The Commons Education Select Committee have completed their report on bullying. It’s the usual big government solution to the problem ~ all instances must be recorded, categorised, complaints and appeals procedures, blaa blaa blaa, but other than that it initially appears fairly innocuous, albeit ineffective, stuff.
The Fib Dems weigh in with their usual liberal nonsense, using this as an opportunity to promote the same old ‘let the kids be the boss’ theories that they have been peddling since the 1960’s.
‘Stephen Williams MP said anti-bullying programmes had taken a back seat to political rhetoric about stamping down on discipline and raising standards.’
Never let it be said that bullying was, er, poor discipline. No. Muppett. However, that aside, one thing did catch my eye.
‘The Commons Education Select Committee also warned that children should not be excluded from school for retaliating against bullies.’
If this does happen, this is nothing new. When I was a young lad in Primary 1, there was a boy in our class who terrorised everyone. He used to steal your marbles, and if you complained, he hit you. I was reet bloody scared of him. One day, however, I encountered him beating up my best friend who was only a small chap. Without wishing to sound like a bad Arnie movie, (I was a skinny streak of piss as a kid), I pulled him off my mate by his collar. He turned around, and at this juncture, without thinking, I punched him as hard as I could in the face. I remember he looked very surprised at this, so I calculated that this was probably a good time to hit him in the face again. Hard. So I did.
At this point, he burst into tears and ran, crying, to the dreaded dinner ladies. Noticing the trail of blood on the floor, I had an immediate sense of foreboding.
Sure enough, the delightful dinner lady in question (who as I recall, didn’t much like me or my family, apparently we were ‘posh’, which I can assure you, we weren’t) reported my horrific crime to the Headmaster. As was the style at the time, I was given six of the best, and told not to do it again.
My only real memories of him from that point was of him standing by the tree in the playing field because nobody really wanted to play with him. Now, I probably wasn’t the only one to stand up to him, so I can’t take credit for ending his reign of terror. The point is, it worked. He never bothered me or my mate again.
Obviously, they don’t cane kids in school anymore, they ‘exclude’ them. So it doesn’t surprise me that sometimes the victims end up excluded for fighting back. Personally, I blame the dinner ladies. Ok, so I don’t really, but why don’t they let kids fight back these days? I did, eventually, because my dad told me too and I think I have been in about three fights in my entire life, all of them at school. It’s hardly turned me into a raving, pub brawling, psycho. And it did stop my bullying. It must be terrible for kids who choose to sort the problem out themselves in today’s PC schooling system. It was bad enough being taught by the first generation of liberal left nutters in the 70’s.
The BBC report continues ;
‘The committee called for pupils to be involved in setting punishments for children who are bullies, such as picking up litter or cleaning up around the school.’
Will they be able to ‘choose’ a punishment of a couple of quick jabs in the nose for the bully? Sadly, this doesn’t appear to be on the agenda.
Filed under: Bits of both
