Florida are You Kidding Me!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[71buickfreak]

When my oldest boy was in 1st grade, he had an "anger issue" kid in his class who bullied all the kids, even the teacher (she had to put a video camera in the room to prove it!) he started targeting my boy. My boy is very kind and gentle, but he is the biggest kid in class, which puts a big target on him. This kid kept starting stuff with my boy and I taught him how to defend himself. One day the kid came charging at him and my boy side-stepped and "assisted" the kid into a brick wall, busting his nose. No more bully.

The next year, another punk kid came out to the playground asking "who wants to fight" with about 4 others in tow. My boy didn't respond, but got targeted. He fended off all 5 until his friends came to help. where is the playground teacher? Chatting it up with some other teachers. When my kids tell her there is a problem, she says work it out yourselves. They are not supposed to fight, but when they follow the rules, they get shrugged off.

 

[dennishoddy]

Time out for me growing up was the time between the smack and when you woke up.

yep! that was the way I was raised.
I guess that caused me to become a gun loving, freedom loving, kick you butt redneck that I am.

My Son railed on me when he was at home about not taking on the "new" ways to discipline.
Fast forward 20 years, he tried the "alternate" methods.
Failed miserably.

 

[dcoop46]

My brother is a retired teacher & still coaches. You can't even imagine the stuff he tells me. Hate bullying. Got in a fight the first day of first grade. Kid tried to take my lunch & I slapped him upside the head with my trusty Hopalong Cassidy lunch box. Suckers were made of metal in those days. Dad said 'good job'. How times have changed.

 

[dennishoddy]

My brother is a retired teacher & still coaches. You can't even imagine the stuff he tells me. Hate bullying. Got in a fight the first day of first grade. Kid tried to take my lunch & I slapped him upside the head with my trusty Hopalong Cassidy lunch box. Suckers were made of metal in those days. Dad said 'good job'. How times have changed.

you must have been a rich kid.
We couldn't afford a hop a long cassidy lunch box.
Paper sack with balony was my lunch box.
(just kiddin on the rich kid thing)

But, today, I can't stand balony.....Unless fried

 

[BadWin45]

I agree, it's gone far beyond ludicrous. The question is, what do we do about it?

 

[Bruno2]

What we do about it is raise cain, but , I just dont see the toy/finger gun issue being that big of a deal. There are a lot of benefits to living in the midwest.

Here is another great story. A friend of mine Greg was trying to verbally break up a fight at a union school between his son and another student there. A 15 yr old kid walked up behind him and sucker punched Greg knocking him to the ground. Then the kid started kicking him when he was down on the ground . He got up and the kid punched him again. so he knocked the kid out. Guess what happened when the police got there?

Thats right, he went to jail for assaulting a minor. The dad of the kid that sucker punched him was furious about the assault on his kid(b/c I am sure that he didnt tell the same story that happened). Greg told him to come on over he would love to discuss it with him. He didnt take him up on it. Greg rounded up all of the eyewitnesses that he find and challenged it in court. The DA said he wasnt interested in pursuing the case so it went away. # mos later I am watching the news and its talking about how broke the City of Tulsa was and how much debt they owed.

I called Greg and told him that he had better have all of his witnesses ready to go b/c I bet they bring up the charges again. He said I dont think they will.
Guess what happened next? 2 weeks later he got a letter in the mail saying that the DA was reopening the case. He was atsonished that it was coming back up now. I wasnt they want everybody to take plea bargains and get the check book out. Guess what happened next? The DA wanted him to take a plea consisting of a few monetary fines. So he did.

 

[romeo212000]

Truest example of exthortion you can come up with. I would have told the DA to kiss my backside and fought it just out of principle. This why I cannot be a teacher. The first time some punk starts trying to start crap with me and takes it to a physical level there is a good chance I wind up in handcuffs because I would certainly respond in kind.

 

[criticalbass]

Public schools are now $heytee. If I had a kid,I'd home school him or her now. I subbed for a whille when I was laid off, and schools are zoos. CB

 

[Glocktogo]

This is like my son in the 8th grade then 6th at Hefner Middle school. a kid pushed him, my son walked off and told him to stop. The kid pushed him again and tried to pu a head lock on him, when he did that my son split his nose and lip. Now since my son took it to the next level and hit the boy and not push him, they were talking a kicking out of school for 10 days, a $750 fine and an arrest record. My son is a straight A student. These people wonder why bulling is so rampit . A student can't even defend himself. Sorry for the Rant, but where is it going to end.

They would prefer that you sue the school for failing to prevent the bullying than let the kid solve the problem. It's not about right or wrong, it's about control and making a good automaton for the system.

I hope the parents in Florida got a refund on the school taxes they paid for that year.

 

[Dale00]

Kids are not being kept busy enough in schools to stay out of trouble. They need to be given challenging work and homework, but most parents complain about homework and prefer not to have to help their kids or be involved.

We need to bring back academic failure. The only way to fail seems to be not coming to school. As I understand it, a school gets less state money if they fail students so there is an economic incentive to pass everyone.

The purpose of school policies seems to be 1. to maximize the money the school gets and 2. avoid being sued. The purpose should be to produce educated, moral people.

This is not a put down of teachers. There are some great ones but they are swimming against the tide. Schools are a reflection of the problems in our society more than a cause of the problems.

As far as the Florida example, maybe we need a "stand your ground law" to prevent expulsion of students who have fought back against bullies.