Istvan said:
Torrasque said:
As for anyone who says that bullies can only be stopped by being bullied, shame on you. Revenge solves nothing, and you can't fix hate and intolerance with more hate and intolerance.
Bullies gain amusement and respect form the tyranny they can force upon others. If they can do this for free indefinitely they will. In my experience the only thing that will grant the victim security is by establishing that violence will be met by violence.
OT: I don't think this is the best way of handling it, the teacher may be hard pressed to be certain about what's going on and I'd hate to think what might happen if the individual in question turned out to be innocent.
Really, you're comparing not hitting a bully to appeasement of the Nazis?
Last time I checked, toddlers weren't on the verge of systematic genocide and invasion.
I mean for gods sake, a lot of kids at that age aren't aware that other people are even people, they aren't aware of morality or consequence, how good of an induction to their start in "the real world" (by that I mean starting to interact with other people than your parents) is being cracked open like a pinata, for all he knows, he did nothing wrong, and nobody explained what he did wrong, the person who was supposed to be supervising them just ordered the class to mob him.
Maybe if it was explained to him that his actions were hurtful to others then he'd even feel very upset about it, but as you said, causing him unexplained pain and promoting a culture of violence and revenge is the best way.