults... and police are largely powerless to stop it, also.

You'd never accept that logic for a teacher. So don't suggest it for a child. A lot of teachers can stand to do with more professional development, schools in general often need more dedicated support teachers and programs, and teachers should be competent enough at their jobs to realise that the overweight kid who's been repeatedly bullied and come to you about it is at risk. It is literally part of their job and their training. They don't have to deal with him, they just have to refer him on to the existing support staff. And failing in that is failing in their duty of care. Obviously the biggest problem is a lack of sufficiently trained teachers, and part of that is retention, and most of that is on shitty schools with problem students who haven't been dealt with, which are underfunded. With a little bit of money, and a long term plan to de-cuntify the student body, you can see an improvement, even in the public schooling sector.

Which won't be a thing while they keep increasing class sizes, increasing reliance on casual teachers. Teachers are plenty trained to teach, already. Better training that realistically reflects the moder classroom is only beneficial if we assume thr modern high school classroom of 25+ pupils is beneficial to begin with.

Teachers are skilled enough to handle a classroom as it should be. But regardless, additional training to manage the increase student to teacher ratio is the wrong path to begin with. The system, not the teachers, needs change.

We don't need an Orwellian surveillance state to do this...

Which is not the argument I made, and you know it.

I said we have to accept bullying will happen. The point is we need to find ways to stop it... not merely pick up the pieces or pretending nobody will be bullied.

 

[RaikuFA]

I also remember a news report of a student who was bullied, took a gun to school, shot his bully...and stopped. He didn't shoot up the whole school, he didn't shoot anyone but the bully. The school hadn't done anything to stop the bullying, and its a shame it got to that point, but I hope he got off scot free. The bully survived, but I hope he is thankful for his life as he likely did physical therapy. Its a dark thing to feel, but here we are. (Wish I could find the article, but it was from awhile back)

I remember this too. I didn't know the bully survived but I now know. I hope he's grateful he gets to live out his life knowing the consequences of his actions. I also hope he wasn't shot somewhere where he can't become a productive member of society.