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At my school, no rules - or kids - had to be "broken". It was not supression of a behaviour, the behaviour just did not exist. If people behaved badly, the grou

At my school, no rules - or kids - had to be "broken". It was not supression of a behaviour, the behaviour just did not exist. If people behaved badly, the group was self-governing, making clear to the offender that their behaviour was "not cool" - and thus, they weren't. If you have a cultural problem that shows itself in bullying, fire the teachers. Also consider stopping adversarial school activities. If these rules extends to life outside of school, I would be concerned more than relieved by rules 1 and 3. We should not normalise state-level control of our private gatherings by teaching freedom of association is somehow evil in children. It also would give a group of kids no way to sanction against antisocial behaviour by another kid (cheating in a game comes to mind). That this has the thin varnish of "democratic debate" (which, let's be honest, will be quickly overruled if the kids decide the rules are stupid) only adds the additional aspect of showing in real-life how democracy is a scam that enforces things the powers to be like to happen while giving the impression it was a majority decision.

dagw 4y ago
it was not supression of a behaviour, the behaviour just did not exist Or you just didn't see and experience it. There is more to bullying than everybody standing in a circle and openly making fun of the "nerd". Most successful bullies are very good at hiding their bullying from people they know wouldn't approve. Having had the unfortunate experience of seeing my daughter get bullied, bullies are sneaky, insidious and very good at keeping their behaviour just on the right side of plausible deniability. I fully believe that over half of her class had no idea she was being bullied.
bythreads 4y ago
Well added to that is that you have to take every single one in your class home for a playdate at least once, and that multiple playdates in a row with the same kids are discouraged. It seems draconic and controlling - but it creates an incredible cohesive social group in each class
- DocTomoe 4y ago
  It seems like it actively discourages creating bonds and friendships in exchange of a "greater common good". It also seems like they should have gotten an ethics committee approval on what is very obviously a psychological experiment on minors, similar to Muzafer Sherif's "Robber's Cave" [1]? [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robbers_Cave_Experiment https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robbers_Cave_Experiment

dagw 4y ago

it was not supression of a behaviour, the behaviour just did not exist Or you just didn't see and experience it. There is more to bullying than everybody standing in a circle and openly making fun of the "nerd". Most successful bullies are very good at hiding their bullying from people they know wouldn't approve. Having had the unfortunate experience of seeing my daughter get bullied, bullies are sneaky, insidious and very good at keeping their behaviour just on the right side of plausible deniability. I fully believe that over half of her class had no idea she was being bullied.

bythreads 4y ago

Well added to that is that you have to take every single one in your class home for a playdate at least once, and that multiple playdates in a row with the same kids are discouraged. It seems draconic and controlling - but it creates an incredible cohesive social group in each class

DocTomoe 4y ago
It seems like it actively discourages creating bonds and friendships in exchange of a "greater common good". It also seems like they should have gotten an ethics committee approval on what is very obviously a psychological experiment on minors, similar to Muzafer Sherif's "Robber's Cave" [1]? [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robbers_Cave_Experiment https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robbers_Cave_Experiment