Not everyone has been a victim or a bully, but we’ve all been bystanders. If you doubt this, watch Bully.Bullying has been a problem, well, since they started having schools, probably. I was bullied as a kid, but the adults either turned a blind eye to it, or put the onus onto me by giving me advice of ignoring the bullying, which simply didn't work. My mother did cruise through the base one evening looking for the girls who jumped me on the way home and broke my glasses, ready to turn them over to the security police. But it seems that some kids today lack any empathy for their peers, and will do things unthinkable when I was a kid, like douse someone with an accelerant and set them on fire, or run over them with a car, terrible, deadly things. It's no wonder kids who feel relentless torment commit suicide. This administrator is right--as adults it's important to be proactive in teaching children tolerance and empathy, and also to step in when bullying occurs. It's not the job of the bullied to try to stop it. It's up to the parents, the school teachers, and the administrators, and anyone else who witnesses an act of bullying.
The film opened in Los Angeles last weekend, and as I watched it, I saw footage of students being stabbed, punched, and yelled at. I saw a student grasping his head because it had been smashed into a nail, and heard another student recount being run over by a minivan full of schoolmates. The thread holding these events together was the adults standing by, believing kids are just being kids and wondering why the victims can’t just make the bullying stop.
Thanks to Allison Kipta for the link.
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