Agree. If the school is aware of it as this one was.

My daughter did not tell us of the kids picking on her in middle school and now when I think back on it my heart breaks. I just didn't know or I would have set things right. Maybe that is why she didn't tell her mother or me. Parents are separated from their kids by an invisible wall at certain ages. I know I didn't tell my parents all that was going on with me at school.

Well this is the result of taking prayers and corporal punishment outta school

Heh!

Maybe it's the beer in me, but I thought that said "capital punishment."

That would solve our problems lol

Yep.

And I sort of see what DeepImpact is saying as well, which, I think, is that kids themselves should be prepared to do what they can to avoid continuing victimization or extending that victimization to suicide. The bullied kid is in no way to blame, but the bullied kid can be taught how and helped to cope.

I apologize if someone has already pointed this out, but we've got to remember that the actions that are taken, laws passed, etc, are still going to be implemented in the very imperfect world of the public schools, and that we need to adjust our expectations accordingly.

I think it's important to serve notice to schools that they are legally obligated to address this behavior, just as it was apparently important to make them realize they had to protect kids form sexual harassment by other students. But you know that this is going to lead to a lot of messy situations when schools are going to seem to be overreaching into students' personal lives, overreacting, etc, applying misguided zero tolerance rules, whatever.

Just as Dr. Phil noted about her own experience, sometimes bullying is not as clear cut as it appears to have been in this high profile cases. Sometimes the bullied kid is also a bully. It's likely to be a huge non-instructional time-suck for the schools to handle it, but apparently a necessary one.

You have a right to defend yourself using reasonable means. And if you handle it the right way, you won't have to worry about finding another job. That's one thing I tell teachers all the time: don't let the school system bully or manipulate you into thinking that you have to endure unwanted physical contact from students. Especially if you are threatened with bodily harm.

A resounding, "hell yeah" to the part in bold.

But you know, in the 80's and 90's, kids weren't cussing the teachers out the way they are now. If it happened, it was handled quickly and the situation was corrected. Plus I think in general there was more respect and appreciation for teachers back then. Now students almost seem to have the mentality that teachers are there to do THEIR bidding. And with the lack of support shown by admins, students feel like they can do anything and the admins will be so scared of the parents that they will allow the students to get away with murder. It's sick.

Agree with the bolded.

I really want to know what caused the shift from that mentality (semi)recently.

Me too.

Pamela Smart? Carolyn Warmus?

I'm kind of joking, but I'm kind of not.

I think it started when the majority of kids' parents were no longer factory workers or secretaries, but were college educated. (Whether they were doing a job that they were educated for was irrelevant.) People no longer thought "well, (s)he went to school for 4 years to do this, (s)he must be right."

:) Hmmmmm. Maybe. I would like to say kids were better back then, but it is probably THAT combined with what I was saying earlier:

These were badass nonwhite kids, most of whom in public schools and that includes nonwhite kids of different social classes. When nonwhite kids do stuff, society points to the defiency of the nonwhite cultures and the nonwhite populations. When the white kids begin to do stuff, or what they do receives more attention, the majority white society of America (in terms of population size and power dynamics) points to society and questions why society is changing and/or failing.

Therefore, this is about sooooo much more than "mean bullies" and "why schools are failing." What's embedded in this topic is "mean white bullies" and "why majority white schools are failing." Does this matter? YES because some of our responses in this thread may be seen as an absence of compassion and outrage over the general topic. Instead, I see some of our responses as more of a "same shit, different toilet...let's get beyond the fluff and get to the REAL issue." I can't be shocked and awed over something that isn't so new--except for the fact that the Internet and white perpetrators are added to the equation.

:) Well said.

(Waiting for someone to find something "racist" about your comment.)

I have to say that I agree with your entire post. I do think that the more educated our society becomes, the less they tend to agree with the teachers because some parents think they are right (since they are equally educated). In fact, I think there are many people out there, sadly, that look at teaching and the education field as a "fall back" option if they don't find the job that they want. Even with all the red-tape you need to cut through to become a teacher in this day and age, teaching has almost lost its prestige in some areas beause there are teachers that have become teachers because they didn't get the job they wanted and this was their alternative plan. We need to learn to give teachers more respect. I think 33girl hit the nail right on the head.

Actually, I want to say that I agree with Dr.Phil. It almost goes along the line of a joke made at that expense on (I think) Family Guy. It commented on how when a bus full of children were killed when a bus went over the cliff, noone cared about the kids, except when they named a "white" girl. Then, the announcer said he messed up and the girl was hispanic. The group of reporters/ spectators sighed and said something like, "That isn't news." It was meant as a joke but, in all actuality, when attractive white women (Natalie Hollaway ring a bell) come up missing-the media cares. If a young black male comes up missing, people don't seem to care as much. Sad but, true.

Same here, I was born in 81 and both my parents worked, but still took the time to parent, and they damn sure didn't think I could do no wrong. If anything more "blame" was placed on me than deserved with respect to school issues. I remember in 7th grade, I was falsely accused of making a bullying statement about the student. Well good ol' Mr. Kelly told my parents and lo and behold I was on punishment for MONTHS!! My parents weren't even trying to here that I actually didn't do it.

Beer at 5:50pm. I'm sooooo jealous, at 5:50 I was rushing to class I'd make a drink now, but I'm out of my fav mixer :(

she hanged herself? thats sooo sad lol
this is y the bullying should stop AHEM MEAN GCERS

My opinion has already been covered here, no use bandwagoning. :)

And OMG.

Q F and P!

Sadly, I started at 1pm lol

OMG YOU'RE RIGHT LOL SAD LOL <3 HAHAHA SAD!

Getcho ass outta here...

My kind of teacher! LOL

Well aaaccctttuuuallly, my teachers have said that before AND they added an "before I" to the end. We didn't want to find out what was going to happen if we didn't, so we sat our butts down. I also had a teacher literally wash a friends mouth out with a bar of soap. I miss those teachers, I want THOSE teachers to educate my children when I have some.

Whoa! Flash back to my Grandma when we were little, right before she tore fire into us. I use that same phrase now.

Oh and I agree with your post. Some kids ONLY respond to that.

LOL!!! I'm starting to not like you. My ab muscles already hurt and you've got me laughing on top of that. I wasn't prepared for that as I was reading your post. LMBO

A few points (that I haven't had time to express although I've been reading and reading on this thread):

1) EVERY generation thinks the "youngsters" are out of control in comparison to them. I'm not convinced that kids in general are any worse than they used to be. There have always been bullies and disrespectful kids, there always will be some.

2) I spend an inordinate amount of time interacting with Joe Average Teenager because I have two teenagers of my own. I see a LOT of teenagers. The vast majority are great kids. The majority are engaged in healthy activities, are respectful and polite to adults, and are working hard to make something of their lives. They are FAR more concerned about the world in general than I think my generation was at their age. I'm not sure we had any idea what was going on with politics, race relations, or the environment. These kids care about things more than I think we did. Other than having Muscular Dystrophy carnivals every year, I don't remember ever being encouraged by society in general to think about charity or community service. Our schools encourage this from kindergarten with school wide community service projects and clubs dedicated to community service. I see a lot of bright, generous, thoughtful kids (maybe because both of my kids are Scouts?) who are going to lead us in the future. I think they are well prepared to handle it. I also see a lot of kids who are FAR more independent than we were. They have not had moms at home to get them their after school snack. They do it themselves.

3) Kids have fragile self esteem, especially during adolescence. One comment from a peer can be devastating to the self image. Studies show that it takes multitudes of positive feedback to overcome even one highly critical comment. I'm not talking about correcting or giving feedback on how to improve. I'm talking about the cruel types of comments. In 6th grade, I was far more developed than most of the girls and every year, they came in and weighed and measured everybody (and checked for head lice, but I never realized that's why they looked at our heads!). The most popular boy in our class sat in front of me (alphabetical order be damned!) and he turned around and said "You know you'll weigh less if you take the water balloons out of your bra". I was sooooooo humiliated that for all of junior and high school, I wore big baggy shirts, convinced my chest was a curse. In college, I realized "Hey, these things are an asset!" and wasn't afraid to wear shirts that fit again. One comment. I cannot imagine what a never ending barrage of harassment would have done.

4) Since Columbine, we have entered an era of "zero tolerance" for any physical involvement. Kicking the butts of the kids that are harassing you will get you suspended for an entire school year. It's not the way to handle the situation. School officials do have a responsibility to deal with these problem kids. In our school system, kids who act like this get suspended. If they continue, they get expelled. A letter came home from the middle school last year about a kid who had a list of kids he hated and wanted to harm and that kid never returned to our school. My kids have not witnessed the kind of bullying that we experienced as kids and I am glad for that. They have been taught early on, within the school district, that respect is expected always. They are also treated with respect by staff, even when they screw up. My son made a poor judgment call earlier this year and was suspended for a day. He was honest with the principal about his actions, was contrite and apologized appropriately. He knew he was in big trouble with his parents too. I told him that I was concerned that he had earned himself a "bad kid" label and he said "The principal told me he still respected me because I was honest with him and it was obvious that I felt bad about it." I think that was smart of the principal because, although my son did something he shouldn't have, he handled the consequences appropriately. He had to face his punishment, but he was also rewarded for the positive aspects of how he dealt with the situation.

5) Nobody ever really knows why someone commits suicide unless there is a note left that details the reasons. My cousin's son committed suicide one week after getting engaged to his girlfriend. He was working part time, successful in school, in his fraternity, in every way. He had overcome huge barriers of having a mother who was really messed up. Something led him to do it and we will never know what. We speculate that he had a schizophrenic episode because his mother was schizophrenic (which has some hereditary etiology) and he was at the age where it would usually show itself. My point is that there is no way to really know whether this young lady killed herself because of the bullying she endured. It is speculation. There are so many reasons that she may have felt the only solution to a problem was to end her life. Whether the bullying was that problem can't be known.

I'd have you on retainer because if a child ever, ever ever ever, ever ever thought about putting their hands on Ms. Prettyface08 they'd better wake up out of that daydream. I don't do well with people putting their hands on me, especially someone's punk tail kid. I'd probably have to start my own business like Kevin said and cut some grass or clean some pools since I couldn't get a job anywhere else after I did my time for attempted murder in the State pen.

agreed...every generation thinks that the world is going to hell in a handbasket because of the next generation. Sometimes it's good to put things in perspective!

It doesn't help that we only hear about the bad things the worst kids are doing. The Internet has good points and bad points. One of the bad points, in my opinion, is that we hear about things happening in other places that we never heard about before, making it seem like there are a lot more bad events than there used to be. The real difference is that we hear about them more.

The boyfriend and I watched "Rebel Without a Cause" last night; it's one of my all-time favorites and it was his first time seeing it. Those kids were really, really bad though. Troubled, yes, but bad asses all the same.

According to the local news this morning there is a new report that Phoebe Price went to her schools administration the week before she killed herself and they refused to get involved/do anything about the situation.

An update from the New York Times.

The concept of anyone named Flannery Mullins or Sean Mulveyhill calling someone else an Irish slut is pretty ironic, actually.

Thanks for my first laugh of the day. I needed it on this dreary and boring day.

"Times are bad. Children no longer obey their parents, and everyone is writing a book."
— Marcus Tullius Cicero

IDK if it's been mentioned but, the scarf Phoebe used to hang herself with was a present the little sister had given her this past Christmas. I feel horrible for that girl for that. On top of everything else, she probably feels guilty for having been the one who gave her the scarf (though she shouldn't).

I used to live in Ireland and I know that they take bullying very seriously there. I have seen bullying cases reported on the national news and often covered in the national newspapers.

When bullying is reported, the school administration is required to act and if it is serious enough, Social Welfare and the Police will become involved.

I can imaging Phoebe and her parents being completely confused by the situation. The problem had been reported to the authorities and it was the authorities duty to act - at least in Ireland, but nothing happened.

I don't think that they knew what to do next, so they did nothing.