It is
common knowledge that America has a problem with bullying. However, there is
more to bullying than the behavior between kids. The way we currently think
about, measure and understand aggressive behavior is also the problem. And it is important that we continue to
develop the anti-bullying movement because at this time it is failing.
Today, bullying has become a wide
spread epidemic. Schools all across the nation have become obsessed with children’s
behavior. However, psychologists have now realized that America has taken the
wrong approach regarding bullying. According to the anti-bullying movement, children
should act like perfect human beings. The Anti-Bullying Utopian Handbook, located
above, is a result of this. All of the rules and regulations inflicted on
children today require them to act a certain way; PERFECT. Expecting anyone, (especially
children) to act this way is absurd. It is difficult to understand how this
movement has not been improved or replaced.
Regulations similar to the ones
listed above have led to the zero tolerance policy, which has its own issues. Once
any of the rules listed in the handbook are broken, administrators are
supposed to have no tolerance and act harshly on the student. As the image
reads, “failure to abide by these rules will result in us punishing you
severely for not behaving like a perfect human being as we have set forth.”
Those inflicting such policies need to realize that children are not the enemy!
When dealing with a case, each side of the story must be taken into account. A
major part of a child"s development involves “understanding and managing impulses,
aggression included.” For children, aggression is a critical part of their
social and emotional development. One of the realities of learning is that mistakes
are inevitable. This includes social emotional learning. Therefore, a zero
tolerance policy automatically sets up kids to fail. Zero tolerance takes a
“one-size-fits-all” approach because it does not “acknowledge childhood
development” in its policies and responses to problems between children. What
must be considered is their intent. Most children have not yet trained their
minds to think ahead to the consequences or anticipate the reaction of the
other child.
** This is how I would fit the picture into my
paper**
So I'm assuming this is supposed to be the post I'm responding to because the post directly above me was Katrina's draft and it wasn't finished. Back to the post though. I liked your post a lot Rebekah and found only a few very small errors in it. Basically the only problem I found was that you spelled child's with a quotation mark instead of an apostrophe. I know this was probably unintentional and I thought I should just point it out. On the subject material though I liked your stance on the anti-bullying movement. I think that many people are scared to talk out against or criticize the anti-bullying movement for a fear of looking like a cold hearted person who doesn't care about children or bullying. I think your view of the anti-bullying movement being tailored for a non existent "ideal" student was interesting. I think many times bullying is unintentional and I do think the zero tolerance policy is not an effective method for dealing with the matter. The only think I did not agree with is when you said that, "for children, aggression is a critical part of their social and emotional development". Are you justifying aggression towards other kids as something that "just happens" and is inevitable? Overall I really liked your post and thought it was well written and thought out.
ReplyDeleteThanks Chrissy! I'm so glad you totally got what I was trying to say! Well for the most part.However, I did mean that aggression is more so bound to happen than inevitable because children are imperfect. My goal was to communicate that when dealing with bullying cases kids will be kids. I do not believe that if a child commits an act hurtful towards another nothing should be done. But, I do believe that each situation requires some serious thought because if a kid does unintentionally hurt another or does happen to say bad things it must be remembered that yes kids will be kids. We must remember this fact rather than just immediately assume the child who hurt the other is a bully and have his/her reputation stained or tainted. This avoids unnecessarily labeling a child as a bully. I can easily work on making that more clear!!
ReplyDeleteThanks guys. Rebekah, a couple things:
ReplyDeleteFirst, avoid "According to the anti-bullying movement..." The "movement" doesn't really say anything. You have to specify a person here, even if you just use the expression "advocates of the anti-bullying movement..."
Second, somehow you need to acknowledge that your image is a bit of a parody. The person who put this together did not intend for it to be taken seriously, or cited. Therefore, you have to just include the word parody, or in some other manner, acknowledge that you know this was supposed to be a critical image. The image actually supports your point. Satire.
Third, semi-colon use.
Fourth, and most importantly. Please read this, and ask me personally if you have questions. Your last paragraph gets a little preachy. You are definitely allowed to have your opinion. Your entire paper will be a statement of your opinion. However, you don't want to come across as preaching. You want to acknowledge the problem, and then give an explanation of why this is a problem, using evidence, not empty statements like "those...need to realize..." This is a delicate things to do, but it is a great thing to learn. The ultimately quality of your paper will depend on your ability to acknowledge a problem without coming across as preaching to us.
See me with questions.