I’m sorry but ‘soul searching’ isn’t going to be sufficient in this case:
The suicide of a 13-year-old boy in southern Japan after classmates systematically bullied him — even making him “practice” suicide — while teachers ignored the abuse or laughed has prompted soul-searching among educators across the country.
One of the boy’s last acts was to text his tormentors and leave voice mails for them to say, “I’m going to die.” They texted him back to say, “You should die.”
The middle school student, whose name has not been released, jumped from his 14th floor apartment in the city of Otsu last October after enduring heartrending tales of abuse at the hands of his classmates.
His father filed several reports with the police, but officers never accepted them, saying that they could not prove that bullying led to his suicide, according to Japanese media reports.
Details of the harassment are coming to light eight months later, following a student survey conducted by the city’s board of education. In that anonymous survey, students write the bullying escalated to “punching and kicking” in September last year, about a month before the teen jumped to his death. The victim was pressured into shoplifting, had his legs and arms tied while bullies duck-taped his mouth. Students watched as their peers pressured the teen into eating dead bees, “pantsed” him, and made him “practice” committing suicide.
In the survey, some classmates report alerting teachers to those “practices,” but say nothing was done.
Instead, teachers reportedly laughed as bullies tried to choke the victim.
Any teacher found to be laughing needs to be sacked immediately. Those who texted back to the boy on the night of his suicide should be expelled.
There is a place for “soul-searching”. This however, is a time for action.
Click here to find out what happened next in this tragic saga.
I am a supporter of school uniform but not because of this crazy theory that a uniform will markedly reduce bullying. Tackling bullying can only be successful if you tackle the cause, not the superficial aspects such as this.
Any child prepared to bully another over what they wear will more than gladly move on to other areas of bullying such as weight, appearance etc.
Still, with bullying, schools are often content with giving the impression of dealing with the problem, rather than actually doing something constructive:
Some Abbotsford parents are hoping school uniforms will eliminate the battle of brand-name clothing and the bullying that goes along with it.
Eugene Reimer Middle School and Dave Kandal Elementary School are introducing school “dress codes” in September – they’ll be the seventh and eighth to implement uniforms out of 48 schools in the Abbotsford School District.
“Some families can’t afford to buy expensive stuff, like when kids are coming to school wearing Nike out-fits and expensive brands and other kids feel left out and other kids feel teased, so it’s good – now kids will feel equal,” Manpreet Badwal, whose seven-and eight-year-old daughters attend Dave Kandal, said Wednesday.
“There’s a lot of bullying going on in schools, so this will maybe help.
The school probably thinks the saga has ended. It hasn’t. This story was not just about 4 students bullying a bus monitor. This story highlighted the school’s own challenges in addressing a culture that resulted in a person being bullied in public with not one objection from any of the bystanders.
The Greece Central School district said that the four unnamed students will transfer to an alternative education program within the district to keep up their academic progress, and will be allowed to reapply to middle school after their complete the discipline. They released a long statement about the situation, but here’s the important part:
Rarely are school districts able to announce the exact discipline students receive for violations of the Code of Conduct. It was possible in this case because each of the students involved admitted to wrongdoing, accepted the recommended consequences and agreed to permit the district to publicly release the terms of their disciplinary action.
He’s been pushed down a ski hill, jumped, beaten and pounded so hard that he’s suffered three concussions.
He’s been bullied so badly over the years that he’s twice threatened suicide.
Yet the expelled teen who’s made Fraser Sutherland’s life a living hell is being allowed back into his high school next year. And administrators have told the 15-year-old victim to suck it up and forgive his “reformed” tormentor – or find somewhere else to go in September.
“I shouldn’t have to leave the school when I didn’t do anything wrong. I believe the person that is doing the harm should leave,” said Fraser, who’s just finished Grade 10 at St. Brother Andre Catholic School in Markham, Ont.
“What we’re fearing is this individual is going to come back to finish the job,” his angry dad, Kirk, said. “What’s it going to take? Does he have to be left lying in a puddle of blood in the school bathroom?”
“Suck it up … or find somewhere else to go?” I hope that line isn’t accurate.
You are talking to a child that had to endure terrible hardships at your school due to one of your students – show some respect!
When a nasty Facebook page that invites children to bully others is “flooded” by students of a particular school, isolated punishments is not enough. The most important step in this circumstance is to investigate the school’s culture and ask the following question:
Why, with all the awareness about bullying, are our students engaged in spreading rumours and making sexual taunts?
GEELONG students have flooded a Facebook page built to spread sexual taunts, rumour and nasty gossip.
The page victimising students from years 7 to 12 at Oberon High School features swags of hurtful, bullying comments.
A parent said she became distressed after stumbling across the Facebook page earlier this week.
She said her child had been bullied at the school and she feared others would suffer emotional and social effects similar to her child.
“When I got on to the page and I just felt totally disgusted and really horrible because half of the kids on this page I know and you couldn’t get sweeter kids,” the woman, who asked for her identity to be withheld, said.
“They’re the kids that won’t speak up and say this is wrong so somebody has too.
“These types of things can have serious effects on kids.”
Oberon High School is investigating the page with acting principal Elizabeth Kelly saying the school, which was made aware of it on Tuesday, was in the process of speaking with students.
I am glad that the school has not washed their hands of this incident. They have a lot of work to do.
I have just watched the second installment of the How toUnmake a Bully trilogy with my students. The second film focusses on the topical issue of Bystanders. It has always been difficult for teachers to motivate bystanders to act. The standard anti-bullying programs and resources don’t measure up to this brilliant piece of film-making.
It only took twelve days for teacher Mike Feurstein and a cast of elementary students from Glendaal Elementary School to shoot this movie. From the extraordinary shot of a child with cafeteria tray in hand being rejected from every table he tries to sit at to the chilling scene where a bystander gets the courage to speak out against a bully, this film speaks to children in a way other resources fail to.
I watched the film with my students and they were enthralled, They even gave it a standing ovation during the closing credits. This is a tribute to Mike’s well drawn characters and his use of comic and superhero references. The idea that children have the very same super powers they pretend to posses during role play situations is a stroke of genius.
Here is a movie that is perceptive, knowing, vibrant, beautifully constructed and shot and will get your students reflecting about their experiences, behaviour and future choices. Throw away your old tired resources and bring these films into your classroom.
(I suggest you show them the first film in the series, How to Unmake a Bully, before you show them Bystanders – How to UnMake A Bully, Volume 2 ).
I can’t believe the rhetoric I have read about the money Karen Klein is earning from donations. So what? Generous people were so outraged by what they witnessed on that clip that they donated money. Get over it!
This story was never really about a bus monitor anyway. The. Klein case merely exemplified some very big bullying related issues – namely, the lack of respect many children have for adults, the lack of empathy for a person who is clearly being hurt, the influence of a group in regards to peer pressure and the passive behaviour from bystanders.
An elderly bus monitor who was taunted, picked on and threatened by a quartet of ruthless seventh-graders is likely going to retire on the $586,000 she has so far received in donations from concerned strangers who were outraged after viewing a video that captured her torment.
‘She is definitely surprised and overwhelmed and certainly thankful for everyone’s support, and it is nice knowing she is not alone,’ Karen Huff Klein’s daughter, Amanda Romig, told RadarOnline.com on Friday.
‘We never thought it was going to be that much, she didn’t think that much – then wow!’ Romig added, saying that her 68-year-old mother is not likely to return to work.
Click here on my post which discussed the need to punish the middle school children involved.
I hope the generous people who helped secure this donation together with the many other people who were shocked and angered by the clip, now focus their energies on ensuring that their children never treat people like those middle school children treated Ms. Klein.
Excuses, excuses, excuses. Young bullies may be acting out due to their own “need for a sense of significance and belonging“, but they have to accept responsibility for their actions. The children who bullied their school bus monitor acted completely inappropriately and deserve far more than “positive discipline”:
The New York middle school students caught on video taunting and mocking a 68-year-old school bus monitor don’t deserve to be punished, says parenting expert Jane Nelson.
Everyone else in America might be calling for harsh, swift justice to be meted out by both the Greece Central School District and the parents of the kids involved. But not Nelson.
Co-author of two dozen parenting books including the “Positive Discipline” series, Nelson says the traditional means of punishment — yelling, shaming, hitting, grounding, etc. — are counterproductive.
“I think to go after these kids in a punitive way, it just doesn’t help,” she said. Nelson knows that the vast majority of parents will scoff both at that notion — and at her belief that the young bullies are merely acting out due to their own “need for a sense of significance and belonging.”
I’m sick of reading excuses for why a bus full of middle school children acted in a most deplorable way to their bus monitor. There are no excuses for such vile behavior. I don’t care what age you are, you have a responsibility to be a good citizen and decent person. It sickens me to see a pack bullying situation where a soft target is exposed and then tormented without any resistance whatsoever.
Explanations like this are both unhelpful and insensitive to poor bus monitor, Karen Klein:
When kids reach middle school, bullying becomes more common and more sophisticated, experts says.
“Middle school-age kids are sort of an age group that is notorious for an uptick in the intensity of bullying,” said Dr. Gail Saltz, a psychiatrist in New York and TODAY contributor.
During the middle school years, kids are facing intense peer pressure, the pack mentality is strong and kids feel a growing sense of independence – all while their moral compasses are still developing, she said.
“It’s a time when they’re figuring out who they are by sometimes crossing the line and breaking the rules,” Saltz says. “Their insecurity drives a lot of cliquishness and defining themselves as better by making someone else feel worse.”
Don’t even try to excuse this behaviour in any way based on the age of the perpetrators. This is a culture problem. The parents of these children need to do as much soul-searching as the children themselves.
I am saddened to hear about the families of the students getting death threats. What kind of response is that? What is the sense in dealing with bullying by continuing the chain of bullying? This is isn’t even about a bus full of children. This has even wider implications.
Middle school children worldwide should be put on notice. No more excuses. I don’t care how old you are. It’s time to grow up and treat others with respect!
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