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For years, bullying was seen as no big deal, and for many, a rite of passage. Freshmen were hazed by seniors, and when they became seniors those same freshmen hazed the incoming class.
“Kids will be kids,” was the common response for years. But as the after-effects of bullying became better known, schools across the country began taking steps to solve the bully problem.
Pleasanton is no exception. As of the fall semester of the 2011-12 school year, there were 19 documented cases of bullying, according to Kevin Johnson, the district’s senior director of pupil services. So far in 2012-13, he said there have been 17, so the number of reported cases will likely be lower than a year ago.
Those are just the ones that were reported; a 2010 study showed that the majority of bullying is only reported when it escalates to physical violence, and only about 40% of the time, even then.
Late last year, a student from Amador was taken out of school by her mother after the girl received text messages and comments from her classmates saying things like, “Why don’t you just kill yourself?”
Cassandra Bankson knows first-hand how devastating bullying can be. She was bullied so severely for cystic acne during middle and high school that she dropped out of San Ramon Valley High. Bankson did private study, and graduated two years early.
“It wasn’t until middle school and high school that it started to bother me. I wasn’t thrown in trash cans or anything. It was very emotional and verbal,” she said. “It was almost to the point that I didn’t feel like a member of society.”
Bankson said she floated through friendships but did have a particular friend, also with acne, in middle school. A trip to the doctor worked for the friend, although a similar treatment did little for Bankson.
“Toward the end of our friendship, she started picking on me as well,” Bankson said. “It was probably because she wanted to fit in, too. She wanted to connect with them.”
Bankson urges anyone who is the victim of bullying to talk to someone, although she said her counselor said the usual — “‘kids are going to be kids, they’ll get over it.'”
She wished she’d gone to another counselor or been able to talk to her parents about it earlier.
Now, Bankson said, she realizes that everyone has the potential to be both a victim and a bully.
“Words hurt and, regardless of your age or your situation, bullying happens,” she said. “It’s about recognizing it in yourself and in other people.”
Her story has a happy ending. The 6-foot-tall woman, now 20, is an Internet sensation, sharing her battle with severe cystic acne and makeup tips. Bankson shoots makeup tutorials, her YouTube channel has more than 300,000 subscribers, and her videos have received over 44 million hits.
The Pleasanton school district in general and some schools in particular are addressing bullying. Johnson said counselors and administrators are giving presentations every semester, and the district has a tip line as well.
“I’m also working with middle school administrators. We have a proposal for a company that would like to talk to us, specializing on something for the middle schools,” Johnson said. “A lot of bullying starts in the middle school years.”
In addition, he said, the DARE program has been modified to include both bullying and cyberbullying, and the Pleasanton Police Department is offering four one-hour workshops for parents, which include bullying, along with education on drug and alcohol abuse and Internet safety.
Cyberbullying has become a growing concern, thanks to the rise in social media and Internet access for young people who can use sites like Facebook, instant messaging, texts or tweets to carry verbal abuse or threats.
Johnson described cyberbullying as “a tough one.”
“It’s a major concern. Unlike when we were in school, when one person would say something and four others would see it,” he said, adding that now, “hundreds of people see it.”
Foothill High School has been at the forefront of the fight against bullying in Pleasanton. Last year, the school brought speaker Calvin Terrell in to speak about the issue.
While his talks did include one anecdotal story of a fourth-grader who committed suicide after her phone was stolen by a girl who used it to send out pornographic pictures, Terrell focused mainly on the larger problems of racism and classism, saying that if those are solved, bullying would fade away.
“Bullying is the poisonous plant that grows in the toxic soil of prejudice,” he told a group at the Four Points Sheraton, his third talk of the day, after speaking at two assemblies at Foothill High.
Foothill has a Facebook page, Foothill compliments, which is solely for people to spread positive messages; Amador Valley High has a similar Facebook page called “Hey, you’re awesome. Love, Amador.”
Foothill has also received a $16,000 two-year grant to begin a “restorative justice” program. The program includes students being confronted by the people they’ve hurt. They may be asked to give an apology, identifying exactly what they did wrong.
School Board Member Jamie Hintzke has been an advocate of restorative justice, but she said it will take more than that to end bullying.
“The bullying conversation is not just doing stuff when it happens, it’s how you create an environment where it doesn’t happen,” Hintzke said. “It’s not just kids. It’s staff. It’s parents. It’s on the soccer field.”
Livermore Airport landings paused during bomb squad response across streetFebruary 26, 2026 10:09 pm
The anti-bullying program is likely a waste of money. Newsweek listed 9 Myths About Bullies. I’ll provide a link so you can read all of them yourself if you wish, but here are two salient ones:
Bullies are unpopular and have low self-esteem.
Research is finally catching up with what parents and teachers have known for years: plenty of the most aggressive kids are confident and socially successful. Bullying and aggression can yield rich social rewards like attention, more friends, and power. That’s one of the reasons it’s so hard to get kids to stop: gossip and exclusion bring people together, even as they push others out. And it’s why involving kids with high social status in anti-bullying programs is so important.
Bullying is about the kids.
In fact, it’s parents who can be the biggest bullies of all. In the schools I work with, teachers tell me that they can manage their classrooms, but it’s the parents who are out of control. Parents replicate the same nerve-racking hierarchies they are so quick to condemn on the playground. They exclude children and parents from parties, playdates, and coffee, or publicly gossip about other people’s children. Until parents hold themselves to the same standards we impose on our kids, real change will be impossible.
http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2010/10/14/the-nine-most-common-myths-about-bullying.html
“The fault, Horatio, lies not in our children but in ourselves.”
Bullying is not only tolerated but encouraged in American society for one simple reason: it works. Americans love winners and they don’t care how someone wins. “Winning isn’t everything, it’s the only thing.”
I actually don’t agree with one sentence from the article I quoted: “Parents replicate the same nerve-racking hierarchies they are so quick to condemn on the playground.”
It’s the other way around. Big bullies raise little bullies. Surprise, surprise.
According to WebMD in this article about teachers that bully in this web page http://www.webmd.com/parenting/features/teachers-who-bully , it is actually in some cases the teachers who inflict the most bullying to the children in their classroom. In this study, 45% of teachers admitted bullying a student.
Teachers are in the powerful position. It is the teacher who often times uses biting sarcasm or ridicules children to humiliate a child in front of the class. Take a look at the article. The article describes also a choir teacher who would go off on tirades about a particular child. Teachers use this to shame students in public in front of their peers. How many of your children have experienced that behavior in Pleasanton? I’ll be quite a few. Administrators use bullying to shame teachers in public in front of their peers.
Some teachers and administrators take to cyberspace and rant and rave about students and teachers. The article says that teachers/administrators who bully were often bullied themselves in childhood.
Too right, mate! When I was in school, teachers were always bullying me: “if you don’t do your homework, I won’t give you credit,” or “pass my class or you’ll get an F!”
Won’t somebody please think of the children?!?
Good point about teachers bullying students. The focus should be not just on kids bullying kids but adults bullying each other and students. Bullying is particularly bad when it’s a teacher victimizing a student, because the teacher has all the power in that situation.
I was lucky because I don’t remember being bullied by any of my teachers in public school. I was in parochial school for a couple of years because my parents didn’t agree with some curriculum changes in public school, and that was the only place where our teachers were bullies: they routinely hit us and belittled us. But to be fair, they didn’t single anybody out; all the kids got that treatment sooner or later, except for a few class favorites. You definitely don’t feel like learning anything from a teacher who treats you that way. That was a different era, of course; my oldest nephew attended that same parochial school a generation later and none of the teachers struck the students or yelled at them. Being a Catholic school kid in the late 1960s and early 1970s was quite the experience.
STOP BULLYING IN SCHOOLS. Too many children are suffering.
Report bullies to school officials. Report bullies to your local police department. Report bullies to the media.
It’s the parents’ fault – there are plenty of adult bullies right here in this neighborhood. Someone involved in setting up an “anti-bullying safe room” for kids to go to during lunch at the local school, ironically, is the parent of a bully.
It goes hand-in-hand with the “entitlement mentality” and people who do not think rules apply to them.
Quite disgusting, actually. And a poor example to set for children.
If you’re being bullied, TELL YOUR PARENTS.
Yea right pleasanton schools claim they care about bullying but they really dont. When i went to pms i was attacked and beaten and when we went to the vice principal she said she would suspend the attacker but she did nothing i even wrote a statement. so glad i got out of that joke of a school.
Our daughter, who was an honor roll student and in leadership class, was assaulted by a bully at PMS who wanted her attention. She told us when she arrived home, and we immediately called the principle. We could tell that he could care less and would do nothing about the assault. So we called the Pleasanton Police who came to our house and took a report. Only then did the school pay attention, but they didn’t think we should have filed a police report! The schools are not to blame for the problem, but their failure to act perpetuates the bullying problem.
It’s never OK to support a bully who picks on your child. Always report any incident to the school principal and to the POLICE.
All children have a right to be safe and to feel safe.
Schools by their “failure at act” contribute to the continuation of bullying by some students.
If school administrators cannot behave responsibly and protect students from bullying, then where can parents turn when their child is being harmed either physically and emotionally?
If the parents of children who are being bullied receive no satisfaction from school administration, contact the police.
Also, consider consulting with an attorney for your legal options.
Protect your children. Let them know that they matter.
Susie, I have heard of that type of behavior before. I would agree that the failure of the school district to act when they receive a complaint that another child has bullied a child or one of their staff members has bullied a child is quite problematic. Also another common thread is that when someone complains, they are retaliated against.
You can file a complaint against PUSD with the Federal Department of Education. Here is the web URL:
http://wdcrobcolp01.ed.gov/CFAPPS/OCR/complaintform.cfm
I think it would help a lot if there were cameras in classrooms. I know that may sound outlandish but I’ve raised 4 kids and I’m 60 years old – I have seen my kids being bullied and I know they bullied a couple of other kids on a couple of occasions until I put a stop to it. I’ve also seen teachers bully them. It is mostly a “he said/she said” kind of thing. My own mother didn’t believe what I told her about my teachers until I was a grown woman (and then she got irate – a bit too late). If we had cameras in classrooms, it would be obvious to parents of bullies that their kids needed intervention and, as parents, we could see if our kids were mis-behaving or whether the teacher was out of line. I would think teachers would want this sort of back-up too. Police officers’ actions have been largely upheld by the cameras in their cars.
It seems that if you’re afraid of the camera, you might be doing something you don’t want recorded for anyone else to see.
One of the problem with bullying is the definition of what exactly qualifies as bullying. A teacher who fails a student because of her different point of view is the worst kind of bully at school but politically-correct education system will never admit it. Children who are subjects of bullying because of their weight or medical conditions are considered as victims, which is absolutely right; but children who are subjects of bullying because of their religious or political beliefs are not considered as victims of bullying, which is wrong. The current policies at public schools when independent thinking is equal to a crime creates an environment where bullying of certain people is basically encouraged by the system. Until kids will get back their 1st amendment rights, all the discussions and ‘preventive measures’ about bullying will have no positive effect.
AnnaS,
A science teacher is not a bully if he tells his students that anyone who believes that the earth was created in seven days, 6000 years ago rather than having formed billions of years ago is not basing his beliefs on science, but on religious fantasy. A student who, when asked to write a scientifically based essay regarding the formation and age of the earth and solar system, instead writes an essay about biblical creationism deserves a failing grade. That is not bullying.
The child who responds with an essay about biblical creationism does not deserve a failing grade. It’s a teachable moment. It’s an opportunity to discuss the different beliefs about the earth/solar system.
Hopefully, children will not be shamed or believe that they have failed because of their beliefs.
As an agnostic and not atheist fanatic as many believe educated people should be, I would ask a student to define whose 7 days and 6000 years it took to create the Earth and how anthropologists’ and archaeologists’ discoveries fit into the picture. By the way, I will use this case to encourage a discussion about how exactly Big Bang and Evolution theories which try to find an answer to the question HOW life happened contradict with intelligent design which deals with a question of WHY it happened. The teacher who fails a student instead of encouraging a discussion and showing how to discuss different opinions peacefully is a bully and should be fired.
The purpose of a science class is to teach science, not to spend class time contrasting and comparing scientific theories with the multitude of religious views and interpretations that exist all over the world. I’m sure that comparing the wide range of creation theories put forth by the various religions of the world would make for an interesting discussion, but that’s really material for a different class, not a science class. If the theory isn’t science-based, then it doesn’t belong in science class and you’re wasting the time of all the other students who want to spend class time learning science and not discussing your religious beliefs.
Most of this focuses on the “white people problems” of name calling – now using computer and social media tools. While kids have gotten exponential worse today – growing up on MTV, TMZ and BET – with parents whose morals are even worse that the purveyors of the crap TV culture – the real focus should be on tangible crimes of assault and property theft. This is why the Tell’s homeschool our children.
Just look at the East Bay in racially mixed schools. How many caucasian children have been “relieved” of their bicycles, iPhones, jackets, jewelry and other items of value by poor minority children with an entitlement mentality? How many caucasian children have been violent assaulted in class, on school grounds, or en route home – including a third grader getting stabbed in the balls by a classmate, and three 9-year old African American boys running a six-year old white boy headfirst into a tree causing him permanent damage? And how many school administrators have done nothing because they were the same race as the perpetrators and wanted to “stand together,” or they were white guilted liberals more afraid of being labeled “racist” than looking after the safety of our children?
As we increase low-income and Section 8 housing – this crap is coming to Pleasanton. Personally, I would rather the district actually do something about physical violence and stealing from my children than worrying about who is calling them names of Facebook.
My concern is about learning how to live peacefully in the world with others who hold different points of view. And, not bashing or intimidating children/families with differing or unpopular perspectives.
Fortunately, one person doesn’t define the content or how a teacher instructs her/his students. A healthy curriculum is flexible and always allows for differences of opinion to be aired. The richness of a healthy education always involves disagreement and an understanding of how children learn. A stimulating science class never fails to give rise to multiple questions/opinions. It makes learning more exciting for children and teachers.
At one time, in places like Argentina and during General Franco’s Reign of Terror in Spain, people were imprisoned, tortured, murdered, and fled for their lives to survive just because they held different opinions.
Incidentally, how does one teach an art class to children? How can art be taught without an understanding of science? Is there room to incorporate a discussion on light? After all, colors are the attributes of light and not colored objects.
The purpose of a science class as well as other classes at school is to teach children to think. A science class should also teach kids how to distinguish between science, religious and politicized statements which use the world ‘science’ to prevent independent thinking. Atheism is a religious view which has nothing to do with science. Atheists deny the existence of god without ever bothering to give a scientific definition of God and to provide any scientific experiment which could prove God’s existence or non-existence. Punishing students for trying to explain incompleteness of evolution theory by using unconventional views including intelligent design is no different than trying to punish people for insisting that Earth is not flat.
For Wiliam Tell: all bullying starts from words and continues to a physical violence if it is not stopped. If students learn that it’s OK to label others as racists because they don’t want to ‘share’ their bikes and lunch money, they learn very fast that they can take whatever they want and label previous owners as racists little bit later.
AnnaS wrote: “The purpose of a science class as well as other classes at school is to teach children to think….”
The purpose of the science class is to learn about the various fields of science and learn how to use scientific methods to think, i.e., how to form a hypothesis, check the hypothesis with observed facts, and then modify or discard the working hypothesis depending how well it agrees with facts.
Atheism is not science. Christianity is not science. “Intelligent design” is not science (but rather religious beliefs masquerading as science).
You’re free and welcome to hold your own religious beliefs and to discuss them with others. But since the beliefs are based on faith rather than science, they have no place in a science class.
Sam, I’m glad that we both agree that Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Atheism, Hindu, Buddhism are all religious beliefs and are not science. Evolution of species is a science which we both agree should be studied at school. But there are many questions which the theory of evolution cannot answer.
Now, let’s say you are a teacher and your student suggests the following scenario: some super-brain (God, gods, highly intelligent aliens, whatever else) used Earth as a research laboratory. They played with different species, started and dropped different projects, and after awhile decided that they want to create a special kind of species by introducing abstract imagination and religion. These and killing their own not for the purpose of surviving are probably the main distinguishing features of humans compare with other mammals. Maybe now this super-brain creatures watch this planet and try to decide whether religious and/or artistic imagination help or damage the survival abilities of the species.
I can understand that teachers with their schedule requirements may have difficulties discussing this during a class hours. But, in my opinion, a good teacher will not simply dismiss such a question; definitely she should not punish a student for wanting to discuss it. What would you do?
“Now, let’s say you are a teacher and your student suggests the following scenario: some super-brain (God, gods, highly intelligent aliens, whatever else …”
In a philosophy or creative writing class, those discussions would be fine, but I can’t see such a discussion as having any place in a science class.
Why? I personally don’t see any reason why such a discussion could happened in creative writing. Is’t it a science job to try to explain unknown?
“The teacher who fails a student instead of encouraging a discussion and showing how to discuss different opinions peacefully is a bully and should be fired.”
The creationist essay would be a failure (in a science class) because it was factually wrong. It is not a matter of opinion. Giving a failing grade for such an essay is no more a case of bullying than marking wrong answers on a math test. How does the cliche go? Everyone is entitled to his own opinion. No one is entitled to his own facts.
Would you please provide a definitive list of the topics that can and cannot be discussed in a science class for children and teens of various ages. Gracias!
OK, if time permits, I could see a teaching bringing up such a discussion in the context of applying Occam’s razor to competing hypotheses. I completely agree that a good teacher would not simply dismiss such a question or punish the student for bringing it up.
Would you please give me one scientific fact which disapproves intelligent design.
If a student will insists that Earth is flat I’ll ask him to use today’s technology and show the edge of the Earth. If somebody would insist that gravity is a mater of opinion, I’ll ask them to shake an apple tree and to record the amount of apples which would fly up to the sky instead of falling down.
I agree that there were no experiments to prove intelligent design, but there were no experiences to prove it wrong either.
Not long time ago physicists used aether (ether) theories to explain electromagnetic and gravitation forces. They never mixed their theories with religious and scientifically proved the theory as wrong. Darvin’s followers turned evolution to religious by denying everything they don’t understand. By that they kill the science.
AnnaS: “I can understand that teachers with their schedule requirements may have difficulties discussing this during a class hours. But, in my opinion, a good teacher will not simply dismiss such a question; definitely she should not punish a student for wanting to discuss it. What would you do?”
If I were a science teacher I would be happy to discuss the student’s pet theories – after class is over. But it would not be appropriate to spend much class time discussing such wildly hypothetical theories as your “super-brain” idea in class. That’s not teacher “bullying” or teacher “refusal to discuss differing perspectives”. That simply maintaining classroom focus and making use of limited classroom time.
As a graduate student teaching assistant at a university, I would sometimes allow the discussion to veer off into wildly hypothetical directions. It was fun and stimulating and the students enjoyed it. But then I would have to pull them back and have them focus back on the science and hard facts. A teacher who would allow wildly hypothetical ideas to dominate classroom discussion time would not be doing his or her students any favors in terms of developing their science education.
AnnaS wrote: “Would you please give me one scientific fact which disapproves intelligent design.”
That’s not how it works, AnnaS. If you have a theory, then the burden of proof is on you to show that it is true. The burden of proof is not on me or anyone else to disprove it.
I have a pet theory that the sun’s atmosphere is populated by a kind of gold-colored “fish” about 3-inches long that “swim” the hot atmosphere and get energy by eating the sun’s plasma gases. Can you disprove it?
I would never allow a child to remain in a classroom alone with any adult, male or female. There are too many sexual predators and unless a parent or another responsible adult is present, NOT!
Sam, I’m agnostic. I don’t have theories about God or intelligent design, I just want to understand why so many people insist that it contradicts evolution. After all, breeds of dogs are results of intelligent design where people are creators of animals which would never exist as a result of evolution. Why humans also could not be result of somebody’s non-working idea of a cute loving pet of gorillas?
About your gold-colored fish theory (I do like it by the way). Questions: from what kind of chemical elements this fish is made of? How do you know that this fish is 3-inch long and not 3.5 or 2.1? Will this fish be able to survive in plasma generator at physical lab on Earth? How exactly this fish existence explains Sun’s activity and is it possible that this fish and not Bush is responsible for global warming?
AnnaS wrote: “Sam, I’m agnostic. I don’t have theories about God or intelligent design, I just want to understand why so many people insist that it contradicts evolution. After all, breeds of dogs are results of intelligent design where people are creators of animals which would never exist as a result of evolution. Why humans also could not be result of somebody’s non-working idea of a cute loving pet of gorillas?”
Evolution is fairly well established as solid theory with considerable supporting evidence. There appears to be no need to invoke an “intelligent designer” in the process.
Now if you want to take a step back and invoke an “intelligent designer” to explain the origin of the universe in the first place, then that’s another thing. I don’t think that science has a good explanation for how the universe with all its physical laws came into being. Perhaps in asking such questions we are coming up against the limits of logic and reason.
AnnaS, are you sure you’re agnostic? Because you seem to be taking talking points straight out of the fundamentalists’ handbook on intelligent design.
“Why humans also could not be result of somebody’s non-working idea of a cute loving pet of gorillas?”
They could be, but there isn’t any scientific evidence for it at all.
Back to the topic at hand, which I think was bullying….
The Valley Times today on their home page indicates that a teacher of a special needs student was caught kicking a little boy who was 3 and a half page tall. The bullying and abuse of teachers against students has to stop:
An excerpt regarding the pre-kindergarten student is:
“He was in Holder’s “Special Day Class” along with other special needs students, many who had serious speech problems. On May 25, 2010, after Carlin’s son failed to join a circle of students at Holder’s request, she grabbed his arm and threw him to the floor from his desk and kicked him at least two times while screaming obscenities at him. About a dozen fellow students and instructional aides watched, according to the lawsuit.
“She was so agitated that one of the instructional aides present took her out of the room to calm her down,” according to the lawsuit.
The boy was so upset he had to be carried to the bus at the end of school, the lawsuit claimed.”
I would say again that ” A student who, when asked to write a scientifically based essay regarding the formation and age of the earth and solar system, instead writes an essay about biblical creationism deserves a failing grade (on the essay). That is not bullying.”
A student who was asked to write a scientifically based essay but writes instead biblical creationism deserves a failing grade on this essay because he failes to meet the requirements to provide scientifically based evidence of his statements.
A teacher who fails a student for attempts to involve intelligent design as the answer for questions which today’s science cannot answer is a bully and cannot be a teacher. A good teacher would explain to a student that because there are confirmed evidences that changes in nature do not necessary occur natural way, complete dismissing of intelligent design as irrelevant probably is not wise. But because today’s science has no proven evidence of involving aliens or super-natural powers which some call God, science class cannot include intelligent design to the list of scientifically based explanations of origins of universe or evolution of Earth.
I don’t think that we are coming to the limits of logic here, but we are definitely are limited by abilities of today’s science. People probably would know more if they would politicize science less and allow their youth freely express unconventional ideas.
(It would also help if people will have enough sense of humor to distinguish between serious claims and kidding around.)
“… there are confirmed evidences that changes in nature do not necessary occur natural way …”
I’ve not sure what you are saying here, but no one in the scientific community has presented any evidence of supernatural phenomena. Some people in certain religious groups have started to push what they call “intelligent design” because their attempts at getting “scientific creationism” into classrooms in public schools failed in the courts. The same people who gave up on pushing “scientific creationism” are the ones who are now pushing “intelligent design”. “Intelligent design” is being pushed by religious people, not scientists. It has no real basis in science and lacks any scientific merit.
Did you ever heard about genetically modified organisms? There is nothing supernatural in DNA changes caused by genetic engineering, but these changes are not natural.
The educational problem here, is that people who pushing intelligent design insist to use it instead of evolution theories and the opponents deny entirety the possibility of any explainable by today’s science causes of changes in nature.
It’s like one group tries to convince me that the object on the picture is black, the other, that it is white; and they both show me a black and white picture, which could be a negative, of something which reminds me a pine tree.
Sorry, I meant ‘unexplainable’ of course.
Quite a leap…. Science is yet unable to answer some questions regarding the origins and nature of the universe, therefore god must exist. Next leap…. Science teachers who don’t permit such nonsense in their classroom are bullies.
Next, students will be claiming their failed efforts on tests are God’s doing, and since the teacher is unable to prove otherwise, the F grade they received on the test constitutes a clear case of teacher bullying students.
One might expect to find such “logic” among uneducated rubes in central Mississippi. That one encounters it here on the site is pretty amazing. How did central Mississippi find its way into Pleasanton? Then again, the number of tea baggers in P gives ample enough testimony to the extent of ignorance and intellectual feebleness in these parts, so one shouldn’t be too surprised.
I have to disagree with the steps supposedly taken by PUSD regarding bullying. All of my children have been bullied for one reason or another from elementary school all the way through high school. A right of passage is bull and the children bullying my children are popular children not children with low self esteem. The poor children with low self esteem get so hurt by this they often withdraw or commit suicide.
When we reported the bullying to the school office they said they would speak to the children involved, this never happened. The only one they spoke to was my child, the victim.
This is a serious epidemic that needs to be addressed and the aggressors need to know that this behavior is not tolerated. The person being bullied needs to be assured that they will not receive any ramifications from the ones who are bullying them to get back at them for reporting the offense.
There needs to be set guidelines that every school in PUSD must adhere to or else nothing will change and these poor children will continue to suffer at the hands of selfish brats who have nothing better to do than make someone else feel worthless.
Guns aren’t the issue, bullying is the issue. If you look at all the children that have killed students at school it is almost always because they were bullied. The affects of bullying last throughout a person’s life and it’s unfortunate that these bullies continue to get away with this behavior.
WAKE UP PEOPLE, THIS PROBLEM WON’T GO AWAY IF IT’S NOT ADDRESSED!
My family experienced the sad consequences of a bully in our home. Our daughter was bullied by her “friends”. This was in high school at Foothill and NOTHING was done by the administration when it was brought to their attention. In fact, the girls that were bullying our daughter, said she was harrassing them, flattening tires so they pulled my daughter in to speak with her about it. Funny thing though, we had to replace 2 tires on her car because her tires had been flattened and the wheels cut into the tire when she drove on them to get home. When I asked for a meeting with the girls and the parents the principal told me “oh no, that brings in a whole new dynamic, I will bring in all the girls to talk though”. Over my dead body would I put my daughter through a “talk” with her “friends” after they had been verbally abusing her for months. We encouraged her to try everything, ignoring them, laughing at them etc, nothing worked they fed off of every move she made. I finally decided, after finding out she was eating lunch in her car, to transfer her to Amador in the middle of her Junior year becaus of the toll it was taking on her. When I asked for the transfer Amador’s principal said to me “why do I want Foothill’s problem?” I about fell over, isn’t it the job of the school district to provide a safe learning environment for our children?? My daughter was put on a “probabtion” of sorts to see if her attendance and grades were good enough for Amador. Well, she graduated from Amador and is a productive adult, but will never forget the cruel and mean things that these girls that fly under the radar said and did to her. Oh, did I mention one of the nasty young girls said I tried to run her off the road in my car and was actually granted a restraining order on me, and don’t start with the “well the judge felt you a threat enough to give her the restraining order” because I did not try to run this little girl off the road in my car. I was not even in town when this event took place. I had letters from adults in this community advising I was in San Ramon at the time. I believe the judge was protecting a child from another person that could possibly be flying under the radar, too bad the school didn’t take it as serious as the judge did. The sad part about all of this, teachers at Foothill actually e-mailed me after the transfer to Amador, telling me they could see the toll that this was taking on my daughter. I am just saddened and shocked that it continues to happen to innocent kids, and the kids that were the bullies, will continue on and become bullies as parents. Sad, sad,sad…..
Bullying persists because it’s successful. If bullies weren’t getting what they wanted, they’d stop.
It is absolutely a myth that bullies are social outcasts. Far from it, most school bullies are popular, have many friends, and are well-liked by teachers and administrators.
How do bullies get away with it? Most bullies show a very high degree of social skills, which means they can pull the Eddie Haskell routine of presenting one face to the adults, another one to their friends, and a third one to their victims.
Bullies learn their techniques from the models provided by adults, not just parents but teachers and others. They see adults bullying other adults and getting what they want using these techniques.
That is why I wrote earlier in this thread, before somebody took it into an unexpected direction with an argument over teaching fairy tales in science class, that the anti-bullying program is a waste of time and money.
Bullying is deeply ingrained in American culture. We SAY we don’t like bullies or tolerate bullying, but in fact we do. In fact, we go further than that: we encourage bullying by rewarding it. One person’s bully is another person’s aggressive, won’t take no for an answer “take charge” kind of guy (or gal).
Bullying comes out of a hyper-competitive society. That’s OUR society, one in which there are winners and losers. That’s the dark side of having “winners”: by definition, there must always be losers. And unless you have somebody to look down on, and to kick around whenever and however you want, what’s the use of being a “winner”?
Of course, we could re-think and re-structure our society to be cooperative rather than competitive. People might not be so stressed out all the time, trying to keep up with the Joneses, and people in our society might then be less inclined to deal with stress through abuse of alcohol and drugs. And maybe not as many people would suffer from depression and other mental illnesses. And maybe, just maybe, people would stop being so cruel to each other because they would see their neighbors not as competitors but as, well, friends and neighbors.
But that’s crazy talk, right? We don’t need any soul-searching and questions asked of our most fundamental values. What we really need is a feel-good anti-bullying program that has no lasting effect but makes us think we’ve “done something” about the problem.
Remember above all the American credo (and this is what we should have printed on our money): “Winning isn’t the only thing, it’s the only thing.”
I have been bullied from my childhood to until just now, my husband has been bullied almost his entire life, all my children have been bullied at least at some point of their lives. The only thing we can do was to explain to them that bullies will never stop if they believe that bullying hurts, and school authorities will do nothing unless they will get afraid of being sued.
Of course, this no-name somebody from an unknown neighborhood of Pleasanton who puts words in my mouth which I never said and never meant to say considers him/herself as an educated person and in no way as a bully, but he/she is a perfect example of why measures against bullying will not work, at least in the nearest future: adults bullies who are not capable of tolerating different opinions grow children-bullies who cannot tolerate any differences either.
I’ve been bullied all my life. I believe that we are direct descendents of aliens and that, once we outlive our laboratory bodies here on earth, the alien science director takes our spirit and brings it back to his mysterious planet where they turn us back into the lizard dragons that we all actually are. I tell people this and they immediately bully me by laughing at my ideas and telling me I’m not well grounded in reality. I tell them that because there’s plenty of things they don’t know, I’m likely right.
I take heart because other great thinkers in American history have been bullied through most of their lives. Sarah Palin, Michelle Bachmann, and Christine O’Donnell are only a few. Everytime they say something the liberal media brings on liberal and socialist bullies who express disagreement with them and other forms of bullying.
I am a victim of bullying daily. I ride BART and they bully me by forcing me to pay for a ticket. What’s worse, BART refuses to even consider my scheme to have a luxury leather seat installed solely for my use, and I am bullied into sitting with other people–and sometimes even bullied into standing when no seats are available!
I am also bullied at work because they won’t let me work in a bathrobe. I feel that BART and my employer should be tolerant of my desire not to pay for my ticket and to wear “living room” casual.
As you can see, bullying is pervasive in American society.
i do my best to be a nice person but there have been times when i’ve said enuf is enuf and was quick to get dirty surly…
as a teen i recall having torched a car…
in some countries it’s much easier to harm another person and their property and nobody seems to care…
the good ole days!
Interesting, how the supposedly tolerant and caring left are the ones above spewing hatred and vile comments, displaying the very behavior that is the subject of this topic. Where is your so-called compassion you dems and libs? Lacey and Has Ptown become the Biloxi of N. California, are you that threatened by ‘tea-baggers’ people with beliefs other than yours that you need to be verbally abusive. Is this a direct result of abuse you’ve suffered? Or are you just indicative of the small minded, petty elitists that occupy the left? Time to grow up…you’re not in remedial studies any longer.
Hatred, eh? And vile comments? Verbally abusive? I’m feeling so very bullied right now! I’m tempted to turn you over to the great Alien Science Director who might very well turn you into a fly or possibly some other humorless, thin-skinned insect for us Dragon Lizard believers to ingest. Ah, but I digress….
What was it I wrote, specifically, that set you off? Did I offend Palin or one of the other of your great intellectual heroes? Or did I offend on some other level? Please explain, as I feel I have so very, very much to learn from you.
With utmost sincerity,
Lacey
There goes this thread.
By the amount of commenting, this is proof of Bullying being an Important topic for everyone to pay closer attention to, especially the schools. My son was bullied at PMS 7 years ago, and the way it was dealt with was practically none existent because the bullies were considered “leaders at the school.” Bullies don’t always come in obvious packages and they tend to move in groups. My son had a strong and persistent mom, who made sure that the kids had some sort of punishment, even though I was not privy to know what the punishment was. I refused to have my son, the victim removed from class as the school suggested but requested that the bullies be removed instead. I thought about getting the police involved, but decided because there was another year to go, I didn’t want to make it harder on my son. But, I did make my concern clear to the school that I would consider bringing up charges if it did happen again. It took place on campus and at times in the class room. We are talking about physical bullying as well as verbal. The way I found out about it, was from another teacher calling me to let me know that he was upset and in tears when he returned to her room to pick up an assignment he forgot earlier in the day.
When my son started high school, I pleaded with the administration to ensure that he had no female teachers, as 1 Timothy states, “I do not permit a woman to teach or to assume authority over a man; she must be quiet.”
Did they listen? NO! Instead they bullied me for my religious beliefs by placing my son in a class with a single mother!
What’s more, when the other students bullied my son by telling him he should bathe or at least wear clean clothes once in a while, I was livid! He smells as God made him and needs none of Satan’s suds to hide his sinful human nature!
Actually, thread was sputtering along and managing OK until post 16…and then it descended into nuttery, so I decided to give up on a serious discussion (what *was* I thinking?) and have some fun.
Just lay back and enjoy the toboggan ride, people.
Remember people, AnnaS is upset because as an atheist, she’s concerned that intelligent design is not part of the high school science curriculum. Cuz that’s what atheists believe in.
Adults, any adult, who does not put a stop to bullying is contributing to the problem. Listen to your children and then follow through with the school or the parents (if it occurs off campus).
The movie “Bully” is well worth watching. Some parents may want to see it before they let their children watch it. Here is a link to The Bully Project: http://thebullyproject.com/indexflash.html Here is the trailer on You Tube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W1g9RV9OKhg Just that short clip can break your heart.