- In Texas at least one parent is accusing a football team of being bullies. These damn jocks were bullying his nerdy kid. They were giving him wet willies and nuggies and swirlies....wait what? That wasn't the case? It was because a football team beat your football team 91-0? Well shut up and stop being a pussy. That is not bullying. I've always said if I can beat a team by 100 points I would and if a team can beat me by 100 points they should. It is about playing the best you can and feelings be damned.
- This brings me to a brief rant on bullying. When did it become that everything that is done to anyone is bullying? People are bullying people....to death. I'm sorry but I don't buy it. The bullying didn't cause someone to kill themselves. Did it contribute to it...you bet! Is it wrong....no doubt. But bullying has been around since the beginning of time and it will be till the end of time. You can't stop it, its like emptying the sea with a spoon. Can you try to stop it, of course. But charging kids, yes kids, with murder because they bullied someone and said they should kill themselves is wrong. How many times have you said "I could just kill you for that." or "do that one more time and I'll kill you." Does that mean you actually want them dead? And even if you did when is that illegal? There are a lot of people that I wouldn't mind seeing dead can I be held responsible for it? This is not a popular opinion but quite frankly I don't care. Bullying isn't the issue it is the fact that we are continually weakening our children mentally. We have made a generation of babies. He yelled at me it is hostile. They beat me and it made me feel bad. Well you should feel bad if you're beat because they are better then you are. Why did he yell at me...oh because I'm not doing what I'm suppose to be doing. We are a bunch of pussies anymore and it drives me crazy.
- Two years ago when all the Occupy Wallstreet stuff was going on, and that had some staying power huh....some security guard pepper sprayed a bunch of protesters. Well he got 38k in workmans comp because of his mental anguish from death threats. People are upset about this. I don't know why they are upset. If he could prove that that is what workmans comp is for. It isn't if you agree with the things he did. Also for the record I don't disagree with what he did if they were told they were on private property and that they needed to leave.
- When will this country do something about the gun violence in this country. A middle school shooting...really? Fuck me.
- On CNN they have an article on if taking a kid to Sea World is a good thing or not. Why? Because it could teach kids that humans dominate animals. Really? REALLY! FUCK YOU! I hate shit like this.
- This goes to my bullying stuff. Enough people. Let the kids be kids. Let them pick on each other. Let them go to zoos and water parks and play dodgeball and cops and robbers and fall down and hurt themselves.
Okay I have to actually go work and get pissed off there instead of here on the internet. Until next time!
ABYSSINIA!
1 comment:
Amusingly, my Master's Project is on how to use Language Arts curriculum to address bullying at the same time as it is teaching English.
I came by this idea while teaching a middle school reading class.
There was the huge anti-bullying program already in place there, and now the office was being flooded by kids with bullying complaints that were too many to be dealt with.
Consequently, the kids felt they weren't being heard, and were even more frustrated because the school set it up like something that they cared about, but then didn't follow through. Kids hate that crap. They can spot hypocrisy from a mile away, and they will call you on it.
One kid was getting harassed,stalked, and intimidated by another kid who was threatening to beat the ever living shit out of him because he was bisexual and therefore an abomination against nature.
For some reason, all the kids were coming to me. They said their other teachers just ignored what was going on so long as it didn't interfere during their lessons. I, on the other hand, being the kind of teacher that I am, just made it part of my lessons. You take what kids are most interested in, or what they can best relate to, and you stick it in the lessons.
We were reading To Kill a Mockingbird, and it has all kinds of material that relates back to judging other people before you even get to know them. So that year they learned their English, and they learned a thing or two about bullying, I like to think (the real kind and not just the baby stuff.
And then one day toward the end of the year, the kid who'd been picked on for being gay came up to me and said that when I'd given him the part of Boo Radley in our reader's theater, and then given the part of Atticus Finch to the guy who'd been bullying him, he was secretly scared about what else might happen to him.
"And you know what happened, Ms Hockin?" he asked.
"What?"
"He went on my facebook last night and apologized to me, and said now that he'd walked around in my shoes, he's really sorry for the things that he did that made me feel so bad." Then he needlessly stage-whispered that the "walk in someone else's shoes" line came from the novel, which I have practically memorized.
Anyway, that's what I did about bullying when I had the chance, and that was just one result.
I DO think the problem is getting too much negative attention, like some sort of real-life version of "Heathers," but I also think that it's how the schools handle it that makes it so ridiculous. They're sticking band-aids all over open wounds with these anti-bullying programs, big and small alike, and not addressing the root problem, which is society's insistence that all men not only be created equal, but that "equal" means "Like Me."
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