Follow-up on a previous thread

http://www.thestar.com/news/ontario/article/932340—debate-heats-up-over-niagara-school-for-poor-kids

In fact there is a connection,that relational bullying will increase big time within the walls of the low-income school. Studies have shown that relational bullying increases in the teen years in all children. In the various income groups, relational bullying takes on different patterns, and is much harder to detect in the low-income groups. Harder to detect, because the major variable has been removed, and that is income. What is left is personal attributes of the individual, and variables that the school has no control over. And in this particular low-income school, I really do not think the most popular kids will be the high achievers, but rather a mixed of kids who will rule the roost.

Here is a twist that some might view as relational bullying by adults, directed at the children.

“That’s what a school in Laval did when it ran a draw for a teddy bear in a kindergarten class, but pointedly excluded kids found in possession of lunch supplies packed in what school authorities deem to be envirounfriendly Ziploc plastic bags. (The school prefers hard plastic Tupperware-type containers.)

When the parents of one 6-year old who was so ostracized complained, they were unrepentantly told that the goal of the exercise was to instill environmental sensitivity in the tykes. But while the school’s pedagogical intention might have been good, its method was mean-spirited and misdirected.”

Read more: http://www.montrealgazette.com/Editorial+Teddy+bear+draw+picnic+year/4208522/story.html#ixzz1Cwsc2znf