Should we have "Take Back The Playground" days to fight school bullies?

[Ken Burch]

One of the most potent actions feminists ever did(and continue to do)are the "Take Back The Night!" events that occurred in communities all around the country.

Since school districts are still totally uninterested in stopping bullies(and may actually secretly see bullies as necessary to "toughen kids up for life") is this not, perhaps, the time to organize "Take Back The Playground!" or "Take Back The School" events to organize the non-bully majorities among school kids?

[Posteritatis]

1. I can already hear the freakouts...

Lots and lots and lots of pro-bullying people out there. Something like this would be interesting to shock them into a bit of nice open honesty in front of witnesses, at least.

[Ken Burch]

7. That's the point. PUT them on the defensive

And show them, WITHOUT using violence, that they aren't the majority.

And make them admit, in front of the world, that they DELIBERATELY teach their kids to be cruel, sadistic, and brutal.

[DebJ]

2. I"d like to see the parents of bullies and victims meet together

with the children involved, and make a commitment to see that this stuff stops. A large percentage of the school bullies I have seen (and all of the ones who are always that way) have parents that egg them on. Those parents need to have their perspectives revised, or else feel the power of the entire community shunning them. They instruct their children by saying things like "Don't you ever let anyone get away with saying anything not nice about you. Pound their face in if they do."
Then these students get other students to back them up by churning up the negative emotions.

Imagine, going through middle school and never once hearing that someone said something 'not nice' about you. Ha!

[Ken Burch]

8. It isn't even always about some kid DOING something to the bully

In almost all cases, the bullying was totally unprovoked.

No kid ever did anything to deserve being barred from playing in certain parts of the playground.

No kid ever did anything to deserve being shoved in a locker, or having her or his schoolbooks or other belongings stolen.

No kid ever did anything to deserve having the same humiliating names thrown at him or her for years.

No kid ever did anything to deserve anything a bully ever did to that kid.

[bluestateguy]

3. I like the idea of an "Ass Whooping" day to beat up the school bullies better

Followed by a "tell the school administrators go to hell" day.

[Ken Burch]

9. The problem with an "Ass Whooping Day", much as most of them deserve it

Is that it gives the bullies what they want...validation...the chance to say "See? everybody else is JUST LIKE US! That's why we HAVE to be like this!"

Plus, kids have been punching out bullies for as long as there have been bullies, and yet bullying goes on.

What you suggest would be emotionally satisfying, but ineffective.

We do need to FIGHT them(as we need to fight ALL injustice and all oppressors), but not on their terms.

The answer lies in treating bullying as we treat domestic violence...as a cycle that CAN be broken.

[kctim]

11. So you have actually had a bully problem

and was able to actually solve it in an effective way. Same here.

Glad to see that not everybody agree's with creating even more victims for this heinous behavior to feed off of.

[ScreamingMeemie]

4. Here is a place you can start with. There are many programs

already in place. It is about getting schools to sit up and utilize them:

http://www.challengeday.org/

It is far more than a program on television and has actually been around since I was in high school. It is just, sadly, not utilized as much as it should be.

The slogan "Be the Change" is very powerful.

[NuclearDem]

5. I got bullied as a kid back in elementary school

I eventually got so sick of getting ambushed at recess everyday, so one day, I swung back.

Guess who was the one that got in trouble?

[Ken Burch]

6. The teachers and the principal were probably scared of the actual bully, AND his dad

n/t.

[Posteritatis]

10. These days you don't even have to swing back

Getting punched is reason enough for suspension in a lot of schools. A few DUers have mentioned their kids' schools' policies explicitly forbidding self-defense.