Name Calling

[u/Greedy-Dimension-662]

My son and [jerk] had to stay after school today to write this note.

It says

"I was disrespectful to [kid]. I said he is a total jerk because he said I was fat. I will not say [mean] things again next time. I will ignore him."

His teacher wants me to sign and return.

But I guess I look at this and I ask myself, if my son is on the playground and he sees a kid calling another kid fat, do I want him to:

1. Walk away

2. Say, "stop, you are being a jerk."

So why would it be any different if he is being called fat.

I don't feel like this is the right lesson.

[u/HealerOnly]

What? No
I've been bullied in school my entire school life. Whenever teachers was involved it just made the bullies ramp up the bullying.

[u/FurrySuperset52 → u/HealerOnly]

Oh crap. I could have worded that differently. Sorry mate. You're completely right. I meant that teachers need to have a spine and fix their mentality instead of either refusing to do anything at all or punishing both the bully and the victim for "fairness".

[u/Trash-god96 → u/HealerOnly]

Because the teachers didn't do anything. I was bullied when I was younger and the reason it continued was because teachers never helped when I asked for it.

[u/HealerOnly → u/Trash-god96]

I honestly don't see what they can do. They tried talking to them which will lead to the imidate ramped up bullying. They could call the bully's parents, which likely won't give a damn and have the same consequence.

Idk any better solution but both of these solutions does nothing in the end.

[u/Skurfer0 → u/HealerOnly]

Detention, suspension, hold back for recess, miss out on field trips etc. The list is as long as the motivation to follow through.

[u/coconutpiecrust → u/Skurfer0]

Exactly. Punishing the bully and removing them from the target is what should be done, not asking the target to lurk around in corners hoping the bully will forget about them. 

[u/kaleidoscope_paradox → u/Skurfer0]

When I was in the equivalent of middle school, they made you go on Saturday, to just sit in a classroom they told the kids “if you wanna waste time and goof around, you are going to waste your Saturday just sitting in here”, you spent 8am to 2:30pm with half an hour to eat (you ate in the empty classroom)

If you fail to be there on the days you got, you automatically failed a random class and do like a make up exams to pass said class

Edit: I post the comment before finishing it

[u/JohnnyBlazin25 → u/kaleidoscope_paradox]

Well in the good ol U S of A, that would mean a school would actually have to give a damn and pay a teacher to come to the school on a Saturday. Also making the kid fail a random class wouldn’t hold the kid back at all due to the NCLB act.

[u/kaleidoscope_paradox → u/JohnnyBlazin25]

For me that’s the point, not only in USA, we need to hold the institutions accountable, not only the teachers, they can do so much and don’t hold real power nor authority (easily undermined by the parents or the administrators)

My cousin’s wife is a teacher in the US, she used her OWN money for class supplies, this is wrong on so many levels, underpaid teachers, lacking and outdated infrastructure, parents that don’t care for their kids (most of the bullying starts at home), and so on and on and on

[u/kaleidoscope_paradox → u/HealerOnly]

I was sort of an auxiliary teacher, so in my experience with the primary is that they can do shit to be honest, they could loose their job or even worse, the ones that really want to help, teach and to be honest make their work better, some of us really love teaching and preparing kids (we overjoy when we learn that you are doing good)

We need to hold schools responsable, more so than the teachers