Spoken to an educator recently? Opened a newspaper? Then, no doubt you’ve heard about the startling increase in remarkably cruel, insensitive & flat-out rude behavior kids are showing on a regular basis. Group-think is short-circuiting basic decency with alarming regularity. At my middle school in recent months, as in schools …
Recently, there have been reports about another grade-schooler suspended for pointing his fingers like a gun (see the Ohio Dispatch story). I often dismiss these stories because (as anyone in education knows, with horror) the media “coverage” is usually one side of the story, or less. Schools often won’t comment due …
Even before there was a state law, my school took on bullying. We treated it as harassment, holding out the spectre of serious legal consequences if cruelty continued or for any retaliation. I argued, then as now, that school is a civil right, and anyone interfering with that is stealing …