Indiana mom sends son to school with stun gun

No one "has it coming" and schools should provide a safe environment. That said, it was foolish of the kid to make himself a target -- but kids do foolish things all the time. IMO the mother should also be facing charges for providing the weapon and encouraging a minor to use the weapon.

 

I work as a teacher and there is now a drive to completely eliminate all bullying and hurt feelings among school students. A laudable objective and it is about damn time that society actually notices and do something about the often horrible situation many children have in schools.

That said, I work in a very small school. There are roughly 20 teenage students in total where this can be and have been an issue. We in the staff have decent relations with all of them, the students are very rarely alone. I am as sure as I can be that no one is bullied or harassed and if it turns out that some has been it anyway then I am a completely blind person who shouldn't be allowed near a school. Even so I have to sit in endless meetings to sort out the problem of "students offending each other" we got a mark from the school supervisors cause one student said that she had been offended in school and now we have to write reports about every single thing the students do. We have to correct every time any student says anything that can be construed as offensive and I just don't know. Put more than three people together in an organisation and there will be conflicts, now add 20 more often than not troubled teenagers and extreme low achievers and I would like to see the people who could make sure that they never ever ever do anything mean to each other. Offensive behaviour should never be accepted but there is a limit to what can be done. As for the kid in the link if he feared so much for his safety that his mother felt that he needed a stun gun should it not be a case for the police? The law applies in schools as well even if it seems that some people don't think so. School personnel are not magicians, we can't fix everything. If a majority of the world's adult population can't accept flamboyant homosexual behaviour how can people expect teachers and aides make teenage boys, probably the most homophobic group of people on earth, do it? I talked about this subject with my class and came mostly nowhere, I might have stopped some of the boys from instinctively wail on the first homosexual they encounter but much more than that was beyond me.

My point is that the school can't fix all of society's woes, we do our best and can probably in many cases do more but we are not miracle workers.

 

I guess bullied kids have a choice to do something about the bullying or continue to be the victim, as so often schools don't do anything about it. When you compare this to, as BTA says, a firearm, or the bullied kid beating the ass of an aggressor (assuming he was capable), this looks pretty good.

Seriously, if someone gave me a line of sh!t like happens in typical school bullying scenarios, they'd get their ass kicked pretty hard. Why do kids in school settings have to take it?

The school is of course quick to fly into action as soon as a weapon enters the mix, but where were they during all the bullying?

 

How did he make himself a target?

 

Sounds like the parents of these kids that 'are just being kids' need to be tased if that's how they allow their children to behave

 

Add in the distinct possibility that he may well have saved himself an ass-kicking, and I'd say it was the right decision. No one got hurt this way.

 

I agree in principal, but perhaps not in execution. Societally acceptable forms of handling it usually boil down to turning the other cheek and being the bigger man and that sort of thing, which is all well and good if your quality of life can stay up despite the distress. But a lot of kids are so poorly affected by bullying that they contemplate or even commit suicide. In that light, turning the other cheek may not suffice, so 'handling it' IMO begins to mean putting a stop to it in some fashion or other. If this means an ass-kicking for the offender(s), so be it. Touchy-feely sensibilities be damned.

I'm not a parent, but if I were, one of the lessons I would pass along is that laying down and taking mistreatment is for goldfish and sheep. Maybe I'm old-fashioned, but a 'real man' doesn't allow himself to be abused and walked all over or to be the butt of others' jokes and the subject of their entertainment. If the threshold of the attacks rises to the level of harming your dignity and self-respect and self-worth, then that's not an acceptable sacrifice. There comes a point where you have no choice but to step up.

I actually kind of admire this kid.

 

This is interesting. I abhor the "zero tolerance" policies that educators and bureaucrats have forced on us. This one will test the boundaries as without a doubt the kid should be suspended and probably expelled from school (per the policy). However, he is from a "protected" class so now they have two sets of policies (and politics) to deal with. I'm guessing their heads will explode.

EDIT: Throw in that there is some bullying which if you have a kid in public school you will know is the cause d'etre and I'm predicting the principal may have to be committed because of stress.

 

3 kids attempted suicide in my high school due to bullying. 2 succeeded, 1 of them was a good friend of mine. Don't tell me that kind of crap is acceptable. The "real world" doesn't often consist of groups of people tearing you down or physically threatening/hurting you in front of others, not to mention the fact that most young teens aren't exactly emotionally stable, rely on acceptance from peers for self worth, and that bullying left unchecked can get to seriously depraved levels.

 

I apologize BA, I didn't know that was what you were getting at. This issue affects me personally and it's easy to get angry when you think someone is downplaying it.

 

Those last two posts may be the most grown up postings in the alleys for a long time

 

I echo Joacqin's sentiments. Teachers can do a great deal but they cannot do everything and they cannot be everywhere at once. When we try, we are slapped down for that, too. It's a darned if you do, darned if you don't situation.

I get hot under the collar at stories like this as well, because I was bullied as a youth as well, and everyone made excuse after excuse for my tormentors, and yet when I finally stood up and defended myswelf, suddenly THAT was when they decided to draw the line and punish me. It's ridiculous.

But it starts at home. Parents need to give their children love, acceptance, and all of that feel good stuff, of course, but they also need to teach their spawn the difference between right and wrong. They need to let their children face consequences rather than defending them blindly or lying for them. A little empathy would go a long way -- why would a parent defend little Johnny's abuse of little Adam when if Johnny were being treated that way by Adam they'd be all up in arms about their darling's suffering. Parents need to get a grip and stcik up for their kids when they are innocent but also punish them when they do wrong.

And I swear, I advocate the death penalty for these idiot parents who say "MY son doesn't lie!" -- what <blank>ing imbeciles. I can't tell you how often I've seen kids tell the biggest whoppers and their parents come in and give me that idiotic line. Then when faced with something like videeo evidence that their spawn has lied, they don't even have the decency to say "I was wrong, I'm mistaken." Nope, they STILL maintain that the 260 pound kid must have had a really good reason for curb stomping the 98 pound quadriplegic. It's frustrating.

 

You may never stand for it. The argument that bullying is part of life, is the first step down on a gliding scale. It is hard to get on top of it, but at least try.

And somewhere later people asked question why it had gotten out of hand when he strikes back.

What if he, speculative, had taken dad gun.

Or uncle's sports utility? (sub machine gun)

 

Kind of an interesting turnabout in this example. I bet Mr. Bully was crapping his pants when the cop showed up.

Bully: She told her son, ‘hit him hard’ –and she learned a lesson