A sign and stuffed animal lay at the entrance to Sir Winston Churchill Secondary School ahead of a vigil for murdered 14-year-old Devan Selvey, at his high school, in Hamilton, Ont., Oct. 9, 2019.Hearing about the stabbing death of a 14-year-old boy outside a school in Hamilton has Darrel Crimeni grappling with questions of bullying and a lack of empathy that may also have played a role when his grandson’s overdose was filmed and posted on social media.
Crimeni said students like his grandson, who had learning challenges, feel particularly unsafe at school because of bullies who are often known to administrators but face little or no consequences. Shari-Ann Bracci-Selvey has blamed the system for failing to protect her son from “bullies” who she said made his first month of school a nightmare, saying everyone – from the school he attended to his own family – let him down.
Morse said school violence will only increase as children using social media learn early on to hide behind a screen while watching negative behaviour and joining in with others who may be posting similar content. The hallmarks of the Positive Effective Behaviour Supports philosophy, which Morse believes was first used in the United States, involve teaching students empathy, compassion and responsibility.“We went from having 20 kids sitting in the office waiting for someone to talk to them to, in 15 weeks, down to one or two students and some days none.
How about not suspending the teacher when a violent student's belligerent parent shows up and accuses the teacher of racism for facing down her son? How about the school principal and superintendent not blaming the teacher first as a craven act of bureaucratic appeasement ?
I need to say this folks! I had one bully in school I came to head with. That problem was solve quickly. But from my child hood on to the day I left school it was the teachers who abused me and bullied me. Not students. One actually hit me across the face in front of the class.
Time to remove education as a right. The education system needs to bring back zero tolerance, stop victim blaming, get rid of progressive discipline, reverse stay in school until 18, expel aggressive, anti-social students from system to protect & ensure safety of the majority.