Another school shooting, this time in OR. Sheesh. At least no deaths reported yet.
Christ, can't kids just kick the shit out of each other and be done with like I use to do in my day?
That's what I was thinking.
Whatever happened to fist fights? A couple swings, roll around in the dirt a couple minutes and end up with a black eye or a bloody lip. OVER!
Probably get in more trouble at school for that these days. Amazed at how people are no longer allowed to resolve conflicts on their own. Not that everything is best solved with physical confrontation - most isn't after childhood - but sometimes someone just need a good ol' fashioned ass kicking.
True. Bulling was/is always there though. Things were just handled differently back before you could get e-blasted on social media. So, now 'everybody' knows about it... in just a few keystrokes. Truth, or not.
This is a difficult age for some to balance. Meaning, finding out who you are vs. not drawing too much attention to yourself and worrying what others think.
Me... I didn't give a shit what 'those' kids thought. Not much has changed I suppose. heh.
I'm glad there are so many idiots in this world to serve as a bad example for my kids. Social media sites had such promise and there are certainly benefits to them. I can't completely bash them on what is essentially a social media site here! But the good brings bad - over exposure, comparing yourself to false fronts from others, etc. People just need to learn to separate their 'online' world with their 'real' world. They really should not cross over much. I can't stand seeing constant updates from people on Facebook. I have MOST people blocked, so I just see whatever local interest groups I'm involved with since Facebook serves as more of a 'mass email' source than anything else.
IMO, with all due respect, etc.
As for me, I just worry about my own shit. If other people want to destroy their lives, more power to them.
Bullying behavior always has the same genetic makeup - speaking physically and metaphorically. Bullies are born to bullies, raised in bullying environments, and the phenomena perpetuates itself via nature and nurture. The notion that a school system, whether public or private, can mitigate the behavior is ludicrous. Notwithstanding the fact that teachers tend to be the type of people that seek reasoned responses first, teachers simply don't have the relational basis with students to modify hostile behavior. What no one wants to admit is that a victim of bullying only has two recourses - to put distance between themselves and the antagonist - a near impossibility in most school systems - or violent physical response. The violence doesn't have to extend to using deadly weapons, but when we teach people to be victims by telling them not to fight back and penalizing them if they defend themselves we create little kegs of dynamite that will keep trying to be peaceful until the stress of it causes them to snap and they do themselves or others in.
My dad taught me from early childhood that to exist in society one must learn how to take a punch without crumbling, and by the same token to learn that most fistfights end after the first punch, and the winner is the one who lands that first punch. That's how I survived having to move to nine different schools in five cities in four states before I got to high school. In each new school someone inevitably felt the need to take the measure of me, because I was always the short, skinny, new guy. The pattern was consistent - somebody'd push me around, I'd pop them in the eye, and usually after that we became friends, some of them are still friends to this day, over 40 years later. My sons, who will attend only three schools to finish high school, have not often had to implement those measures - only once so far - but I taught it to them. At the same time I taught them to come to the defense of others when needed, which requires the same skillset of knowing how to take and deliver a punch. Like Jon Meis last week here in Seattle (look him up if you haven't heard the name). But all but a few of my son's teachers are horrified to learn I teach my sons such a barbarian world view. Call me Infidel.
Okay, sorry to jump on the soapbox, but y'all hit close to home for me.
