Home · Thoughts · Dates · Policy
Many people have fears. Their children are many of the fears. May the fear be of the child being used against you, if the child was attacked/hurt, and of course whether the child will grow up to be something to be proud of or not. These fears set inside of everyone, may the person have children or not. Those that have children have these fears every day, however those without children have these fears too because they are usually unsure whether they want children or not. Those without children will also be feeling/realizing that if they do have children those fears will be with them every day.
When anyone walks down a street and see a gang of children together (no matter the age), the thoughts that may go through a person's head is: "am I going to be robbed by these kids", "are these kids doing something wrong", "are these kids on their own", or "is the parent(s) to the children around?" These thoughts go through the minds of everyone for the simple fact that there has been so much violence with children, that it is all we can think of now. It is wrong to think this way, but there is nothing in place to make these fears go away.
Currently the city of Halifax has been dealing with the death of a teenager due to suicide because the teenager couldn't take any more of the bullying in the school. Many people have been remembering how it was in school for them. The thing is that everyone has dealt with a bully in school before, however they have done nothing to stop it from happening. Now that a girl is the bully they have decided to do something, to me that sounds a little sexist. They have suspended the girl because everyone has blamed her into the death of the teenager that committed suicide. The thing that no one has mentioned is the fact that the bullying by the girl cannot be the only thing to cause the teenager to take his own life. I can see the girl doing the bullying to be a factor, a last straw, but not the only thing in to make the teenager do such a drastic thing.
I can remember my time in school quite well. I had thought to commit suicide several times throughout that time. Of those times I had thought to commit suicide, there was always more than one thing that was making me feel that way. Currently I repress a lot of emotions, back in high school I repressed every single emotion. To do something like that takes a lot of self-control, however it does take its toll if a person doesn't watch it. I also went through things I call "snapping periods" which were times that I couldn't repress things like anger any more. People were calling me names, there were others that threatened me physically, and there were the others that told me I was useless. I was able to repress all of this completely, except for the "snapping periods" I would have. Currently I still repress emotions, except laughter. I had to go to therapy to be able to feel that once again. However in high school I had found it easier to deal with people if they couldn't use emotions against me directly, they would have to either leave me alone or they would have to try something else to try to set me off. People in high school also learned that if I were cornered I would fight back, however there were two catches. First of all is that I am a defensive fighter (I would never do the initial attack), and second is that I would never fight a girl because I have been brought up not to hit one so I couldn't fight one in that sense.
The St. Agnes School Board has, in my eyes, done a half right. The principal has suspended the girl that was doing the bullying, however it should 1) include the rest of the gang of bullies, 2) not be a ban from the school, 3) put those that are bullying in detention for an amount of time after they return off of the suspension. Putting a ban on the girl only causes more problems. I can see a one-month suspension on all suspected bullies in the school, then detention for another two-months after they get back, but not a ban on one person. If it is only on the girl, it is technically being sexist. If they really want to put a ban up, then they should put it on every single last one of those bullies, not just the leader.
With children today, having the leader of a gang thrown out of school, just means that the gang is still there and there will be a new leader of the gang to come about. Schools need to have a better enforcement to minimize the chance to have bullies exist in the first place. I know that the larger the school, the harder it is to control the students; however there is always a way to stop those that are classified as the bullies. If the schools don't stop it from happening within the schools, what are the chances that the bully won't do it outside of school, which would cause them to be criminals in the end.
© COPYRIGHT 2004