ocarina_boy
Member
I concur.
Place your support against bullying!
- Thread starter Flamesstater
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I concur.
MJ1284
Member
o/
QFT
I find it ridiculous that it took two school massacres here in Finland (yes, it does happen here too) to make people realize "Gee, maybe we oughta do something about bullying at school".
I find it even more ridiculous that school says it's totally up to parents how they raise their kids... doesn't matter if they spend 6 hours per day in school premises, school still doesn't admit it's partially their responsibility to "raise" kids, not just educate them how to do math and read... and don't ever expect teachers to do anything about bullies, far as they're concerned it's max. 1 hour detention and it's settled.
There's so many things in life that school doesn't teach, for example "how to defend yourself" as Calimo mentioned... wouldn't it be fine and dandy if each school had "self-defense" (not as in martial arts or anything like that) courses for bullied kids?
Everybody should have dad, friend or big brother like that (except for bullies, of course)
Propkid
Member
A school massacre is in no way related to bullying. I'd relate it to the ridiculously high teenage suicide rates and generally weird teenage culture (when compared to other countries in EU. Man when I came here I was surprised....)
Dacil
Member
word...suicide is no one's fault but the person's, and that's all it will ever be
WildFire
Warrior of Linux
True, but it is the bullies fault if the person felt that they had no other choice, no other way out. That is the sad thing about bullying.
Calimo
Member
You're right. It won't ever stop. And yeah... just putting a status up isn't going to do anything..I haven't stuck my head so far up my butt to think otherwise. And to make it clear, I have nothing against you Armageddon. I respect your opinions! BUT the "man up" theory is something that I hate with an extreme passion. So a person killed themselves because they didn't "man up"? That's ridiculous. Most suicides I would read about were because the child/teen/young adult would be excluded entirely from the school/social community and almost forced to be depressed. You cannot always control what your brain is going to do. Depression is a horrible thing, it makes you think in ways that from a rational standpoint... don't make any sense. and sometimes just "manning up" isn't the cure. The bullies can wound more than just the skin.
Some of these bullied children come from broken homes where they don't have much support from their families. And from what I've learned... children tend to understand what their parent's expose them to. If the parent's are not doing a proper job at raising their child, while adding in the school's fault for also not doing a proper job of "raising" the child or dealing with the situation in an effective way... bad things are going to happen... I cannot help but feel bad for these children who have experienced nothing but pain for a majority of their young lives and their only known escape is to just 'run away' by suicide.
Ucantry2run
Private Tester
If the kid isn't smart enough to talk to a teacher or parent/transfer schools/get professional help then its his fault imo. You shouldn't have to think that suicide is the only way away to escape a bully.
MJ1284
Member
I didn't mean it's solely bullies fault that someone just snaps and goes postal, but you gotta admit that kids who are at school are still at "growth state" where they're easy to influence by school and home environment. For first 3 years school takes 3-4 hours a day (equivalent to 12.5 - 16,6% of one day) and rest 6 years takes 6 hours a day (25% of one day) so it is considerable amount of time from person's life... and that's just elementary school, once you factor in college and/or university you'll realize that studying can altogether take up to 33,3 % of a person's LIFETIME.. but now I'm offtracking, back to my original point:
Elementary & high school kids are easily influenced and growing up both physically and (hopefully) mentally is tiresome, one is filled with insecurity of himself/herself and getting bullied for long time period and/or having bad parents WILL leave scars, especially since teachers are rarely willing/capable of doing much to prevent bullying at school (and no, leaving a bully on detention once or twice won't make him/her a saint) and bad parents.. that's just rotten luck. If these scars aren't catalyst for school massacre or criminal activities that might threaten human lives I don't know what is.
Then again, it might be the bullies who have lousy parents and they want to take their aggression on others and make them feel bad just to get their kicks.
1. As I mentioned before, teachers rarely give a *chocolate cookies* since it's "not their job". Running to teacher and telling them only angers the bullies and makes it worse.
2. Every school has bullies.. EVERY. SINGLE. ONE.
3. Kids/teenagers don't want to admit they want psychiatric treatment to alleviate their pain. Hell, it's the bullies that should be send to professional help! They are the ones who need it!
4. Suicide won't solve anything, true, but things should never elevate to school massacre situation either. Fact that these things have occured means some people have *danced* up royally and nobody has offered a helping hand to true victim... no, they always look easy scapegoats (namely video games and heavy music) and leave it at that.
Ucantry2run
Private Tester
Strange is it might be, my school doesn't have any bullies. Maybe because its private, but we have a good thing about caring for others, whether it be teachers, students, blahblahblah. None of our guidance counselors are being used because all 2000 of us are perfectly happy, in school anyways.
Not all kids are too humiliated to go to professional help. But again, that's their fualt if they don't.
I agree that bullies need to go to get professional help more than the bullied, though.
Strife
Moderator
It's easy to say things like that from the outside looking in and when you've not experienced it yourselves. I haven't, but in my high school we had a program which had students counsel other students on their life problems, which were often caused by bullying in school. We had a suicide at our school as well, an overweight student with dental problems (his teeth were messed up, overlapping and pointing in different directions) who was really timid. Most of the population, save a select few, picked on him for these reasons. He got pushed around and made fun of on a daily basis relentlessly and, iirc, his parents were neglectful. How do you transfer schools when your parents don't care? He did seek help from the school counselor and whoever else he could within the school but the school cannot practically punish every student who contributed to the bullying (most of the school, as I mentioned before). Hopelessness is an extremely powerful affliction. Noone stood up for him because he only had a few friends and they were bullied also.
Faulting the person completely for what they do is naive, mainly because you are not taking in to consideration other variables such as neglectful and/or abusive parents. Schools need to be a lot more strict and proactive with bullying in and out of school, but there isn't much they can do if the persons parents are dolts. Many people lack the willpower and/or means to help themselves and you can attribute that to whatever you want but the problem remains and the solution is to help them, not make calloused comments about the inability of a person to help themselves. If you think people who cannot help themselves deserve to die or suffer whatever they may, that's fine, but modern society supports the contrary and it would probably be in your best interest to not waste your time with such subjects.
WildFire
Warrior of Linux
Well said!
RockeyRex
Legions Developer
Never experienced, eh?
If you say so. I honestly think I'd still be such a crybaby if I hadn't.
On that note. I approve of excessivle violence as much as the next guy and is pretty much a police matter already. You suck as a bully and have something wrong with you if you need that to cause mental damage. And near death beatings cause mental damage so great that the person will probably never grow out of it.
But interfering with the picking order of kids is just a social suicide imho.
If you say so. I honestly think I'd still be such a crybaby if I hadn't.
On that note. I approve of excessivle violence as much as the next guy and is pretty much a police matter already. You suck as a bully and have something wrong with you if you need that to cause mental damage. And near death beatings cause mental damage so great that the person will probably never grow out of it.
But interfering with the picking order of kids is just a social suicide imho.
Dacil
Member
yes i realize that, i'm 20 years old, not 10....and way to assume that i have not experienced this, because i have to be blunt and straightforward and totally honest.........and did his parents kill him? no. he killed himself. therefore he's the one at fault. there is no grey area with suicide. im not saying things dont contribute to weighing down a person's mind and feelings i'm talking about the actual physical killing
p.s.- your response is a great example of my quote that is now in Outlawl's signature
Propkid
Member
Well said. Though you might not know what exactly a catalyst is. Simply speaking it's something that speeds things up; it's not the reason things happen, nor it in any way triggers things. Bullying just might be one of the driving factors behind a school massacre but these things don't necessarily need to be linked together. So don't use the massacre example ;]
So true. But also notice that only the tight percentile of the bullied are serious cases; it seems to be in some people's nature not to 'fight back' and only have them worsen their own situation by seeking help from authority. Each case is isolated and in the severe ^ cases something must be done about the kid's environment. However a lot of people do need to stand up for themselves. Otherwise they will learn to be dependent on others and will consequently suffer later on in their (near-adult) lives.
...
Just sayin!!
57thRomance
Member
I don't really see my school as a place where people get bullied a lot, but I know from my dad's storytelling that he was a victim of bullying during his time. He said one time, some guys stole his bike, and older people he knew (probably neighbors, I'm not sure) had to get it back for him. My dad also says he had no friends in high school. It makes me sad every time I hear that story, but fortunately, it hasn't negatively affected who he is today. I'm still proud of him nonetheless.
Strife
Moderator
I did not call your age in to question, there's no reason to get defensive.
It was a generalization directed towards anyone making comments like that, I wasn't calling you out by quoting you. It's hard to be specific when you're talking to everyone.
Obviously it's the persons fault for killing themselves. There's no point in my post where I say it isn't, I simply mention that there are many contributing factors that put other people at fault as well.
That's fine, but have you ever considered that you're the one that blows things out of proportion? It was a generalization, even though I quoted you to make the relevance and aim of my post obvious. If I had said that and not quoted anyone the beginning would have been kind of confusing. I made no specific remark about your experience, views, or beliefs. I didn't even mention your name outside of that quote.
I agree with you.
MJ1284
Member
Aye, I misspoke earlier, catalyst isn't what causes reaction to happen it's what speeds up reaction (darn me and my fuzzy memories of high school chemistry classes).. but you got the point I was aiming for and that's what matters. Massacre example is bit poor example, I'll admit that, but bullying can still be the main (note: MAIN) driving factor if it goes on long enough & intense enough,
ie. mocking a person in school yard is one thing but if it carries on outside school yard and follows the bullied person to home it's more than just "bullying" (if that makes sense).
EDIT: Calimo's video was taken off YouTube, here it is again (requires age verification via log-in). This one is newscast version so it's less likely to be taken off:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S7TYr4PFQGk
Also:
Dacil
Member
LOL nope I don't....if its a generalization, don't quote people, when you quote you are pulling out specifics ....you can make the "relevance and aim" of your posts obvious (and not confusing) without quoting people by just explaining yourself well....after all, isn't that what everyone else is doing by posting without a quote?
p.s.- obviously you didn't call my name into question, but you made it seem like I'm naiive and I don't think things through and put myself in others situation before I even have an opinion on it...since I do indeed do this I have the right to defend myself from people who assume crap like you
I've said my views about the suicide/bullying thing and if you want to continue arguing semantics with me go ahead and pm me
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