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School bullies:Three strikes and you're out should apply
Results so far:
| Agree | 76% | 379 votes | Total: 500 votes | |
| Disagree | 24% | 121 votes |
Agree
by Ivegot Sunshine
Created on: January 31, 2010
Growing up I have had bullies in my life. And I have seen other people with bullies. Some of the people I new were tormented so badly, and beaten, and some of the threats they recieved if acted out could have ended their lives. So I am all for three strikes you are out to an extent.
Bullies are people who verbally abuse, physically hurt people. They take stuff that is not there and are just cruel to someone who is weaker than them. Usually there is a cause of this. Something is wrong with the child. Usually they come from broken, or abusive homes. Emotionally they are not stable. These children are in need of attention and some are doing it for that. Teachers and school faculity need to help these children. And parents need to take a step up and help their children as well.
The only reason I agree with the three strikes your out, because if a child is old enough to understand how they are hurting someone, they are old enough to understand that they need to stop. And if they keep continue then the school needs to take action. Because detention and suspension is just going to make them angry at whoever told on them and that makes it worse for the victim of the situation. Once you warn them they should know, hey what I am doing is wrong. Second time if it doesn't end a more severe punishment, and the third time they don't get it, they don't want to stop or can't. I think the three strike method is okay for the fact of, you have the victoms of a more severe case of bullying relatiating and killing somone, or themselves. And it shows an example to the other children that bullying WILL NOT be tolerated under any means.
The only problem I see with this method is it seems like we are giving up on those children who are doing the bullying. And those kids are usually broken and need help. If we could find a way to help those children if they do get thrown out then it's fine. But if they don't get help at a young age then as an adult they are going to have problems living in the real world. And kids who are prone to violence as a child a lot of times grow up still prone to it.
I see both sides of this and I agree with both sides, but something has to be done about the hurt that bullies causes to others. It's wrong no ones should have to go through that. So I think schools do need to step up and take some actions, but I believe in helping those children as well.
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Disagree
by Brad Oneill
Created on: June 18, 2010
Should the three strikes and you’re out rule apply to high school bullies? At first this seems like a reasonable rule to apply but the problem arises when it goes from theory to practice. Administrators should be very hard on bullies; if they are presenting a physical danger to other students they should be dealt with immediately. If the bullying results in a student being physically harmed the bully should probably be removed immediately. But ultimately this is a decision that should be made by the principal. The problem with a three strikes rule is it takes too much power out of the hands of the people who are dealing directly with the students.
If we trust a principal to govern the school we should trust them to make these kinds of decisions. A three strikes rule takes the power away from someone who should be intimately familiar with the situation and gives it to the school board or whoever applies the rule to the school. This type of rule results in ridiculous situations like a kid being suspended for bringing a Lego gun to school because there is a zero tolerance rule in effect on all guns. http://today.msnbc.m sn.com/id/35234742
There are also situations where a principal or teacher may be able to intervene in a child's life and help them overcome the bad behavior. It may take a few instances of bullying to occur before anyone realizes there is a deep problem that needs addressing and simply removing the child from the school may solve the bullying problem but it would be a great disservice to the bully. Part of being a teenager is testing boundaries and some kids will push too far into other kids spaces, but with proper discipline and attention these instances of bad behavior can be corrected and the child can mature into a functioning member of society.
Our education system is becoming more and more centralized with people making decisions further and further away from the kids. Things like Aims tests and zero tolerance policies are all done with the best of intentions but the reality is that these type things take responsibility out of the hands of teachers and principals and put it in the hands of administrators that have zero knowledge of individual situations.
We are creating a society where a faceless mindless bureaucracy makes all the decisions and as a result no one is forced to take responsibility for their individual actions. There is value in having a principal as the final word. It makes one person accountable to the parents and teachers and it also makes the students accountable to a person not a single rule applied to a million different possible situations.
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