Posts Tagged ‘Bullying’

Teacher Allegedly Encourages Students to Spit on Classmate

October 22, 2012

 

This is yet another example of the failing of our teacher training program. All the theory in the world don’t prepare a teacher for managing the practical, everyday challenges of the classroom. Our young teachers need to be prepared for testing scenarios and need to deal with them with a greater presence of mind than is alleged in this incident:

A Shenandoah, Iowa elementary music teacher has been placed on administrative leave following an alleged incident in which the instructor encouraged her students to spit at a peer.

Alex Kindopp tells KETV that it all started when her 9-year-old son Jaxon did a “raspberry,” or sticking his tongue out and blubbering, at a classmate. Spotting him, the Shenandoah Elementary music teacher reportedly asked the boy how he would feel if others did the same to him.

Everyone gathered around me and she said, ‘Ladies and gentlemen, spit away,’” Jaxon told KETV. The instruction prompted his classmates to surround him and spit on his face and shoulders, the boy said.

Worried that his classmates’ excretions would get in his mouth, Jaxon lowered and covered his head with his arms, he told KCRG. The teacher then reportedly asked, “Why are you covering your head? I thought you liked being spit on?”

Kindopp tells KETV that her son now has trust issues and according to the World-Herald News Service, has since become sick and was placed on an antibiotic. The family is also reportedly moving to Arizona.

“It’s degrading, humiliating, very unsanitary,” the mother told KETV. “If someone does this, what else are people capable of?”

 

Click on the link to read Should Teachers Be Allowed to go to the Beach?

Click on the link to read Student Takes the Fall for Teacher’s Incompetence

Click on the link to read Let’s Just Scrap ‘Teacher of the Year’ Awards

Click on the link to read Useful Resources to Assist in Behavioural Management

Click on the link to read When Something Doesn’t Work – Try Again Until it Does

More Graphic School “Fight Club” Videos Released (Video)

September 7, 2012

Click here to watch the video

The level of violence from school aged children is a real cause for concern:

A high school has been forced to take action after discovering students had uploaded violent videos to YouTube and Facebook of classmates taking part in planned brawls.

The videos, filmed on mobile phones, show large cheering crowds gathering around male pupils as they attack each other in brutal fights over girls and to gain respect.

When a concerned parent anonymously emailed the administration of Lindbergh High School in St. Louis, Missouri to alert them of the dangerous trend, officials immediately swooped into action.

They discovered at least half a dozen videos, each labelled with the names of the two boys taking part, which showed students landing heavy punches and head butts on their opponents.Staff contacted YouTube and the website pulled the violent videos. A Facebook page entitled ‘Lindbergh Fights’, which had more than 120 fans, has also been closed down.

Students told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch that the fights, which had been taking place for around a month, were usually about girls but sometimes for status.As many as 40 students attended the fights after learning about them through word-of-mouth, they said.

The school has yet to rule whether it will discipline the students – a tough call as none of the fights took place on school property or during school hours, and they do not think they relate to bullying.

Of course these incidents relate to bullying! What else would they relate to? And why does the fact that the fights were off campus have any bearing on consequences? Surely the students have a responsibility to represent their school with distinction. When they don’t – as they clearly haven’t here, the school should be given the authority to punish them.

 

Bullies Should Not Be Treated Like Students With Incorrect Uniform

September 6, 2012

Another shocking bullying incident, another tame response:

A Florida school district is looking into an incident in which 13-year-old Melanie Conn was bound in plastic wrap by two of her peers while waiting for the school bus.

Mother Holley Angerson-Conn tells WKMG that the two boys surrounded the middle school girl at the Ormond Beach bus stop, wrapping her 10-15 times to cover her from the waist to over the chin, nearly enveloping her nose and mouth.

“This is not a joke,” Conn said. “This could have become very serious if they would have had a little bit more and nobody was able to get it off of her.”

Conn says the bus attendant was aware of an alleged threat from the boys a few days earlier, but did nothing stop it. Volusia County Schools spokesperson Nancy Wait told the station that the district “takes every reported incident of bullying seriously, fully investigates them and, if substantiated, takes disciplinary action.”

The boys have been suspended, and one of the mothers says she doesn’t understand why her son did what he did, himself being victim to years of bullying.

Suspensions are an unsatisfactory consequence. Kids are suspended for wearing incorrect uniform these days. How will this send the required message?

Click on the link to read The Rise of Teacher Approved Bullying (Video)

Click on the link to read Don’t Even Try to Huminise James Holmes

Click on the link to read How Can Facebook Allow James Holmes Tribute Pages?

Click on the link to read The Need to Blame Anything and Everything for the Colorado Shootings

When the School Bus Mirrors a War Zone (Video)

August 31, 2012

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=_oL7B9Manq4

I think it’s highly appropriate for the police to take incidents featuring physical bullying like the one above very seriously:

The argument on a Franklin Township school bus wasn’t particularly unusual. One student had taken a seat that another wanted for himself.

But to Lora Hoagland, what followed was horrifying — a 15-year-old attacking her younger, smaller son for nearly a full minute, the image captured on a cellphone video taken by another student on the bus as it left the parking lot at Franklin Township Middle School East on Wednesday afternoon.

The video, posted to Facebook, was cited by Franklin Township Schools Police in arresting the 15-year-old on preliminary charges of battery with injury and disorderly conduct. It also has left Hoagland with doubts about the safety of her two children, both students in Franklin Township.

She didn’t send either of them to school Friday, likening the scene on the bus to a war zone.

Click on the link to read The Rise of Teacher Approved Bullying (Video)

Click on the link to read Punishments Handed to Children Who Bullied Bus Monitor. Now What?

Click on the link to read The Kids Who Bullied Their School Bus Monitor Shouldn’t be Punished: Nelson

Click on the link to read Video of a Bus Monitor Being Bullied by Middle School Children Goes Viral

The Rise of Teacher Approved Bullying (Video)

August 31, 2012

When a teacher decides to be circus ringmaster to a bullying free for all, one wonders how the authorities can do anything less than ban him from the classroom indefinitely.

Instead, they point out his record. This is his first blemish.

I would argue that this is not a blemish – it’s a gaping scar.

Click here to watch video.

 The parents of a Washington state teen want their son’s teacher fired after learning that the student was terrorized in a bullying attack by peers — and at some points, by the teacher.

The incidents occurred in February at Gig Harbor Middle School, but cell phone video of the attacks surfaced just this week. Footage shows more than a dozen students dragging the then-eighth-grade boy around the classroom, carrying him by his arms and legs, burying him under chairs, writing on his feet and stuffing his socks in his mouth. The antics last about 15 minutes while teacher John Rosi watches, and later joins in.

Rosi pokes the teen in the stomach and pretends to sit on him, chiding, “I’m feeling kind of gassy.” The class Rosi was supposed to be teaching is a half-hour course for reading and math preparation, The News Tribune reports.

After district officials learned of the incident in February, Rosi was suspended for 10 days without pay, given new classroom management training and moved to a different middle school.

But that’s not enough for the boy’s parents, Randall and Karla Kinney, who have requested a criminal investigation and are calling for Rosi’s termination. Joan Mell is representing the victim, who was 13 at the time of the incident.

It was a teacher-led bullying incident of epic proportions,” Mell told KIRO 7.

Acting Superintendent Chuck Cuzzetto said he was horrified by what he saw in the video, but contends that while Rosi displayed “inappropriate classroom management,” it was an isolated incident in an 18-year career, and the district acted appropriately in disciplining Rosi.

“We took what we think is pretty significant disciplinary action against the teacher,” Cuzzetto told the station.

 

Click on the link to read Explaining the Colorado Movie Theater Shooting to Children

Click on the link to read Don’t Even Try to Huminise James Holmes

Click on the link to read How Can Facebook Allow James Holmes Tribute Pages?

Click on the link to read The Need to Blame Anything and Everything for the Colorado Shootings

Confronting a Teacher Can Be Very Difficult

August 24, 2012

As approachable as I try to make myself, it’s often hard for students to get the courage to confide in me about things that are bothering them. That is why I am very glad Google has come up with Google Forms, a device which should improve communication between teachers and students.

Click on the link to read Shops Should Stop Selling “Sexy” Clothes for Children

Click on the link to read Our Children Must be Taught About Society’s Lie

Click on the link to read Most People Think This Woman is Fat

Karen Klein Gives Back

August 22, 2012

Well done to Karen Klein, the bullied bus monitor, who has put some of her donated earnings into an anti-bullying foundation. There were a lot of rumblings from sections of society about the extent of her earnings as a result of the notorious bus incident. Hopefully, the negativity surrounding Ms. Klein can be put to rest:

A bus monitor made famous after video of her being bullied by students went viral in June is using her experience to make a difference.

Karen Klein has received more than $700,000 in donations from around the world.

And she says she’s using some of that to launch an anti-bullying foundation.

“We’re hoping to get other people to put money in it, and this is going to be for education for people that have been bullied, for people that just — for people that need it for this situation,” says Klein.

Though Klein hasn’t finalized the details of her foundation yet, she took part Sunday in the “Strike Out Bullying Ball Game” at Frontier Field in Rochester, New York.

She threw out the opening pitch for the minor league Rochester Red Wings.

The team is working with local organizations to teach fans about the dangers of bullying.

Click on the link to read Teachers Who Rely on Free Speech Shouldn’t be Teachers

Click on the link to read Punishments Handed to Children Who Bullied Bus Monitor. Now What?

Click on the link to read The Kids Who Bullied Their School Bus Monitor Shouldn’t be Punished: Nelson

Click on the link to read Video of a Bus Monitor Being Bullied by Middle School Children Goes Viral

 

Should Schools Intervene to Stop Cyberbullying?

August 11, 2012

Schools need to decide what they represent. Are they merely a place for learning or are they also a place where students can feel safe and secure. If the latter is true, schools must do everything in their power to protect their students, regardless of whether the fight is online, offline, on school property or in the local mall.

Unfortunately, some school officials see it differently:

In reviewing its existing bullying and cyber bullying policies during Monday night’s meeting, administrators and school board members discussed what role the district should play in cyber bullying, particularly when purported bullying takes place out of school.

“I don’t think we need to be the police and the DA’s office for everybody,” board member Louis Polaneczky said. “Have we done enough to exclude things that really aren’t our jurisdiction?”

A caring school will make it their jurisdiction!

Click on the link to read Psychologist Claims Cyberbullying Concerns are Exaggerated

Click on the link to read Teachers Who Rely on Free Speech Shouldn’t be Teachers

Click on the link to read Bullying is Acceptable when it’s Directed to a Teacher

Click on the link to read Punish Bullies and Then Change Your Culture

Psychologist Claims Cyberbullying Concerns are Exaggerated

August 5, 2012

I can’t believe a psychologist would go on record claiming that the recent attention on cyberbullying is overstated:

Old-style face-to-face bullying is still the way most young people are victimized, even though it’s cyberbullying that seems to get all the headlines, an international bullying expert told psychology professionals Saturday.

Reports of a cyberbullying explosion over the past few years because of increasing use of mobile devices have been greatly exaggerated, says psychologist Dan Olweus of the University of Bergen in Bergen, Norway. He says his latest research, published this spring in the European Journal of Developmental Psychology, finds not many students report being bullied online at all.

“Contradicting these claims, it turns out that cyberbullying, when studied in proper context, is a low-prevalence phenomenon, which has not increased over time and has not created many ‘new’ victims and bullies,” the study finds.

The reason that such attention has been devoted to cyberbullying awareness is three fold:

1. Cyberbullying numbers are growing. Why should we dismiss something until it becomes a problem we are not prepared for?

2. Cyberbullying is, more than likely, the most destructive for of bullying. Unlike face-to-face bullying that happens in schoolyards and parks amongst a finite group of people, cyberbullying penetrates the safest room (the victim’s bedroom) and can be easily disseminated to an audience of thousands.

3. Teachers can deal with school bullying. It is much harder for significant adults to monitor cyberbullying.

Cyberbullying should never be diminished in any way.

Click on the link to read Social Media: A Playground for Bullies

Click on the link to read Teachers Who Rely on Free Speech Shouldn’t be Teachers

Click on the link to read Bullying is Acceptable when it’s Directed to a Teacher

Click on the link to read Punish Bullies and Then Change Your Culture

 

Social Media: A Playground for Bullies

August 3, 2012

 

For all it’s benefits, social media is an invitation for bullies to wreak havoc:

The Internet can be a hostile place, and Twitter is no exception. According to a new study, about 15,000 bullying-related tweets are posted every day, meaning more than 100,000 nasty messages taint the digital world each week.

To further understand what happens in the virtual world, researchers from the University of Wisconsin in Madison trained a computer to analyze Twitter messages using an algorithm created to point out important words or symbols that may indicate bullying. In 2011, during the time of this study, 250 million public tweets were being sent daily — a number almost 10 times the population of the state of Texas.

Click on the link to read Teachers Who Rely on Free Speech Shouldn’t be Teachers

Click on the link to read Bullying is Acceptable when it’s Directed to a Teacher

Click on the link to read Punish Bullies and Then Change Your Culture