Although bad parenting makes up part of it consider that a good part of childrens lives are spent in school so bad teaching has just as bad of an effect. I remember for a while I had to sit with my class for lunch. I never did understand why teachers make you sit by kids who might bully you.

Wow, some of the regulations placed on kids in schools are quite incredible. In Australia there are some wierd ones too. I remember yoyo's were banned once as were marbles and various other collectible toys at my primary school. They claimed that some kids who didn't have the best yoyo, etc would get jealous, be unhappy and maybe even try to steal the item or get into fights over them. The game, brandy, was banned too, fair enough though because wet tennis ball in the back is really quite painful and I remember the older kids had a different 'play area' to the younger kids to prevent accidents.

You both have valid points that go hand in hand. As well as the teachers sitting kids next to bullies. Teachers must sit someone next to the bullies if the bullies aren't expelled. Expel the bullies, and the children that are left gain back all that free will that was taken from them by the few horrid children of irresponsible parents.

I remember when I was in third grade everyone loved bouncy balls. Every recess you were sure to see kids throwing them against the wall and running to catch them. Durring this time there were no reports of injury, distraction in the classroom, or property damage. The next year many kids brought their bouncy balls to school to play with at recess. These were confiscated and not returned to the childeren. In this first incident there were only around 20 kids involved. Later in the year we got so fed up with this unfair rule that a group of us managed to organize around 50 kids to bring bouncy balls the following day. Surprisingly, it worked. That day at recess there were so many kids playing with bouncy balls that the monitor didn't even bother to try taking them all away.

Just goes to show you that sheer numbers make for a good show of power, even if they are just kids.

Originally posted by Strianissa
However, I stand convinced that discipline must be maintained in and FROM the home, while teachers are for teaching and monitoring at most.

This is how it should be though most of the times it isn’t. Today life is fast. Everyone and their dog are running around the block trying to get everything they need done in a mere 24hrs. This mainly consists of going to work, sleeping, shopping and other at the home tasks. Though this is neither exciting or in some cases the truth. I usually have a few hours a day that I can spend doing what I feel like doing (like ATS). But most of the times parents are not willing to spend the time with their older, less cute kids. Being an only child is especially harmful in this sense. Parents need to spend some time and talk to their kids about their behavior no matter how minor (ex. swearing).

Originally posted by Strianissa
sending the children home

This really is not a good thing to do. If there is no adult home at the time the kid can simply lie and say that there is when there really isn’t. The schools often times do not bother to continue to phone the house when no one answers and a simple excuse could be quickly concocted to make it so that their parents would never know what happened. If there is no adult present at the time, and the school knows this, then the adult should not have to take time off work to deal with their kids. After all why do we go to school anyway? We do it to get a job so that we can make money and if one is not at work, one does not make any money (we don’t all have vacation time). There must be another solution other than to do exactly what the kid wants you to do (send them home, where they would much rather be). A DT is a much better way to enforce behavior. But because this takes time away from the teacher someone will have to be responsible for helping the problem child. The councilor maybe?

Originally posted by Strianissa
When the government decided to take corporal punishment away from the teachers, they then sent it back to the parents in my opinion. I never gave my teachers any trouble or any other kids while I was in school because I knew my parents would not condone (spelling?) such behavior. If all children respected their parents more, I believe these issues would not be issues to begin with.

I agree yet corporal punishment was a harsh way to get things done and should never be practiced. I myself was given the strap, belted by my father, spanked, slapped, kicked, etc. It was no picnic. In no way should we have to go to hurting someone to get the point across. This is no better than slavery. There doesn’t seem to be too many alternatives though Making someone do something they don’t want to is not an easy task if you don’t use violence but taking away something they do want to is often times a good alternative although still wrong. It is sad that some have to be controlled in these ways...

Edit add on-

Originally posted by Strianissa
You both have valid points that go hand in hand. As well as the teachers sitting kids next to bullies. Teachers must sit someone next to the bullies if the bullies aren't expelled. Expel the bullies, and the children that are left gain back all that free will that was taken from them by the few horrid children of irresponsible parents.

Every person must be taken into consideration no matter how evil they are . Bullies are often times are insecure or are looking for attention. If everyone were to simply ignore them they might just stop (might not be a good idea to try this). Simply expelling the little bugger isn’t going to stop him from doing damage. He needs to be corrected. How? Certainly not by bulling him back. Let the bully taste fear. Tie the bully to a chair and make the bully look at themselves for the rest of the day (joke but might be effective...).

Expelling the bully is only going to solve your problem, not everyone else's. Be empathetic of others. It could be because you expelled the bully instead of dealing with the problem in the first place that a young girl hung herself in her basement. Don't feed the cause. Take away the bully's rights? If the bully is going to take away others rights than take away theirs? Put them in juvenile prison? Certainly not! Be creative! Try something new! Who knows, you just may succeed.


[edit on 9/23/2004 by SirKillallott]