I believe that children learn bullying behaviour, and is a natural result of the policies, the school culture and what goals are held in high esteem by the school and its students.

The bullying policies, there is no immediate consequences, of bad behaviour, even the mildest kind of being rude. It teaches children to push the boundaries at school and in other public places other than the home. At home, in a typical home I hope, there is some kind of immediate consequences for bad behaviour, that is not the kind of having a chat, with the youngster. At school, it is usually devoid of immediate consequences, As a result, kids will behave differently in the school environment compared to the home environment. Keep in mind, there is a natural pecking order starting with children, in the primary grades, that works much the same way as in the adult world. This pecking order, sets the tone. What sets the tone in a classroom? 

While in my child’s grade one class, it was grades, and than the things that a student had. A clique developed of what adults would call the popular kids, consisting of 15 kids or so. My child became a victim of the 15 kids from time to time, as well as other children. The 15 students set the tone, and more often than not, if they were caught bullying on or off school property, there was no immediate consequences, and perhaps a mild rebuke.

It has been found, in the studies, that having good grades, being athletic, and the other admirable traits that adults would wish their students to have, are often the students who are the bullies, but are smart enough to work the system to their own advantage. Bullying behaviour is taught, and is an accepted behaviour in the adult society. Children learn this very early on.

I have no ideas regarding your godson, but there is millions of parents dealing with their children becoming bullies, outside of the home. What I have done, for all my children, there was immediate consequences for bullying behaviour. Name calling was just as bad as taunting another kid, and they soon learn, how creative I became when it came to the consequence. But even here, it is made that much difficult at the school level, with school policies that are more harsh for students who fail a test, compared to the latest bullying incident in the school yard. Common place in my area, a parent will ground one of his children for six weeks for failing a test, and do nothing when their child calls another child a name. Their response, is the usual line, the other child was asking for it.

Below is a site that is comprehensive, but it sill won’t tell you why children from good homes who are loved and nurtured bully other children. I have concluded, that bullying is an accepted behavior in our society, and adults need to clean up their act especially in our institutions. They are causing undue stress in the families, that they claim over and over having their best interests at heart.

http://www.broadcaster.org.uk/section1/scenarios/schoolbullying.html

I think that the majority of the public understands that moral, ethical behaviour is something which has to be taught to children (Lord of the Flies) and when they’re allowed to get away with something, we as a society are failing.  Educrats have abdicated their responsibility, in dealing with this very bad situation, and appear—I’m sorry to say—unconcerned about some of the horrific consequences bullying can cause.

Two stories in today’s CBC

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/story/2011/10/26/pov-mercer.html

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manitoba/story/2011/10/26/mb-neepawa-hockey-hazing.html

Let me guess.  Your godson is white or another “non-disadvantaged” ethnicity, generally well-behaved and thought of as a “good kid” by most of their teachers, and generally rarely gets into trouble.

I infer this from the list of penalties he has incurred.

It has been my experience that the school system, and often the home, comes down VERY HARD on good kids who screw up, and are VERY LENIENT with kids who are already known behavior problems or belong to disadvantaged groups. 

I was one of those squeaky-clean (behavior-wise) kids in school and remember once I was caught talking during an extra-curricular activity while a teacher was trying to get everyone’s attention.  I was severely dressed down and ejected from this activity, which broke my poor 10-year-old heart—I was probably the most enthusiastic kid in the room.  There were other kids talking, mostly the usual “troublemakers”, but I was singled out and made an example of.

From that time I’ve paid attention and it is a consistent pattern.  Teachers single out good kids caught misbehaving and throw the book at them, and give a pass to troublemakers most of the time.

Why?  There is, I think, a whole complex set of reasons.  First, it’s a bit of a relief to find someone ELSE to penalize; you feel like you’re beating up on the same kids all the time, so you jump at the chance to catch someone not among “the usual suspects”, and as a result go overboard.

Second, it’s a whole lot easier to go ballistic at a well-behaved kid who won’t return sass, especially if as a teacher you have confidence issues.  Start in with the wrong kids and you’ll have a major battle of wills on your hands.  Do you really want to plunge into that with 30 impressionable pairs of eyes on every word and action you make?

Third, teachers are continually warned against anything that could disadvantage certain groups, and to avoid “discrimination”.  So there is every reason to give kids from those groups a pass.  How lovely, then, when you realise that it is a child not having such “protections” who has crossed the line—you can let loose on them, and nobody will lift a finger.

Ironically, I think this last consideration harms children in the “disadvantaged” groups.  Because they learn that there is a different line for them.  They learn that they have a free pass to sass.  And, as a result, they get a “rep” for misbehavior ... well, more than a “rep”.  They are essentially taught, behavioristically, to misbehave.  In a way it’s not their fault that so many of them end up in prison as adults (even though the same “PC” considerations often apply in the penal system).

I don’t negate Nancy’s first comment above, but wish to add a nuance.  She says “there is no immediate consequences”, but I would add “for certain kids”.  For others it is immediate and disproportionate.  She is right that often the “popular kids” and “student leaders” get the pass, but it is because they are already known for this pattern of behavior.

If my guess is right, then (not intending to dismiss the bullying behavior of the child) it may be even more correct to say that he was bullied by “the system”, a victim of bullying more than a bully himself.

I don’t identified kids in their groups, I see all kids, kids. But than again, in the last 12 years or so, from a community that is largely white, Christian, and every once in a while a little diversity is thrown in the mix. But I do get your point Craigen, and is just as valid, especially from a teacher’s perspective, that there is many sides to bullying depending on what lens one is viewing from.

I agree that kids shouldn’t be identified by which group they belong to Nancy.  In fact precisely that thought underlies my comments.

I believe that response to the bully ought to be uniform—blind justice, or as close to this ideal as is practical.  Our best intentions often have the worst consequences. Trying to help the “poor kid who keeps getting the blame, or who belongs to that disadvantaged group” often is the beginning of teaching that kid that establishing a record of bad behavior, or playing their identity card, gives them a break in the longrun.  I’m not saying we shouldn’t intervene to break that cycle, only that changing the system of rewards and punishments because someone is getting punished more often teaches the wrong lesson.  And it’s a pretty stiff penalty for the “good kids” to shoulder that they not only pay for their own crimes but bear the brunt of teachers frustrated by excesses of kids who get a break.  Over my years I’ve begun to notice a societal pattern in which compliant good citizens are penalized and the violators get lighter and lighter penalties.  While it’s not just in school, I think that’s where the pattern begins.  Maybe you don’t agree with these examples, but consider the way the book was thrown at overachievers Martha Stewart and Conrad Black, and compare to the free passes those convicted of violent crime often get on the flimsiest of excuses.  Sorry to broaden the discussion beyond the schoolhouse, but I really do think there is an intrinsic hatred of “goody two-shoes” in our society, and it can be exhibited in extremely vicious, often systemic ways.  All can be traced to perfectly good motivations, but with unanticipated long-term consequences.

“Over my years I’ve begun to notice a societal pattern in which compliant good citizens are penalized and the violators get lighter and lighter penalties.”

Very true as I see it to, inside school and outside school. The latest being in NL, and the cheater, gets to take a re-est two weeks after being caught. Or the student not handing in his assignment, and get another crack at it, even if it is six months later. In both cases, they are graded exactly the same as the student who did not cheat or handed in his assignment on time.

Rules, should be equally applied, but it does not appear to be the case inside schools or outside in the wider society. Perhaps, a public education system is a mini-version of the external society, or rather it has become one by default. Another aspect of the public education system, and their rules. There is no one to enforce the rules, and to ensure that all rules equally applied, made by the adults, to guide the adults in making decisions towards children.

Craigen, since you mentioned rules, there is many rules within the public education system that are not enforced, unless the parents become aware of them. By that time, it is usually too late for a child to have any benefits, and parents end up learning the lessons of one set of rules for one set of students, and another set of rules for their kids. In one area, where the rules, and the legislated laws governing it, are never enforced consistently is within SE. In my case, the SE rules and laws were ignored from day one, and as a parent I did not become aware of the rules until my child was well pass the age of 11. Legally, I have a case, but as I was told, the current public education system, ignores the rules and laws that ends up costing the system a bit of money, for addressing the deficiencies in areas of the 3 Rs. The day I found out, I learned a powerful lesson, why the school or the board never went after me, for all the missing days my child incurred over the early years. Those were the days of re-teaching at home, on the 3 Rs mostly, as well as catching up on the regular homework, to which she was not getting a break on accommodations, despite her diagnoses of LD.

If the school have followed the rules in the first place, my child would have been identified as being dyslexic back in grade one, by the health authorities, and there would be no need to fight hard for the next three years to have an assessment done by the school authorities. I am the parent that learned that it is up to me, to ensure the rules and the laws are enforce, regarding disability and learning. I also learned to play the game, daring the school or the board to take the bait. No, they never did take the bait, and chose to shut their eyes when my child was absent for a test in the morning, and arrived in the afternoon bright and bushy-tail prepared to take the test. It was the only way, to ensure my child would have an alternative setting to write tests, and the only way that the school would be force to complied to accommodations that my child was entitled to. The only accommodation I wanted was the alternative setting, but it was not consistently enforce until my child arrived in high school.

But in the process, I learned just like other parents and students, how well one plays the game, in an education system, that does a poor job in ensuring all rules and laws are enforce and applied equally. The bully policies teaches students, parents and everybody in between, how well one plays the game, and who is punish and who is not. It is about the social capital or the political capital of the individual student. The higher the social capital and/or political capital of the individual student, their parents, the odds are in their favour that they will not be penalized for any of their bullying ways.

It’s a sad story you have Nancy.  It does seem to be another instance of what I’m talking about.  Uniform enforcement of the rules is critical.  I am a university professor, and In the case of your child the late intervention could cause problems later in life.  Often dyslexics are not diagnosed until into university.  I think “how did they get this far?”  But we’ve got a school system that just pushes kids through for whatever reason.  This is THOUGHT to be kind, but it’s not.  What a cruel thing to “pretend” someone is ready for later material when they’re struggling already with the earlier stuff.

Part of the problem with what you’re talking about is the sheer NUMBER of regulations.  It is overwhelming how many rules and regulations administrators and teachers must follow.  I believe there are so many that many never master the rules—they just follow the path of least resistance, and what they think will get them into the least trouble.  In this it’s hard to fault them; it’s only human.  I’ve heard that the set of rules a policeman is supposed to obey can be up to 50,000 pages long.  Very few actually read them all.  But defense lawyers do.  Imagine you’re a cop trying to arrest someone, and you’re one of the few who has memorized the book (they’re actually not in one book but spread across many different documents).  What goes through as you’re slapping the cuffs on?  How many i’s must you dot and t’s must you cross?

One thing our society (and our schools) needs is simpler rules, and officials who have the fortitude to enforce them impartially, every time.

It is not a sad story, but a common place story in the public education system of K to 12, concerning dyslexics and other disabilities that affects learning. The Supreme Court of Canada, will be hearing the Moore case, in part is not enforcing the rules/regulations concerning disability, and not living up to the Constitutional rights, that people with disabilities have.

You posed a question how does a person with undiagnosed dyslexia get that far into the doors of an university?  Very easily done, when the fox is in charge of the hen coop. And the chickens are only entitled to certain rights, if and when the foxes deem it so.

It is why I think the bully policies are highly discriminatory, and the net effect is allowing one group of students having more rights than others, and/or having no rights at all. It is about learning to play the game, like one is really playing in the reality show of Survivor. As you have stated, we see the very same things in the real world, where some are heavily penalized, others are free to be above the laws.

When I went to school, there was really zero tolerance for any type of bullying. Sometimes the whole class was confined after school, to work out a long multiplication or division problems, because of one student who decided to call someone stupid or another name. But those were the days, where girls and boys played in their separate playgrounds, but were given permission to cross over to each other’s territory for games such as building snow forts and the ensuring snow ball war after, or playing touch football, or kicking the soccer ball around in the fall, or having a huge game of scrub baseball in the spring. For a boy to hurt a girl in any form, was a huge penalty compared to a boy vs boy, or girl vs girl situation. And we all learn morals that rest behind the books, that are more less banned for not being politically correct.

In my day, the rules were simple, and covered all aspects of bad behaviour. No exceptions were made, but the punishment varied depending on the deed. Mere name calling, would have the whole class detain after school to do math work to the lecture of a teacher, expounding a Bible passage on the evils of poor sportsmen behaviour.

Adults need to start acting like adults, and dropped this ridiculous PC behaviour, that really only promotes children to pushed boundaries to see how far they can go with rude behaviour. And for others, learning to play the game without getting caught. But I am one of the few, who believe that children need lots of structure within a simple set of rules to follow. Bit old-fashion, but than adults need to stopped treating children as little adults. There are not mini-adults, but children who need to learn all kinds of things, within a structured environment.

Yes, Nancy, especially your last paragraph—our society has forgotten how to educate and dicipline our young; unfortunately when children aren’t raised properly, they are the ones who pay dearly for our neglect/stupidity/apathy—whatever…

In almost all cases, bullying and the lack of empathy that it requires is narcissistic behaviour. It is born of the delusion that our needs are the only needs of importance and that other people do not really exist as separate, entire individuals with their own needs and feelings.
However, before you worry too much, he is only eleven, and many children of that age are narcissistic and then grow up perfectly normally. It’s far too soon to think he will be like this as an adult.
Children today are under exceptional pressure to hold narcissistic values. ( see Narcissism and the Narcissistic Society ) Fortunately life has a way of teaching most of us that what really makes life worth living is not available down this route.