Father Pickets School Over His Son's "Bullying"

[judiz]

Bullying can start so early, I teach Pre-K and last year I had a little girl in my class who is well on her way to becoming a bully. She use to hit children for no reason, spit at them, tease them etc. Whenever i spoke to her parents about it, her mom use to roll her eyes and say she didn't know what to do, the dad just laughed and said he was the same way as a child.

[PDilemma]

Just out of curiosity, do you think he lied to the girl that no one had told him he was behind? He truly believed no one had told him because it really didn't register with him? He never said anything one way or the other to the girl about being informed and she just assumed?

He lied to the whole class. This was a very small school. Just like the kid the other poster wrote about, he frequently lied blatantly in front of teachers about his grades--that he was getting passing grades in spite of not doing the work other kids were doing. Teachers and school employees are not allowed to reveal a student's grades, credits or any other record to other students or parents of other students. There are strict privacy laws. (Example...my brother had to sign a permission form for me to be able to talk to my nephew's teachers, attend parent-teacher conferences, etc...which I do when he is not available as he is a single parent who often travels for work).

As for the kid I taught, I was in some of the meetings. He knew he wasn't on track to graduate. He expressed in one meeting the fall of his "senior" year (chronologically a senior, not in credits) that he would just continue to work his fast food job and they would let him be a manager as soon as he was 18. Of course, management training requires a diploma or GED. His parents were a mess. The counselor and principal truly tried to do all they could to help this kid find a way to make it through. He was allowed back the following fall on an independent study basis for free (in a private tuition based school) to complete senior coursework in English (which I taught) and one other subject and given permission to use the school computer lab to complete online coursework. He showed up twice.

(And this was all maybe nine years ago...if it were last week I wouldn't talk about it here at all).

[MacMadame]

They did not see themselves doing anything wrong; they tried to justify it saying the victim deserved it and they had the right to enforce punishment!

That's pretty common actually. I had people tell me that it was my own fault I was bullied because my personality made me a perfect target and I was weird. (Except they didn't say it like that but that's what it came down to.)

I even had adults tell me that. Not in a horrible way. They were trying to help. They could see things I was doing that made me a target. Heck, I could see sometimes that I was making myself a target. But I couldn't stop thinking and feeling about life differently than my classmates and, as hard as I tried, I couldn't stop being sensitive and reacting in a way that made bullying me rewarding. And I really shouldn't have had to...

The thing is, kids who are bullied often are weird/different/sensitive. So bullying them is rewarding. Otherwise the bullies would move on to other targets. But that doesn't make it okay to bully them or mean that the answer is for the victim to change who they are. If you are sensitive, or effeminate (for a boy) or a bit butch (for a girl) or you are liberal in a conservative town (or conservative in a liberal town) or like school when it's not fashionable or can't afford fashionable clothes or whatever it is that you are doing or being that makes you a rewarding target, too bad. It's still the bully who is doing something wrong and should be stopped.

This kid hardly ever does homework, just wrote his name on his final exam, yet bragged about passing all his classes. My son works hard to make decent grades and this only goes to show him that you don't really need to do anything and you can still pass (his thoughts). I think the teachers just want these kids to move on and not have to deal with them.

In Elementary School, they have found that holding kids back doesn't help them in the long run so it's not fashionable to do so. (Even though I don't think just passing them on works either.) But that doesn't mean this kid is passing his classes or getting away with anything. You can't take a kids' word for it as PDilemma has pointed out with her example.

[PeterG]

Negative Amanda Todd post costs man his job

Christine Claveau was looking at a site when she saw what she thought was a particularly hateful anonymous post.

She said the comment read, "It's about time this bitch died."

Claveau said she tracked down the identity of the sender in Toronto and forwarded a note to his employer, the retail store Mr. Big and Tall.

The man was fired.

I'm wondering how others feel about this. Is it appropriate to alert someone's employer about something they said annonymously online? Is it right for an employer to fire someone for something they did outside of work?

Quote of the CEO who runs the business that owns Big and Tall:

McGregor said the company's ethics are based on tolerance, respect and fair and honourable treatment of all individuals, internally, with customers and the population as a whole.

Backlash for the woman who alerted the man's employer:

Claveau said she has received a lot of response to what happened — most of it positive but some of it negative.

"You can't please everybody, so I'm getting a lot of people saying I was the bully in the matter, or it wasn't right to contact his employer. So I'm getting a little bit of negative backlash."

I was happy to read about this. I have a bit of a vigilante thing inside of me which I wonder is something I should be concerned about rather than proud of. Interested to hear what others have to say about this.

[TheGirlCanSkate]

I think you have to be willing to stand by what you write online. Being called out can be embarrassing but it also makes you think a little more deeply.

I do think that if the company has ethics that you agree to abide, that you should be held accountable.

If this is the first the employee has heard of it, then guidance may have been more powerful in the long term.

What is tragic is that she was tormented by someone who has been anonymous, and it continues even after she died.

[Really]

One of the things we try to pound home to our students is that online actions can have offline consequences, that you *are* what you put online, and don't ever count on anything you put online being completely private.

[Karina1974]

One of the things we try to pound home to our students is that online actions can have offline consequences, that you *are* what you put online, and don't ever count on anything you put online being completely private.

I had to remind one of my Facebook friends that my FB, as well as my blog, are Friends-Only for a reason, and that whatever I post on my wall, unless it specifically concerns or is about them, is NOT to become fodder for discussions, and will permanently block anyone who doesn't respect my wishes in that regard. This was after she admitted discussing (with someone else who was there) a post I had written about a contra dance I had gone to on Sunday where I was not at all happy with certain things the caller (who I did not name) had said during the course of the event (I'm not the only, or first, person who has pointed out his lack of tact). I told her I was only fine with it just as long as she had left my name out of the conversation.

I also have a disclaimer on Live Journal that my blog is a debate-free zone, and ONLY I have any right to "call the shots on what gets posted, commented on, saved, and deleted. I am also not averse to weeding out people who don't like what I write, how I write it, or how my blog and the posts on it are formatted. I don't write for the "people" - I write only for myself. If anyone doesn't want to accept that, they know where the door is..."

[PDilemma]

I had to remind one of my Facebook friends that my FB, as well as my blog, are Friends-Only for a reason, and that whatever I post on my wall, unless it specifically concerns or is about them, is NOT to become fodder for discussions, and will permanently block anyone who doesn't respect my wishes in that regard. This was after she admitted discussing (with someone else who was there) a post I had written about a contra dance I had gone to on Sunday where I was not at all happy with certain things the caller had said during the course of the event (I'm not the only, or first, person who has pointed out his lack of tact).

I also have a disclaimer on Live Journal that my blog is a debate-free zone, and ONLY I have any right to "call the shots on what gets posted, commented on, saved, and deleted. I am also not averse to weeding out people who don't like what I write, how I write it, or how my blog and the posts on it are formatted. I don't write for the "people" - I write only for myself. If anyone doesn't want to accept that, they know where the door is..."

If you don't want someone else talking about what you post, then don't post it. And if your LJ is only for yourself, you need to set the entries to private so that you are the only one who sees them, or give up LJ, open a Word doc or grab a pen and notebook and journal privately. When you make stuff available to anyone online--even friends only--then it is out there for them to read, talk about and interact with.

[Karina1974]

If you don't want someone else talking about what you post, then don't post it. And if your LJ is only for yourself, you need to set the entries to private so that you are the only one who sees them, or give up LJ, open a Word doc or grab a pen and notebook and journal privately. When you make stuff available to anyone online--even friends only--then it is out there for them to read, talk about and interact with.

FYI, my LJ IS private, all of my entries are restricted minimum to Friends Only, and I only have 6 people on my Friends list for that, and none of them are from my real life circle, although two of them are on FB with me.

I'm not too worried about what happened on Facebook. Like I said, I'm not the first person who's had less-than-positive things to say about this particular dance caller, and I have heard other people say that "well, if he's calling than I'm not coming." I highly doubt the scouts from the major folk music and dance festivals in the region (or elsewhere) will be courting him any time soon.