Should schools be made accountable for bullying?

I remember a conversation my parents had with me when I was 7 and going into 2nd class. They'd just been to some sort of Parent Induction night where the Principal made a statement saying that bullying was not tolerated in the school and there had been no reports of it in the previous school year.

Some parent stood up and declared that not to be true as her "son was put head first into a bin last year".
The Principal's response is to ask her why this was the first time he'd heard of it, the lad's teacher confirmed she didn't receive any report of it either. The guy told his Mam who didn't do anything about it until 5 months later on this night when her next child was starting.

The Teachers need some help too, I have friends who are teachers who said it can be easy to spot the "mean girls-esque" group and group thinkings but when they go outside the door the lose all sight of what's going on unless they're told. It's a tough position to be in with regards to accountability.

bearhugs wrote: »

The problem is that nowadays bullying extends so far beyond the school. Its rarely just within the school. It's impossible for teachers to police social media, texting and the like.

There have been a series of suspensions in my kids school for social media infractions in the past two years. They generally have the offending posts down in a few hours and the offenders feet don't touch the ground on their way out through the gate. This "it's impossible to police" line is just a cop out.

Op there should be massive repercussions for schools and staff in terms of funding cuts and suspensions for allowing persistent bullying to take place. It's very difficult to stop it completely but once notified/discovered it should be imperative that it is dealt with immeadiately.

I suppose there is an element that things written on Facebook or Twitter leave a path. The message is still there (unless the poster has a sudden rush of common sense and deletes it), and can be seen by other people. There -is- the question of what do the teachers do then. We're still only just tackling the issue of how laws apply on the internet, and really, it comes down to if the principal is both knowledgeable about online harassment and feels it their duty to intervene as a responsible adult. A principal who doesn't understand the internet or how Fb/Twitter works, well, it's pretty easy to see how they wouldn't have the first idea of what to do about it and could very easily decide it's not the school's issue. Although they might get those sites banned on school computers.

It will probably improve as teachers who themselves grew up with online social networking gradually take over the top positions and make it part of their ethos, but right at the moment, as weird as it may seem, we're still actually only in the changeover period from a predominantly non-internet world to a predominantly connected one.

Not saying that this is right, I think it does need to be tackled more obviously and in and by schools as well as parents. We essentially allow teenagers and kids access to an anonymous Wild West and then get them to sort themselves out. Sure, I think we've all got examples of presumed adults acting the complete moron online, so expecting teenagers to show any more cop on is probably over-optimistic.

schools should teach the psychology of teenager bullying, you could almost parody the big lad who is a bit dim who needs to compensate or the queen Bee who keeps her minions in line and uses social exclusion to bully the target. If all kids were aware of the games you could make the bully look like the oddball

I'm going to put over a probably rather unpopular view; all I can say is that it's rooted in my own experience, having been bullied in both my schools over my rather un-fun school career.

There will always be bullying. It's inevitable. Kids are developing (and pretty much by figuring it out as they go) their earliest social networks and jockeying for social position. We see it in adults too, although they tend to be more polished about it, probably because they honed it in school.

Kids also develop at different rates. Children who are socially underdeveloped (as I was. I was pretty advanced in reasoning and what tends to be lumped under "intelligence", but I had the emotional intelligence of a peanut). The first few days in school can make or break your schooldays. The groups form quickly and anyone who isn't fast enough off the starting line can easily find themselves excluded. Once they -are- excluded, it's harder to get into a group, as they're starting off behind and with an element of "if no-one likes them, there must be something wrong with them". This attitude is kinda at the base of our social interactions and it's extremely hard to do anything about it.

It wasn't until I was well out of school and looking back on it (which I don't do often, because it's not a time I particularly enjoy remembering) that I had to admit that I didn't help myself much by being shy and "weird". This was a natural reaction to feeling disliked in school, or at least totally indifferented at. So it becomes a cycle. This part is difficult for teachers to respond to, but it's the basis for everything that follows after in many cases. Treating the symptoms after that isn't going to make a cure. Not that they shouldn't try anyway.

Samaris wrote: »

I'm going to put over a probably rather unpopular view; all I can say is that it's rooted in my own experience, having been bullied in both my schools over my rather un-fun school career.

There will always be bullying. It's inevitable. Kids are developing (and pretty much by figuring it out as they go) their earliest social networks and jockeying for social position. We see it in adults too, although they tend to be more polished about it, probably because they honed it in school.

Kids also develop at different rates. Children who are socially underdeveloped (as I was. I was pretty advanced in reasoning and what tends to be lumped under "intelligence", but I had the emotional intelligence of a peanut). The first few days in school can make or break your schooldays. The groups form quickly and anyone who isn't fast enough off the starting line can easily find themselves excluded. Once they -are- excluded, it's harder to get into a group, as they're starting off behind and with an element of "if no-one likes them, there must be something wrong with them". This attitude is kinda at the base of our social interactions and it's extremely hard to do anything about it.

It wasn't until I was well out of school and looking back on it (which I don't do often, because it's not a time I particularly enjoy remembering) that I had to admit that I didn't help myself much by being shy and "weird". This was a natural reaction to feeling disliked in school, or at least totally indifferented at. So it becomes a cycle. This part is difficult for teachers to respond to, but it's the basis for everything that follows after in many cases. Treating the symptoms after that isn't going to make a cure. Not that they shouldn't try anyway.

There will always be workplace harassment. It's inevitable. Employees and managers are trying to protect the jobs they depend on and jockey for bonuses and promotions. We see it in children too, although they tend to be less polished about it, because they have the same need to maintain their status.

Employees are at different levels in their professional development. The first few days in a new job can potentially make or break your career. Teams and alliances form quickly and anyone who isn't fast enough off the starting line can easily find themselves excluded. Once they -are- excluded, it's harder to get into a group, as they're starting off behind and with an element of "if no-one likes them, there must be something wrong with them". This attitude is kinda at the base of our professional and social interactions and it's extremely hard to do anything about it.

It wasn't until I was retired and looking back on it (which I don't do often, because it's not a time I particularly enjoy remembering) that I had to admit that I didn't help myself much by being shy and "weird". This was a natural reaction to feeling disliked at work, or at least totally indifferented at. So it becomes a cycle. This part is difficult for managers to respond to, but it's the basis for everything that follows after in many cases. Treating the symptoms after that isn't going to make a cure. Not that they shouldn't try anyway.

We don't allow people to bully and harass and abuse each other in the workplace, but when it's kids it's more acceptable?

I am with the OP. I would make the head teacher responsible just as the director of a company would be. It is up to the head to ensure that:

All of their staff are competent in recognising bullying & empathetic to the victims.

That all of the pupils are made aware of what constitutes bullying & what the consequences are.

That there are systems in the school to make it easy for pupils to report bullying.

I would create an offence of failing to take reasonable care if one doesn't already exist.

Years ago my friend's daughter attended a secondary school in England. They had sixth formers who volunteered to be listeners & had a badge to identify themselves. They did things like putting little post boxes in the toilets so that pupils could post anonymous notes if they were worried.

The school had 1200 pupils & bullying was unheard of & that was 30 years ago.

spurious wrote: »

Will somebody please think of the parents? Children do not lick it off the stones.

Exactly.
As well as holding schools and teachers responsible for what happens within their remit I would hold parents responsible.

Too many people fail to take responsibility in this country.

Deleted User wrote: »

I think it may be harsh to punish a school and the other students collectively, either by cutting their funding or suspending teachers, for wrongs carried out by students. Plus it may be an extremely subjective matter, is bullying more prevalent in larger urban schools rather than smaller rural schools where all kids and families may know each other, would the be weighting of multiple smaller incidents versus one bad case etc.

Screw that for a game of cowboys.

I have known a few children who had to be take out of one school and moved because the school and teachers did shag all about the bullying of children.

It is too often glossed over and some mealy mouthed lip service is paid to some anti bullying policy that isn't worth as much as the loo roll in the toilets.

If the same excusatory system was left in place in places of employment we would still have bosses walking all over employees.
As someone else said why does it have to be different for children.

And let me tell you rural and small town schools can be the worse offenders where family connections or connections to the football team/hurling team give some people carte blanche to walk over everyone else often in the latter case with the tacit blessing of the sports man teachers.

Yes. I think schools should absolutely have to do everything in their power to prevent bullying. Bullying can affect a young person's self esteem well into their adulthood and beyond. It's a very serious issue.

Samaris wrote: »

I said nowhere in that that it is acceptable, in fact, I emphasised at the end that adults do still have a duty to help students being bullied and do their best to put a stop to it. C'mon, Speedwell, you read my post pretty thoroughly, that was an unfair translation to put on it!

What I said was that kids will bully and be bullied as part and parcel of a large group of young people figuring out their social network, how to create one, how to stay -in- one, and how to advance or fall off the pecking order. And in my experience, certain types of kids tend to get picked on more because they are obviously different in some way. Yes, that holds true with adults also, but adults, in theory, have the added years and experience to not act on it. Adults in general also don't have the added obvious differences as between kids (primarily circling around puberty and associated mental and physical growth) That adults, one would expect, to bully less is obviously not true for all! It's more raw and more visible with children though, and it has a greater long-term effect on them too.

Nope, that post solves nothing. And maybe it sounds like victim-blaming, which isn't intended (although if it gives any pointers to which kids may be more likely to be bullied, that's something). But it's my own experience of it.

Nah, not aimed at you, or at victims, but at a culture that seems to think that abuse of one group (in this case schoolkids) is more acceptable than abuse of another group (in this case adults) due basically to the lower-status group's perceived weaknesses and inability to hit back. We have actual laws in place to help people affected by abuse and harassment in the workplace, you might notice.

bearhugs wrote:

The problem is that nowadays bullying extends so far beyond the school. Its rarely just within the school. It's impossible for teachers to police social media, texting and the like.

In order to be accountable for bullying the school would need authority's to address bullying outside the school - at home, at sports events, during free time in the evening and weekend and holidays.

hairyslug wrote:

But it does expand out of school, the majority of the time, it will though have originated in the school.

That's a made up fact. You have no idea where children start to bully. If it were true it still wouldn't make the school responsible for bullying that happens elsewhere.

hairyslug wrote:

How to punish the school, I don't know but yes, the school should be held accountable to what happens, emotionally or physically on their grounds.

Unless you can somehow quantify the bullying that happens in the school and every other location, how could this happen?

What if the parenting style creates an aggressive bullying child? Should the teacher call out the family home and demand to observe the family to find the root of the problem? Should teachers be able to prescribe parenting styles to parents if it would cut down school bullying?

The problem is much bigger than the school. A more interesting question is whether parents should be held accountable for bullying. The answer is that bullying is bad but we don't have the collective will to eradicate it. The bullying policies that we have in schools and workplaces are better than nothing

Airyfairy12 wrote: »

A young guy in my town committed suicide this week because of bullying in school. His death was entirely preventable, such a waste of a young life. Bullying in school causes depression, anxiety and a host of other mental illnesses yet many teachers and school staff ignore the problem. If schools were held accountable for bullying then maybe they'd take it more seriously.

How was it preventable?
His classmates could have only been slagging him and he took it to heart because he was mentally ill. People with depression and anxiety are hypersensitive to criticism and that's that. How were a bunch of kids to know he would take his own life?
The teachers are not mental health professionals. They are teachers and they have a job to do. They can give out to kids punish them and raise their behavior with their parents etc but they can't police kids every moment of the day. Kids will form groups and cliques and the odd kids will be left out and slagging and teasing and pushing and shoving and mean carry on like wrecking a kids books or whatever are just part of school.
You can't save a kid from killing themselves as much as you imagine you can.