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May 29, 2007 You are invited to read the story of Olivia Gardner, who was bullied for years and suffered the debilitating effects of so many chronically intimidated children. 1. Here is what happened in a nutshell, as quoted from the article: "Olivia switched schools twice before her mother resorted to homeschooling her to stop other kids from bullying her in person and online, her mother said. It all started when Olivia, who is epileptic, had a seizure one day in sixth grade, and several classmates called her "retard" and dragged her backpack through mud. It escalated online with a page on MySpace, continued at her second school, and resumed at the third when mother and daughter helped state investigators look into child abuse allegations in a family they knew, Kathleen Gardner said." After reading about Olivia's ordeal, two sisters in a high school in another city started a letter writing campaign which has helped Olivia survive. One girl wrote "I felt what was happening to her was so horrible, and she didn't deserve to be treated this way, even though I had never met her." This quote is from the same article. Now read this blog about two unrelated young men who often were bullied at school. The blog was started by Scott Donahue and is titled "School Safety & Virginia Tech." The other often-bullied boy's name is Seung-Hui Cho. In this blog you will read accounts by persons or about persons who were often bullied at school, and the lack of help they received from professional school personnel. Each one of these testimonials is an indictment against the jungle-morality public school system and a wake-up call to thousands of communities many of whose parents, teachers, and social leaders are still asleep at the wheel. 2. Here is a quote from Scott Donahue: In my own life I was quiet, didn't have many friends and went through hazings and even played violent video games... Teachers and staff wouldn't stop anyone from harassing me unless I got my parent involved. One time I was even punched in the face and was told by a school authority to "not worry about it," as they had written the person up and they were allowed to return to their game of basketball." 3. Here is a quote from blog contributor to this block identified as "im me": "i was bullied as the years go by and the school system just say deal with it. i broke my arm twice and got beaten up planty of times. im not say i will cause another shooting, im just saying that school systems should do more about students being harassed." Posted Monday, May 7th, 9:23 AM 4. Here is a quote from blog contributor "Anonymous": "In 1982, a kid threw a rock across the bus and left me with a bloody face. I went to the nurse. She gave me a cold pack and told me to sit in the hall. Two hours went by before they remembered to call my parents. The school sent a note home to the bully's parents, but that was it. A week later, he was throwing tennis balls at me. I finally stood up, called him by an obscene name, and got detention for cussing in school. Go figure. We homeschool now. I'm not putting my kids into the cesspool of public schools." Posted Monday, May 7th, 3:13 PM 5. Later in the blog, "Anonymous" said: "My child got attacked at school and when she defended herself and pushed the girl off of her she got a three day suspension. She was attacked, injured, and suspended and I was never called by the school. My daughter told me when I got home from work. I was in the principal's office the next morning demanding answers since there were 280 students outside when this happened and no adult teacher was anywhere around. The principal became angry because I questioned her decisions, told me my daughter should have yelled loudly when the girl attacked her, and the suspension would not change. She also told me they did not have enough in the budget to fund for more staff or safety measures and if I felt my child was not safe then I should take her to school somewhere else. My daughter is an honor roll student, athletic, and not violent at all. What am I suppose to do when you get no help from the school? They treated me like I was the person in trouble and should not have questioned their ZERO tolerance policy on fighting. I will home school next year. The girl that attacked my daughter has harassed us up until yesterday and I got the police involved but I am terrified for her to go to school because they did not make me feel any better about her safety. Is it not school policy to notify parents? I think everyone has the right to defend themselves if they are being attacked."Posted Friday, May 11th, 11:32 PM Can we face facts? Today in American society for years a small boy is often kept prisoner of his mother and his father. If this boy has siblings, he is subject daily to their attacks. If we know that certain children and certain adults are sadistic, the best way to temper this tendency is to culture children so that each child is shared by a variety of empathetic caregivers. An occasional insult is tolerable, but when a child is confined in a house or in a school in which sadism prevails for hours each day, well, that is destructive both to children and to society. But this is the present culture in the USA today: total possession of a child by one or two parents and then total possession by one school teacher all the school day! The only place one can go for a little freedom is into one’s own imagination. Okay. Speaking of imagination, let's consider a certain ten year old boy named Tim. Even though Tim's home life verges on the idyllic, Tim is required by law to go to school. Since Tim's family is lower middle class, Tim has to attend a public school. Moreover, since Tim's home is in a large city and since both parents work, the boy has to ride four miles on a crowded and noisy school bus once each morning and then once again each afternoon. Tim is totally possessed by the school bus system and the school system from about 7:30AM until about 4:00PM each weekday! Except for occasional lapses into daydreaming, Tim's thoughts, feelings, and actions are dictated by what goes on within this close and crowded confinement. Consequently, even though Tim's home life is tranquil, the boy feels that he needs to bring a gun to school because some of the other boys bring guns. These guns don't shoot real bullets but they do look impressive. This plastic gun play is part of the boy's "imo klub." And Tim and his buddies sometimes write gory stories. They get lots of ideas from various products available through the mass media. Bringing real guns to school will come next year or the year after. Tim has difficulty in mathematics and each mathematics class raises both tension and terror in the boy. Tim isn't endowed with great ability in mathematics, so the class is difficult for him and other students snigger when they observe Tim struggling long and hard with a math problem at the board. Tim also has an eyesight handicap that makes him play poorly in ball games. Out on the playground robust non-handicapped boys sometimes shout at Tim or tease him. As a result, Tim sometimes plays sick at home to avoid attending school. Timorous Tim is learning to be dishonest. Furthermore, Tim's special talent has never been encouraged by the school because it is not a talent in a subject that is taught at school. Consequently for Tim, school has always been both a physical prison and a mental prison that keeps him away from his main talent and his main joy. As a result, in a classroom fantasy rather than focus on the lesson at hand is often the way Tim defends himself against both imaginary killers and the bully school system. A few other boys who feel bullied, intimidated, and imprisoned at school are members of Tim's "imo klub." By obtaining followers and play-actors, Tim is better able to cope in his difficult situation. Tim doesn't talk to his parents about school because he regards school as so unpleasant. Once he is off that noisy crowded school bus, Timorous Tim doesn't think about school at all. How well can you relate to this young man who is becoming lost in dishonesty and fantasy because he is so often abused on the bus and at school? Probably not well if you enjoyed school. Of course it's important for children to learn some math, some language, some history, some physical education, and some other common subjects, but when school becomes a jungle training ground and a prison for children, they feel a tension that seeks a brutal release. This same tension is felt by crowded chickens, rats, and other animals when they are penned up in close proximity with no chance to get away from the feeling of being so crowded. Chickens have their pecking order, and rats nip and bite when crowded up close. Children's brains work much the same way, especially when their animal passions are aroused. Lots of loud noises, hard seats, pushing and shoving, and enforced slave labor all stimulate these animal passions in children. The weaker child, the handicapped child, and the unusually sensitive child are apt to get abused the most and suffer the most. Teachers themselves perhaps were made so toughened up and competitive to get their university degrees and their desirable job positions, so they may not be empathetic to suffering children. In this archaic school system many sensitive and gifted children do become neurotic. Tim himself is breaking down as he learns dishonesty and as he learns to engage in fantasy rather than focus on his lessons. Tim makes elaborate pen drawings of guns. Tim brings plastic guns to school. During the fifty minute lunch recess Tim often talks about guns with his buddies. Increasingly these boys talk about getting real guns and bringing them to school. And sometimes Tim's friend Mike smuggles a gun catalog to school in his backpack and during lunch break all the imo klub buddies enjoy looking at all those pictures of guns and talking about those deadly weapons. This is a lot more than art for art's sake. ------------ About the author: Sixty-seven years of age, and still relatively vigorous in mind, body, emotions, and spirit, John L. Waters is an independent researcher on self-healing, integration, creativity, and unity. To help demonstrate the effectiveness of his research, John has created thousands of drawings, paintings, instrumental music pieces, songs, prose pieces, poems, and other inventions. John has also used his research to help persons remove a mental block and solve a difficult problem. John also gives personal presentations which explain his research and illustrate his research results. Each one of these works demonstrates the effectiveness of John's research. For more information, read John's letters of recommendation: about John's self-healing and integration: more about my work: about John's independent research: about John's seeking an agent or a publisher. Email: blueguntwo@yahoo.com Comment on this article here! ------------ All articles are EXCLUSIVE to Useless-Knowledge.com. Please link to this article rather than copying and pasting it onto your site (which would be unauthorized and illegal). |
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