As a parent, this video of middle school students taunting a grandmother Karen Klein, 68, on a school bus is nothing short of revolting. The grandmother was on the bus as a monitor and is reduced to tears by the cruel comments and threats of the children. The bus belongs to the Greece Central School District in New York.
Police are now reviewing the video but I do not see why this is a criminal matter. It is a serious school matter. The students involved in this episode show an alarming degree of antisocial and threatening conduct — even for teenagers. I was left wondering how these children were raised and what the reaction of the parents will be to this video. The school’s reaction should be hand out suspensions and expulsions.
Source: MSNBC
The kids involved are all 7th graders. They have all admitted their wrong-doing and accepted the consequences. Their punishment:
Suspended from school for one year. This means that they will be attending a special alternative education program.
Not allowed to use regular bus transportation for one year.
50 hours each of community service with senior citizens.
Ms. Klein did not want the boys to face criminal charges, she just wants them to learn a lesson.
The fund drive is now more than $667,000 as of Friday.
Malisha, very well stated.
Idealist: “JFK said “Ask not… When will we hear that next?”
We won’t. It morphed into: “AMASS WHATEVER YOU CAN AND DENY TO OTHERS WHATEVER YOU CAN and that is the way for our country to succeed and if you’re not doing that you don’t love America.”
The JFK saying could get your head blown off. Somebody proved that once.
Malisha,
You summed it up here:
“You cannot go from “kids humiliate and hurt grandma” to “school and parents neglect the social-adjustment needs of children” to “our society rewards bad behavior so long as the targets of the bad behavior lack power” without coming right on back to “kids humiliate and hurt grandma.”
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BTW, I did say that rape and bully were the same, just our different personal words for the same thing.
But I think my chain holds up, of course, as the driving force. The mexican have a term for it which glorifies it in their eyes. Viva Yo.
And if it is there, as Chomsky showed it to be in MSM, everywhere it can be most effective (my list), and if independent bullies can use it, then we get what we got now.
And unless we attack it on many fronts we’ll never get anywhere. You do it by being here, and in your other fights. If we all should ever be so stupid as to not constantly ask “What’s in it for me”, then that might be a step forward too.
JFK said “Ask not…”.
When will we hear that next?
That’s why I call myself an idealist. I’m still atttached to them, and too late to learn bullying.
Although I had other ways to influence more than I merited. Hee hee.
Idealist, I could not get behind a big movement rivalling Montessori. I would want to JOIN them, not whip them.
My mother, strangely, was magnificently effective in the classroom, but couldn’t really expand her influence. I wanted her to write books, such as “Physics in Kindergarten” and remedial reading text books, but she couldn’t manage it. Oh well…
As to having 16 kids — WOW, NO! Then she couldn’t have stayed a teacher!
Idealist, Lotta, Woosty, let me jump in here while saying I think we’re RESPECTING the thread, not hijacking it.
You cannot go from “kids humiliate and hurt grandma” to “school and parents neglect the social-adjustment needs of children” to “our society rewards bad behavior so long as the targets of the bad behavior lack power” without coming right on back to “kids humiliate and hurt grandma.”
Although this school bus could be stopped and the bad kids (yes I did say that and do not expect that it will get “moderated”) could be subjected to public outrage and indignation, and the victimized grandma will be compensated, not by our judicial department upholding her rights (she could probably never have mounted a successful civil suit) but by people finding out what happened and sending her contributions motivated by sympathy —
What can we really do about the enormous, undeniable problems that this incident demonstrates, reveals, symbolizes?
“I see the bully, you see the rapist,” says the Idealist.
There is no difference, of course. But it does mean that BEING bullied, BEING raped, BEING victimized in plenty of other ways, right down to BEING killed, is a risk in our society to a greater extent than it would be a risk in another society that had different fundamental structures. You’ll get people right here on this blog who would argue that if our society would only kill more convicts (by legal execution), we would have less of the bad stuff going on. That’s been disproven in plenty of studies, of course. Suggestions right here on this thread about how to deal with these particular bad kids and this particular victim show that we don’t know what the KRUP to do about any of it.
Malisha,
You learned a lot and well from your mom. Shame she did not mother 16 kids, and all became teachers at their own school. Might be a big movement today rivaling Montsorri. Words aren’t adequate now.
I am for the moment hijacking the thread to make a major point made on an old thread today which would be more appropriate put here.
Lotta, Woosty and I (with most posts) were solving how society has developed from each individual in his personal misgrowth then grows into a self-organized orgy of repression and exploitation.
This is not meant as a demonstration of prowess nor a lecture.
It is posted in hopes of inspiring debate.
Perhaps we do need a “free for all sandbox” to accomodate free discussion on the weekends.
Free from topic steering of debate.
Read on or skip it. Choice is yours. And bandwidth is cheap so don’t owe JT much except the useful readership.
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Idealist707
1, June 23, 2012 at 9:43 am
Lotta,
Spinoff on your idea:
Does it all begin with bullying, as opposed to buddying?
And bullies as they grow, learn how other bullies operate to advantage. And they learn how to find bullies, find bully groups, and then finally they learn who and what in society uses bullying as M.O.
The police, the lawyers (!!!), the justice system,
religions, politicians, etc.
Now some choose these as professions.
BUT, and this is a big one, the others who DO NOT choose bully professions, know how to speak bully-speak, identify themselves to bullies in the profession they are in contact with, and can use what are clear bully tactics because of that fellowship, and their knowledge of what must be there in this profession for it to function as a bully one.
Now the psychodynamics of bullies I will leave to others to define. When and how they develop, and the sociological etc.
But I will stand for it as clarification model of how much that is wrong is routinely developed and performned within our societies organization. And a good reason for the persistence in spite of facial cleanups.
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14 Woosty’s still a Cat
1, June 23, 2012 at 10:13 am
Id707, interesting insight.
there will always be innate power imbalances in society and the risk of ‘over reaching’….
Big vs Little is an innate bullying dynamic.
But when Big exists in their present size by making sure that Little has to conform to certain basic behaviors that they do not…and especially if they ‘make up the rules’ unilaterally,.the word is not ‘Bully’
When Big refuses to enforce those rules upon himself but insists that Little continue to be placed at risk by those same rule to Bigs advantage….the field is doubly imbalanced…I beieve the word then is not Bully, the word is ….derp derp….wait for it….derp….derp …..derp….
rape
and what could be an effective solution….a correction as it were without further enrichment of that dynamic and damage to the one already being damaged???
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16 idealist707
1, June 23, 2012 at 11:06 am
Woosty,
First; I did not understand this:
“and what could be an effective solution….a correction as it were without further enrichment of that dynamic and damage to the one already being damaged???” Woosty…
Secondly, I see the bully’s life strategy is always to end on top, whatever ethics dictate and whatever the method he needs. He is not willing to share life space, but sees only to his needs, and has no set limit to them. They are quite flexible upwards and outwards.
I believe, without support, that this develops out of the baby psyche as a need for survival. Nesting chicks are a good example, the largest and reddest gap gets the worm. No empathy there.
And our society in all parts continues to reinforce this drive. Religious groups only serve to teach hypocrisy and guile in hiding ones drives.
So until you show me why a variant of bullying, which I regard rape as being, is to be the name best suiting the totality, then I remain unconvinced. Yes, rape leads to violation of our persons and our bodies, but the sexual connotation is misleading and distracts from the main drive vector. Domination and survival at the expense of others. Lebensraum, as Hitler (?) said.
Please explain.
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17 idealist707
1, June 23, 2012 at 11:27 am
Woosty,
Woosty wrote: “But when Big exists in their present size by making sure that Little has to conform to certain basic behaviors that they do not…and especially if they ‘make up the rules’ unilaterally,.the word is not ‘Bully’
When Big refuses to enforce those rules upon himself but insists that Little continue to be placed at risk by those same rule to Bigs advantage….the field is doubly imbalanced……Woosty.
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Excellent. Really.
But then you have branched into the methods of bullying. Encountered everywhere and at all levels of govenment and business, such as banking, to give societal sanction to evil deeds, to hide unethical coercion, to simply use society to enforce the advantage they enjoy because of position.
Bullies cooperate, it is attendant on success in achieving personal goals. And they have earlier internalized the goals as seen in society—to borrow from Chomsky.
But they are highly competitive. They must be, for reasons of subversion from below and defeat from the side and of course repression from above.
I fully respect your need to name it as rape. Such attachments or visualizations are each person’s way of handling it mentally and/or emotionally.
I see the bully, you see the rapist. Equally valid. But we must see how it grows out of the individual and reinforced by the system, fights energetically to survive at the cost of whatever: At the survival of life itself even???
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Manny O, Hi, are you the same Manny? (Forgive my memory problems)
I agree with you all the way on this:
“Bottom line to me it seems is the wickedness of the people. Sure some people think there is no such thing as good/evil righteousness/wickedness but I disagree. While i respect the notion of mental illness it gets used as a pass far too much with people that are nothing more than simply evil people. I believe that there are far more truly wicked people walking this earth than are getting charged with horrific crimes. They are unknown and merely restrained by fear of what society will do to them if they are caught, but that in no way diminishes their desire to execute wickedness against those weaker than them including people and animals if only a “safe” opportunity were to materialize for them to leverage.”
100%. You could put my belief about this onto the above paragraph you wrote and there would be no overlap at all.
Often, I get into polite arguments (my favorite type, actually) with folks who attribute all evil to “stupidity” or “taking the easy way out” or “ignorance” or “mental illness” and it makes me crazy when I hear that. It’s like hearing a public official finally admit some act of corruption by fobbing it off on “poor judgment.” Then they apologize for their poor judgment and go off to “spend more time with their family.”
I do think that punishment is a prerequisite — in some instances — for correction, rehabilitation, re-education, reassimilation, or whatever else may need to happen. When I did day-care for a living, actual aggression by one kid against another was handled by:
1. Restraining the aggressor physically and isolating him or her
2. Immediately turning ALL ATTENTION to the victim and restoring his or her equanimity/status etc.
3. THEN turning to the aggressor and doing whatever needed to be done.
After step 3, the aggressor could be punished by a time-out, loss of a privilege, etc. The punishment never involved the victim. Apology was not part of the program. IF the aggressor apologized to ME after the punishment (not allowed to apologize before), then I would redirect the apology by saying, “Oh, thank you, tell that to [the victim]” and that was it.
There was a film called “Your Neighbor’s Son” filmed in Greece after the Reign of the Colonels. A torturer had been tried and condemned to death, and he voluntarily gave an interview of himself before being hanged. He did not talk about his impending death; he talked about what he had done. He said he gave the interview to show “How a monster is made.” He admitted doing evil. Whereas he was not asked to admit BEING evil, he was trying to say something there. I have been unable to find that film again although I really would love to see it over and over and study it.
I hear someone has set up a fund for the grandmother, she’s gotten nearly 500k and Southwest Airlines has given her and her family round trip tickets to Disney….. I think for 8…….