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Exactly. They don’t even question how all this bullying went on for so long without any adults noticing or doing anything about it. For "horrible things, like n

Exactly. They don’t even question how all this bullying went on for so long without any adults noticing or doing anything about it. For "horrible things, like nonstop" to be going on without anyone noticing or doing anything about it is absurd levels of negligence by the parents, teachers, and administrators. It should never have reached this point.

paulryanrogers 1y ago
Bus drivers have to focus on driving safely. Expecting them to maintain bully free interactions among 20+ kids is absurd. Pay for an adult monitor on the bus. Kids will find ways to harass each other: between classes, lunch times, recess, etc. Schools can probably do more, but I doubt they can fix bullying alone. And certainly not with the resources they're given today.
- Apreche 1y ago
  Surveillance isn’t the answer, justice is. You know how women often don’t report sexual harassment and assault? It’s because if they do report it, they will suffer further victimization and their chances at any just outcome are too low. Same thing with bullying in schools. Kids don’t report it because if they do so, they will be opening themselves up to further victimization, and the people they report it to will not take sufficient action to stop it. All schools need to do is make it safe to report bullying, prioritizing the victim’s safety. Then with a report they don’t need blanket surveillance, they can just do targeted surveillance to verify the reports. Once verified, they should take immediate action to put a permanent stop to it.
  - assimpleaspossi 1y ago
    For kids, justice isn't the answer. Parenting is.
    - decremental 1y ago
      [dead]
    - pjc50 1y ago
      Kids understand justice from a very early age. It's one of the things they need out of parenting. But things that go on at school are not entirely within the remit of the parents, because the school is in loco parentis.
      - assimpleaspossi 1y ago
        >Kids understand justice from a very early age. It's one of the things they need out of parenting. As I said, parenting is more important so one learns right from wrong and morals for when they are not at home and how to lead proper lives.
    - red_rech 1y ago
      Yeah but you’re not going to convince the shit parents of these shit children to change. If you think otherwise, you haven’t met enough.
  - pbhjpbhj 1y ago
    I agree with the problem you identify. I was both a bully, and a bullied person at times during my school days. For me the bullying of me brought on the bullying by me, I feel. I don't see any practical answers in your comment. Recognising schools should "makes it safe to report bullying" is one thing. How though? It seems entirely intractable - you seem to suggest blanket surveillance of all children everywhere?
    - tfourb 1y ago
      You don’t need surveillance if you have relationships and trust. Bullying is intractable because traditional schooling is essentially and structurally exactly that: the bullying of kids by adults. It’s only logical that it results in the bullying of kids by kids. Make teachers (and parents) people of trust, not only of arbitrary authority, and you create options to address bullying between kids as well.
  - mr_toad 1y ago
    > Surveillance isn’t the answer, justice is. When it comes to children we usually call it supervision. Not that I think all children need to be supervised all the time, but large groups of unsupervised children can create mayhem very quickly. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lord_of_the_Flies https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lord_of_the_Flies
    - deleted 1y ago
      [deleted]
- onion2k 1y ago
  You missed the part that says "viewed and listened to hours of video from the bus". The evidence is already available. The problem is that no one was bothering to look at it to check the kids were OK. Kids will find ways to harass each other: between classes, lunch times, recess, etc. This is true, but in most countries it doesn't escalate to mass murder. That's specifically a US thing (https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/school-shootings-by-country https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/school-sh...). So while you're right, I don't think it's fair to suggest it's hard to stop this problem or to resign to it being typical kids behaviour. The shooting aspect bucks the global norm.
  - throaway1988 1y ago
    violence happens in other places. i think it is typical child behaviour, just in a place where it’s not hard to find a gun.
    - onion2k 1y ago
      There are plenty of countries where gun ownership is just as common as America.
      - HaZeust 1y ago
        No there isn't. America has 120 guns per 100 people. The closest runner-up country, the Falkand Islands, is almost exactly half of that - at 62 guns per 100 people [1]. There's a sharp decline from there. 1 - https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/gun-ownership-by-country https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/gun-owner... That said, I've long shared the belief that despite the absurd number of guns in the USA, and how they literally outweigh the population; the average person ought to re-calibrate have more faith in humanity and respect for their access to firearms, because the stats for gun violence are not nearly as high as you'd think if they're that accessible.
        onion2k 1y ago
        Guns per capita isn't a good measure because some people own a lot of guns. Gun owning households is a better way to test how many kids potentially have access to a gun - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Percent_of_households_with_guns_by_country https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Percent_of_households_with_gun... - America is still top at 42%, but the next country is at 37% and there are several above 20%.
eszed 1y ago
This is a generation removed, at this point, but my younger sister and I went to the same small private, "good" Christian high school, and when Columbine happened we both looked at each other, and were like, "yeah, makes sense". Bullying was so endemic at our school that we could identify kids in each class around the both of us whom, had they had arrived with a gun and opened fire, we'd have been shocked, of course, but in no way surprised. Teachers (verbally) ridiculed and bullied students, and turned blind eyes to "high status" students bullying (including violently) odd, or even just poor, kids. I escaped most of it, personally, because I had sharp enough wits and enough self-confidence to turn ridicule back on most people who went after me that way - I even figured out at one point that if I used big words the PE teacher would leave me alone, lol - and was physically big enough not to be a target otherwise. We didn't complain, though, not even to our parents, because that was just the way things were - why would kids think anything should be otherwise, when authority figures saw it and didn't care, like, at all? What I didn't do, ever, was stand up for anyone else. It was a survival strategy. I remember reading about Columbine that Dylan Klebold waved one kid out from under his gun because, he said, "you were always nice to me". I didn't bully anyone, and even had friendly conversations with some of the kids who were the most consistent targets, but, had they come to school with a gun, I doubt I'd have passed that test. I can't shake the feeling that had one of them committed violence that the school - and maybe even I, myself - would have deserved it. This shit's been going on a long time.
- 77pt77 1y ago
  [dead]

paulryanrogers 1y ago

Bus drivers have to focus on driving safely. Expecting them to maintain bully free interactions among 20+ kids is absurd. Pay for an adult monitor on the bus. Kids will find ways to harass each other: between classes, lunch times, recess, etc. Schools can probably do more, but I doubt they can fix bullying alone. And certainly not with the resources they're given today.

Apreche 1y ago
Surveillance isn’t the answer, justice is. You know how women often don’t report sexual harassment and assault? It’s because if they do report it, they will suffer further victimization and their chances at any just outcome are too low. Same thing with bullying in schools. Kids don’t report it because if they do so, they will be opening themselves up to further victimization, and the people they report it to will not take sufficient action to stop it. All schools need to do is make it safe to report bullying, prioritizing the victim’s safety. Then with a report they don’t need blanket surveillance, they can just do targeted surveillance to verify the reports. Once verified, they should take immediate action to put a permanent stop to it.
- assimpleaspossi 1y ago
  For kids, justice isn't the answer. Parenting is.
  - decremental 1y ago
    [dead]
  - pjc50 1y ago
    Kids understand justice from a very early age. It's one of the things they need out of parenting. But things that go on at school are not entirely within the remit of the parents, because the school is in loco parentis.
    - assimpleaspossi 1y ago
      >Kids understand justice from a very early age. It's one of the things they need out of parenting. As I said, parenting is more important so one learns right from wrong and morals for when they are not at home and how to lead proper lives.
  - red_rech 1y ago
    Yeah but you’re not going to convince the shit parents of these shit children to change. If you think otherwise, you haven’t met enough.
- pbhjpbhj 1y ago
  I agree with the problem you identify. I was both a bully, and a bullied person at times during my school days. For me the bullying of me brought on the bullying by me, I feel. I don't see any practical answers in your comment. Recognising schools should "makes it safe to report bullying" is one thing. How though? It seems entirely intractable - you seem to suggest blanket surveillance of all children everywhere?
  - tfourb 1y ago
    You don’t need surveillance if you have relationships and trust. Bullying is intractable because traditional schooling is essentially and structurally exactly that: the bullying of kids by adults. It’s only logical that it results in the bullying of kids by kids. Make teachers (and parents) people of trust, not only of arbitrary authority, and you create options to address bullying between kids as well.
- mr_toad 1y ago
  > Surveillance isn’t the answer, justice is. When it comes to children we usually call it supervision. Not that I think all children need to be supervised all the time, but large groups of unsupervised children can create mayhem very quickly. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lord_of_the_Flies https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lord_of_the_Flies
  - deleted 1y ago
    [deleted]
onion2k 1y ago
You missed the part that says "viewed and listened to hours of video from the bus". The evidence is already available. The problem is that no one was bothering to look at it to check the kids were OK. Kids will find ways to harass each other: between classes, lunch times, recess, etc. This is true, but in most countries it doesn't escalate to mass murder. That's specifically a US thing (https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/school-shootings-by-country https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/school-sh...). So while you're right, I don't think it's fair to suggest it's hard to stop this problem or to resign to it being typical kids behaviour. The shooting aspect bucks the global norm.
- throaway1988 1y ago
  violence happens in other places. i think it is typical child behaviour, just in a place where it’s not hard to find a gun.
  - onion2k 1y ago
    There are plenty of countries where gun ownership is just as common as America.
    - HaZeust 1y ago
      No there isn't. America has 120 guns per 100 people. The closest runner-up country, the Falkand Islands, is almost exactly half of that - at 62 guns per 100 people [1]. There's a sharp decline from there. 1 - https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/gun-ownership-by-country https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/gun-owner... That said, I've long shared the belief that despite the absurd number of guns in the USA, and how they literally outweigh the population; the average person ought to re-calibrate have more faith in humanity and respect for their access to firearms, because the stats for gun violence are not nearly as high as you'd think if they're that accessible.
      - onion2k 1y ago
        Guns per capita isn't a good measure because some people own a lot of guns. Gun owning households is a better way to test how many kids potentially have access to a gun - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Percent_of_households_with_guns_by_country https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Percent_of_households_with_gun... - America is still top at 42%, but the next country is at 37% and there are several above 20%.

eszed 1y ago

This is a generation removed, at this point, but my younger sister and I went to the same small private, "good" Christian high school, and when Columbine happened we both looked at each other, and were like, "yeah, makes sense". Bullying was so endemic at our school that we could identify kids in each class around the both of us whom, had they had arrived with a gun and opened fire, we'd have been shocked, of course, but in no way surprised. Teachers (verbally) ridiculed and bullied students, and turned blind eyes to "high status" students bullying (including violently) odd, or even just poor, kids. I escaped most of it, personally, because I had sharp enough wits and enough self-confidence to turn ridicule back on most people who went after me that way - I even figured out at one point that if I used big words the PE teacher would leave me alone, lol - and was physically big enough not to be a target otherwise. We didn't complain, though, not even to our parents, because that was just the way things were - why would kids think anything should be otherwise, when authority figures saw it and didn't care, like, at all? What I didn't do, ever, was stand up for anyone else. It was a survival strategy. I remember reading about Columbine that Dylan Klebold waved one kid out from under his gun because, he said, "you were always nice to me". I didn't bully anyone, and even had friendly conversations with some of the kids who were the most consistent targets, but, had they come to school with a gun, I doubt I'd have passed that test. I can't shake the feeling that had one of them committed violence that the school - and maybe even I, myself - would have deserved it. This shit's been going on a long time.

77pt77 1y ago
[dead]