I have been listening, with great distress, to the events taking place in Massachusetts recently about school bullying resulting in the subsequent death of a young Irish lass. When I heard that she had been taken home to Ireland and buried near the ocean she loved, I cried. I was standing in my kitchen, working at the bench and the tears just ran down my cheeks. I am of Irish heritage and perhaps the joint ancestry came to the fore in this. I simply don’t understand what is going on in schools today. I was at this level of schooling a long time ago and to be sure there were kids in school who were a ‘perfect pain’. But the level of bullying simply wasn’t there. Punishments were dished out and so were leather straps. Teasing was not unusual at school but I sometimes wonder that in this modern age, if we have gone over the top with what we give kids and all the political correctness about not being able to give them a good caning if they don’t behave (in the case of boys). There are folk who do go over the top with punishments and beat their children in an unnecessary way. I truly believe that discipline is lacking. We had school officers who kept an eye on things – there was never campus police and kids never thought of bringing guns to school or drugs for that matter. Life was economically hard as it is today and I think folk were too busy working and making ends meet to get into to much trouble. There were little ‘clicky groups’ when I went to school but nothing like it is today. And nothing at all like the retribution that seems to be going on between the young people now. It is very sad because there are some truly good kids about and the few spoilt ones are making it all seem bad for those ones who want to do good. As for the school administrators in the school involved in this debacle and very sad situation, they need to be disciplined themselves – their behaviour was appalling. I say this taking into account that the stupidity of political correctness has not helped them. I hope that things can be learnt from this sad business. I noted that in the aftermath of the Massachusetts situation, another young man took his own life for the same reason – unreasonable bullying. Come on school administrators, parents and students. Get together and sort this out. There are many folk willing to help you and let them do this. To the students who reported the bullying, don’t feel that what you did was wasted. You tried and we thank you for your efforts. God Bless you and the young lady’s family and the family of the other young man.
Go safely out there folks and bless you all. Kate.
No comments:
Post a Comment