Residue

I was assaulted by a teacher two years ago. I still hate walking into the school. It’s hard not to look behind me as I exit and not expect this crazy woman coming at me.

I endured one incident. What about a child who has to walk in and out of that building 200 days of the year? Each day holds a promise of another incident. Another assault and tearing away at their person.

The scars last a lifetime.

If you have a loved one who has been bullied and begins acting out of character later in life, you need to consider that it might be PTS. Get them help.

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What does a Real Apology Look Like?

Something I’ve come to realize is bullies are very good at making it sound like they apologize but in reality, their words are a form of justification.

“I’m passionate and that’s why I have to yell at people.”

“I’m a loud person so that’s why I had to attack you verbally.”

These types of apologies do not show any acceptance of the pain and hurt they’ve caused another person. Instead, they put the blame on the victim so that they are once again made to feel they’ve done something to deserve the wrath of the bully.

“I’m sorry. I had no right to yell at you.”

“I apologize. I had no right to attack you verbally.”

Such a small difference in words but it puts the ownness on you, the one apologizing and uplifts the victim.

We need to listen to how people use words. Don’t let a bully get away with a second round with a fake apology.

 

Labelled a Bully

I find it interesting when people who don’t understand a situation jump in and defend the so-called victim of a bully when so often they’ve got things backwards. That’s the problem—bullies are good manipulators.

I found myself in exactly this position when I defended a friend from a person who lacked respect and decency. I would like to know when it became okay to call people names and belittle them. Interestingly enough, the person hurting my friend with her verbal assault is a teacher—I wish I could say I was surprised. And why did this happen? My friend had her own opinion and expressed it but her ideas didn’t agree with the bully’s thoughts on the matter.

I’m not going to go after the person who called me a bully. There’s no point. People who refuse to see what’s really going on don’t want to understand. I’m not going to let that stop me from defending a friend and let the bully know it’s not okay to lash out in a verbal tirade and belittle people just because they don’t agree with you. I just wonder who is going to help this defender of bullies when she’s on the other end of the bully’s wrath?

 

It Happened Again

Are you as tired of hearing stories of violence within the schools as I am? Today, I heard another one. A young girl is getting death threats from a schoolmate. Teachers refuse to believe this could be bullying. Then this young girl is pushed down a flight of stairs.

Now, I’m thinking that’s a first step to making good on a death threat. How about you? What would you do next?

The parents of this young girl are still trusting the school to deal with the problem. I would be calling the police. They’ll take their daughter out of the school for a few days while the teachers “deal” with the bullying problem they aren’t even ready to acknowledge as existing. The victim once again the one forced out of the environment, not the bully!

The school system is a closed system where I live. That means police will not darken the door of any school without an invite. Quite a change from the almost weekly drug searches that went on when I attended school. The scary thing about this is parents are just as closed out as the police. The principal will smile at you and ensure you that they’re doing everything they can but you have no way of knowing if they’re doing anything.

This young girl received a threat and then it was acted upon. CALL THE POLICE! If you want your daughter to be safe in her school, you will bypass the school authorities and force action with an outside body that’s able to get in when invited.

This young girl has already been assaulted. Why are we letting bullies get away with crimes by putting our children at the mercy of a system that has proved unable to deal with the problem of bullying?

 

A Bully’s Paradise

No red marks on the paper, no one fails and behavior is no longer considered in marks–so much has changed since I was in school. None of it for the better.

Bullying has always been part of the school experience but never has it been as malicious as now. Children are dying and our schools are a big part of the problem. How can bad things not happen when we never put any responsibility on our youth but give them the sense they are entitled to everything?

How do these things benefit a child?

1. No “x” or red marks. I remember when I was a music teacher and this idea was in its infancy. I thought it insane then and even more so now. How can anyone learn without being told when they got things wrong? I understand self esteem but a child knows when you lie to them. Not telling them they’ve made a mistake is a lie.

2. No failing a student. I was shocked to hear this is carrying over to higher levels of education. How can we go to say a doctor if they’re giving a pass to a failure? Kind of scary. In fact, no one in any secondary schooling should be given a pass on any part of their course if they haven’t achieved it. I can’t believe anyone can believe in themselves when everything they’ve achieved is based on a lie. What does that do to one’s self esteem when they are told they can’t achieve a pass and must be given one they haven’t earned?

3. Behavior not considered a factor in grades. This one really irritates me. Somewhere, behavior has to be considered. It is not fair for the students who want to do the work and actually pass a grade with the marks they’ve earned to deal with some class disrupting troublemaker. It is even less fair to the student who tries and struggles to be forced to deal with bad behavior. When children know the teacher has no influence over their behavior, you’ve got a problem. Our local school used a form of detention that quickly became a badge of honour to attend. There has to be a better way.

4. Lack of punishment options for bad behavior for teachers is a huge problem. In short, they have no options except to use intimidation, threats and mental abuse. I’d rather get a spanking than have someone mess with my emotional being. This in short, makes teachers bullies.

5. Lack of communication with parents is another problem. When my son was in grade school, he struggled with math. At parent teacher interviews, I was told he just wasn’t understanding concepts. Then quite by accident, I discovered his entire grade was struggling. IF the teacher had told us this, we could have dealt with this issue much sooner and more effectively. My son wasn’t the issue–the teacher was! But that’s the mentality–keep things hidden. Don’t ever admit failure on a teaching level. On another occasion, a teacher owed my child an apology. It took months for her to apologize. But here’s the problem–she belittled my child in front of the class but the apology was made in private. My daughter was unfairly labelled  a bully in front of the class, the teacher should have corrected her error in front of the class. If teachers are not held accountable for their behavior, why would the students be?

Bullying isn’t going away. Creating entitled children will ensure that. But even worse, creating entitled teachers brings the bullying to a new level of ability.

It takes honesty and integrity to build self esteem, not lies. Discipline needs to be a part of the school system with both students and teachers. Parents need to know the truth and the secret society of the teaching profession needs to be cracked open so the garbage can spill out of this rotten egg!

 

What do You Know about School Governing Rules?

A teacher assaults a parent. You’d think there would be some discipline. Not really. The only reason we got any action is because I pressed charges with the RCMP. Without doing that, NOTHING would have happened. My daughter would have had to continue attending this school with a woman I can only describe as mentally unstable. As it is, there are students still in the classroom with this teacher.

Here’s what was explained to me by a nice government employee that helped design this insanity.

1. RCMP are not welcome in our schools unless invited. The school superintendent was very angry that I brought them into the situation.

2. NO CHILD UNDER 16 YEARS OF AGE can make a statement of abuse by a teacher and have it considered. I asked what if a child says they’re being molested. The reply “If they are under 16, it won’t be considered.” In our case, this teacher had abused several of her students including a handicapped child. Not one of those incidents was considered as evidence when considering this teacher’s future. The children were under 16.

3. Schools in Saskatchewan are self governing. Basically one back scratches the other here. A teacher’s performance reflects on the superintendent. He is both judge and jury in these cases while being connected to the entire situation. How can this person be the voice for both the accused and the victim? It is an extreme conflict of interest. And the public (parents) have little to no access to the process. Even counselors are part of this internal system. They don’t have to answer to anyone and there is no way to test their integrity. In fact, there is no way of knowing if this teacher ever saw a counselor and definitely little chance that she was assessed by a licensed psychologist. Scared yet?

Who will handle the situation? In our case, if the principal had been left in charge, she would have done the right thing and had this teacher removed. However, she was quickly pushed aside and forbidden to speak to us. The only person we trusted in the system was pushed out of our reach. Instead we were forced to deal with the superintendent, a man who didn’t care about the students or the abuse. His reputation was on the line if one of the teachers he supported was found to be incompetent. Again, a severe conflict of interest! Cutting the principal off from communicating with us was nasty and unfair. She was our liaison between the internal system while we looked in from the outside.

My daughter was labelled a bully in front of her class. The teacher reported her as a bully to the principal. I was not made aware of any of this until after the assault. Why not?

Was anything ever done about the psychological damage to my child? She didn’t sleep and this whole thing had her upset for weeks. But she had no voice within the school. Thankfully, the justice system gave her that voice and she was able not only to confront this teacher for her own healing but also on the behalf of her friends and classmates.

Parents, if you suspect bullying. CALL THE RCMP! Most acts of bullying are crimes! The school system is not designed to protect your children but the system, the teachers and the governing authorities. Find out if there are more victims than just your child. Ban together and report things to the RCMP. The entire school system is one big bully! Go to social media. Let the rest of us hear your story so we can ban together and shut this system down.

We were bullied by the teacher.

We were bullied with threats by the school superintendent.

The principal was bullied by those above her.

If they could have, the school governing body would have bullied the RCMP. They did threaten that the RCMP wouldn’t help us. Thank goodness they were wrong.

But this teacher is still out there. I know there are many good teachers who truly care about the children or do you? Why are you part of such a corrupt system?

 

Teachers Bullying

Once again, I’m appalled at a teachers behavior!

I was assaulted by my daughter’s teacher and over something nobody would imagine could lead to this.

My daughter is accused of bullying by this teacher. Why? The teacher is at the front of the class going into detail about hating something my daughter loves. My daughter responds with what if I don’t like something you like. (My daughter was a bit more specific.) The teacher pulls my daughter to the front of the class tells her classmates she’s a bully for daring to say she doesn’t like something the teacher likes. Yes this is for real!

I promise my daughter I’ll not mention it at parent teacher interviews even though I’m disgusted. Turns out, I don’t have to. The teacher brings it up. And much more. She tells me I’m a bad mother, a poor example for my faith and that I’m stupid and ignorant. I’ve had enough and leave the room. She comes after me and attacks me physically.

SHE’S STILL TEACHING!!!!!

Why? I’ll tell you in my next installment.

 

What’s Your Story?

One the reasons bullying doesn’t seem to go away is because nothing changes in the way we deal with the problem. How do we change that?

First we need to know the problem. Then we need to figure out a solution.

I’m looking for your story. Tell us about the bullying you endured and then what you think was the reason that it happened. If it was ongoing—why?

Or are you headed back to school. Are you worried about bullying? I’d love to hear your story.

 

Protecting Our Little Angels

Parents are very blind when it comes to their children. We’ve all heard that description of a little angel from the mouth of a parent while you watch the child display the actions of a little different spiritual being. We call this love but is it? To raise healthy adults, there needs to be some accountability on the part of a child and the parents.

Be honest with yourself about your child. Make sure to get both sides of every story. Listen to what the teachers are saying and compare it with your child’s story. Both sides will have elements of truth, elements of misunderstanding and people have a tendency to sugar-coat things in their favour.

If you love your child, you will not give them power over their teacher with carte blanche support no matter what the situation. Teachers need parents to show their children how to respect those in authority.

 

Enablers

We all hear about the people behind the people with addictions, helping the addict pursue that which is destroying their lives. I have often found that same mentality within our schools. I want to be clear—I think teachers have an impossible job and I appreciate their efforts. But I have also seen many of these teachers unknowingly aid in the development of bullies. I understand how easy it is to do this. As a youth leader, I had one particularly strange child. It was hard not to shake my head with some of the things he said to me. The other youth didn’t want him to be a part of the group and often excluded him. I could have done more to integrate him but never did. I regret that. I think teachers, like myself, at times do the same thing. Most often I’ve seen it during extra-curricular activities—especially sports. The good players are given power they shouldn’t have and the underdog is kept on the bench. We all say winning isn’t everything and then prove our lie in our actions.

This is a problem that needs a solution but enablers cannot cure themselves and yet too often, that’s  what’s expected.