Cane the parents first.
Singapore introduces caning for boys who bully others at school
251–260 of 713 posts
Re: Singapore introduces caning for boys who bully others at school
#252The only effective punishment/threat that I saw work on my bullies at school was the threat to remove one of them from the football team and prevent him from playing for the school. He turned it around and was ok after that. It was highly effective because it was a bigger punishment than those used for not doing your homework, and because it was highly relevant to him specifically. It worked because we had 16 student…
> "The only effective punishment/threat that I saw work on my bullies at school was the threat to remove one of them from the football team and prevent him from playing for the school. He turned it around and was ok after that." Now you only have to deal with that group of bullies who slowly build up resentments, and might end up paying your school one last visit. > "The problem is that most schools don't do that, [.…
> Now you only have to deal with that group of bullies who slowly build up resentments, and might end up paying your school one last visit.
Someone that decided to shoot up a school, because they got kicked off the football team, when they could’ve just improved their behavior (and maybe demonstrated effort to improve their grades) - that kid’s reasoning is deeply flawed (even for a kid). Such kids are probably (hopefully) very rare, and I suspect they would’ve found some other reason to shoot up the school.
> There's also the civil litigation-heavy system to keep in mind, where teachers and lower-ranked admin workers get burned by superiors who have to please parents.
There should be more civil litigation for schools that allow bullying, and generally allow misbehaving students to disrupt others. If behaving kids aren’t learning because the teacher isn’t running the lesson because they’re dealing with a misbehaving kid whose parent threatened lawsuits, the behaving kids’ parents should team up and threaten the school (and maybe the misbehaving kid’s parent) with their own lawsuit.
Then maybe states can intervene and make frivolous lawsuits harder. Alternatively, they can effectively pay the parents (because they own the public schools who lose the lawsuits) to enroll their kids in private schools.
Re: Singapore introduces caning for boys who bully others at school
#253Earlier quoted context omitted.
Many decades ago when I was still young, I was bullied and reported it to the authorities, but they didn't care beyond giving the usual empty "be nice and get along" verbiage. Ended up fighting the bully and gave him a few deep bleeding cuts with my nails. I got in trouble for it, but he never dared to touch me again.
That’s generally the solution for bullies. I wonder whether that is also the solution for victims, making them strong enough.
There's no denying a broken nose and some lost teeth will make many bullies twice about trying again.
Problem is it's often illegal or against the rules to do it since deliberately beating the crap out of a bully isn't self defence in the traditional sense. And in the cases where it doesn't work, the situation may escalate or the victim might end up being punished harder than the bully.
Re: Singapore introduces caning for boys who bully others at school
#254The only effective punishment/threat that I saw work on my bullies at school was the threat to remove one of them from the football team and prevent him from playing for the school. He turned it around and was ok after that. It was highly effective because it was a bigger punishment than those used for not doing your homework, and because it was highly relevant to him specifically. It worked because we had 16 student…
The generalized version of this is "take away something they care about". But it's not always easy to do. In many cases, schools have nothing the kids care about. If they do, rules often prohibit them from using it as leverage. And in many cases parents also are unwilling to apply any kind of consequence that would make their kid unhappy.
Community service perhaps?
Would be annoying for both the kid and the parents, more so than just detention at school I would think, and if parents are also annoyed will hopefully further incentivise socially appropriate behaviour of the child.
Of course if the parents manage to convince the principal or someone else to not enforce, then the problem is with the school.
Re: Singapore introduces caning for boys who bully others at school
#255I was hit with wooden 100cm ruler in middle school multiple times, it is painful for an hour or so but not emotionally damaging or anything, I'd be happy to meet that teacher today, I dropped out from high school eventually after I've been reducled and mocked at by a principal repeatedly as I didn't like to shave my facial hair, which I assume happen all the time and isn't as controversial. I kept dreaming of vandali…
An actual cane works more like a whip and can break skin and leave permanent scars.
They are not going to perform a prison style caning ffs...it's going to be a light but firm tap on the knuckles.
Re: Singapore introduces caning for boys who bully others at school
#256I (think) many bullies have bad home lives. I wish parents would be held accountable instead of taking it out on the kids that are struggling to process their emotions / hormones in a healthy manner.
Re: Singapore introduces caning for boys who bully others at school
#257Earlier quoted context omitted.
Looking back at my own time in school, my primary bully already got beaten up by his own parents, which probably caused him to act out in school in the first place. I would not wish him to also get beaten by the school, and I do not believe that this would have helped me in any way.
Well said. I think we all shouldnt be too quick to assume that the problem starts with the person doing the bullying, nice and simple as that would be.
My bully had two much older brothers and I guess that's how he learned to communicate, so I communicated back. We became friends afterwards.
Looking back it's not the physical bullying that was the most damaging, but social. I went to a different middle school and without a support network it was difficult to say the least.
Re: Singapore introduces caning for boys who bully others at school
#258The only effective punishment/threat that I saw work on my bullies at school was the threat to remove one of them from the football team and prevent him from playing for the school. He turned it around and was ok after that. It was highly effective because it was a bigger punishment than those used for not doing your homework, and because it was highly relevant to him specifically. It worked because we had 16 student…
> "The only effective punishment/threat that I saw work on my bullies at school was the threat to remove one of them from the football team and prevent him from playing for the school. He turned it around and was ok after that." Now you only have to deal with that group of bullies who slowly build up resentments, and might end up paying your school one last visit. > "The problem is that most schools don't do that, [.…
> Now you only have to deal with that group of bullies who slowly build up resentments, and might end up paying your school one last visit.
Very american concern, albeit not completely unique to that place. With that kind of logic, nothing ever gets done because of endless stream of what-ifs.
Re: Singapore introduces caning for boys who bully others at school
#259Earlier quoted context omitted.
There's entire classes of people who base their employment centrally around an occupation that enables their worst vices. I'd wager there's a group of people who have no interest in becoming a teacher but put corporal punishment on the table and suddenly they're interested.
Tenuous at best in many school systems where it's typically not teachers that apply corporal punishment but headmasters. The notion that people train to be teachers followed by spending ~10 years in the system holding out for the chance to be a headmaster just so that they can beat people is a stretch. Bound to be one or two, but there are surely better paths for a sadist - prison guard, et al.
Give this a watch - https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2070649/
Re: Singapore introduces caning for boys who bully others at school
#260I (think) many bullies have bad home lives. I wish parents would be held accountable instead of taking it out on the kids that are struggling to process their emotions / hormones in a healthy manner.
And parents are acting out for myriad of reasons. There's a never-ending chain if you go that way. At the end of the day, bully victims end up holding the short end of the stick. And they frequently become bullies themselves. Maybe stopping bullying at the visible link is not the most right solution... But is there anything better that does not lead to eternal finger pointing?