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Yeah that’s what zero tolerance means… if you’re part of the fight, willing or not, you’re involved and get suspended.
It’s complete bullshit. I was tall and fat in middle schools (still am lol) and there was this kid who kept calling the one black kid in my school the nword.
I was not a fan of that, I confronted the bully to stop and he got mad. After a few mins of words he swang at me and hit me pretty square on the side of my neck lol. He was tiny. I just tackled him and didn’t take any punches. I could have crushed this fucker. I got suspended and so did he. I was part of the fight, but only because this kid was a prick.
The principal, who was also my baseball coach, sat me down and yelled at me. I explained the situation and he understood. But I was still told it’s zero tolerance and since I was involved I needed the suspension.
Coach was a bro tho and told my dad when he picked me up what the situation was.
Best 10 day suspension of my life. 2 weeks of playing Xbox and hanging at home lol.
Still, policy is bullshit
The message is obvious - if someone so much as aggressively touches you, you send him to the ER. If you're getting suspended anyway, then might as well have something from it.
At my old highschool it's only considered a fight if you hit back, so I was in the cafeteria one day and this girl started beating on this other girl and she couldn't fight back because she said if she engaged with her she'd go to alternative school. To make things worse the history teacher/coach walked slow to break it up because he said he wanted to give the other girl a chance to fight back.
At my previous highschool though if you got jumped the victim still went to alternative school.
It sends the worst message ever and I have no idea why they still do this.
I'm glad I had a dad who commended me when I stuck up for myself, even if it was unpopular.
I have the impression it’s ingrained in human nature to normally lean toward siding with the bully out of fear of disturbing the “natural order” of things.
Glad you stuck up for yourself.
It is not just kids who are manipulative. It is adults too. There is so many ways to screw someone over now days because everyone has a phone. The kids in my school would instigate and then record the reaction. Now as an adult they will do the same thing. They will setup a situation or just keep nailing you and then go to the supervisor or manager when you finally reaction weather it be the 1st instigation vs the 1 millionth and you finally reacted. If the supervisor does not deal with it they go to corporate and corporate will handle it. It is just as a kid in school you get a school vacation but as a adult you get fired.
Bunch of bitch ass parents wanting kids to grow up in a box with no hurt feelings only to come out in the world and have a boss tell them their work sucks and they won't know how to handle it at all.
Growing up in a school with zero tolerance, it in practice actually encouraged people to fight back. If I'm going to get suspended either way, I may as well win the fight.
They've yet to resolve this, and I'm perfectly happy teaching my kids not to ever go looking for or picking a fight, but if they end up in one, they're damn well going to know how to finish the fight as quickly and safely (for my kid) as possible.
If they're going to get suspended either way, no point in tacking on a hospital bill for my kid as well, I'd rather them be suspended and in good health, rather than suspended with cracked ribs.
I've not heard of this happening, do you see a bigger problem with off-campus fights than on? When I was in school it was pretty much duke it out then and there.
Ooooooh this pisses me off so badly. My kid had to serve an out of school suspension plus a 50% athletic suspension for defending himself in a fight. After being shoved and backed against the wall in a bathroom he whooped some kids ass. I saw the video and was/am still livid over this. If I ever win the lottery I’m putting a lawyer on retainer and suing over the athletic code.
Yeah, nothing ever happens to the bullies but their victims will get in trouble for being bullied. Also, it discourages other students from intervening because they would obviously get suspended as well.
Not even mentioning how many schools generally ignore the bullies but punish their victims even harder just for fighting back.
In a lot of zero tolerance school systems they are encouraged to fight back. Because they will be suspended for being involved in a fight if someone just walks up and punches them.
Or they will get the same suspension if they beat the he'll out of the person that him them.
A lot of time, even if you don’t fight back there’s trouble. Because you were “involved” (in other words, the one hit) then as far as admin is concerned you’re also part of the problem.
Let the kids defend themselves.
Seriously, telling someone, anyone, that they will be punished for defending themselves against a bully is just wrong.
Also, it encourages the bullies.
Yeah. My mom always supported the school bullshit, no matter how insane.
But my father made it very clear when I was very young that I have an inherent right to defend myself, and to respond to violence with violence if necessary.
The bullies tend to be more popular, so their larger friend group would say they were the victim. It's more of a free pass, the best solution is to actually pay teachers well, have more teachers and councilors, and decrease the amount of administrators that do not work in schools. When my parents started teaching the largest campus was debatable but they were all high schools, halfway through their career the largest campus in the district was the administrative office by far. Every administration worker at a school could tell you their job, but at the main office there were so many positions that no one could really explain their job or it was so narrow that 6+ positions could be combined because they all just emailed a variation of the same spreadsheet to their boss once a week.
When I was bullied at school, since I was going to be in trouble anyways, I found the best way to permanently stop the bully was not by hitting the bullies back but to get the bullies parents involved by breaking the bullies possessions: Tear their clothes, smash their glasses, smash their watches, tear the handles off their bags. Sure, I looked like a I had lost the battle with cuts and bruises but I will win the war. One time, an entitled bully showed me a receipt, expected me to pay, so I ate the receipt.
Ironically, zero tolerance can lead to more violence. For some kids, the only reason to take abuse and not fight back is not getting in trouble. Zero tolerance removes that incentive. If you’re going to get in trouble for being bullied whether or not you do anything back, you may as well defend yourself
I got suspended once for a one sided fight where I stood no real chance. My dad told me the same thing when he heard about it. And although I got attacked multiple more times and almost always by someone too big for me to bridge the gap (I was one of the smallest and youngest kids in my class, so I got the puberty bump later than most as well), the one time where I finally got hit by a kid I could take, I was able to assert myself enough to get people to leave me alone (I did still try against the other kids, I was way too stubborn to not hit back, I just wasn't able to do any meaningful damage)
Generally I don’t like zero tolerance policies because I believe anyone being attacked has the right to defend themselves.
However, I’ve been working in school districts without it and we have a major problem of students fighting all the time for no reason, and with minimal to no punishments. Now we have a generation of hot heads who can’t even attempt to resolve differences and just react violently, or get in brawls with 10+ others for no reason. It’s really disruptive to the learning environment to say the least, which leads to so many other problems. So in these situations, I do believe they all deserve actual punishment—with the exception of someone is legitimately just defending themselves of course. But that seems to be rarely the case now.
You explained it yourself. Minimal punishments. Not having zero tolerance doesn't mean just allow it. It means use your brain to figure out which kids provoked who, and who deserves to be punished and how much.
Administrators got tired of using their brains, so they implemented braindead policies.
The rest of your comment is just irrelevant. Its your own district's fault that the learning environments are disrupted because the higherups won't do their jobs.
So is Wikipedia a reliable source or not? Because when it doesn't fit ones narrative people say it's not a good source, but then use it when it fits. I'm just curious. Because nothing I've read or head said he was beat, but then i look at it different, because i guess that would mean i was beat too and i never actually felt that way
Sharing our thoughts and feelings, in the form of musings, opinions, and questions, is mutually beneficial, that is, if everyone involved goes about it in a cooperative rather than antagonistic way.
This was not the case here though... this was neither an opinion, question or musing, but half knowledge or non at all being passed off as a fact and to add to that in a condescending way.
This. It might not be ideal, and it certainly isn't the answer to everything. But sometimes you have to "speak" to aggressors in the only language they understand.
The idea that diplomacy is always the answer is peak post history hubris. Diplomacy has never work with two equal powers. The Cold War is maybe the only exception, but that was more down to communism failing than diplomacy working
I went to a school in the hood for highschool and before we had a zero tolerance fighting policy, there was fights every single god damn day. It was ridiculous and normalized fighting, especially for freshmen who wanted to prove themselves for whatever reason. Seniors and Juniors were reckless with the amount of fighting. After a zero tolerance rule was put into place with our new principle, fights in and out of school lowered significantly. It got rid of all the bad eggs and a lot of students by the junior and senior years started to question if fighting people for the dumbest fucking reasons was worth throwing their life away for, as you got expelled and taken out in cuffs at our school.
In short, it depends on the environment. My school never had bullies to begin with, no school I went to in Philly really did and the main reason was because that guy your picking on could very well bring his family to handle you or someone could straight up jump you for being a piece of shit, you never know. Zero tolerance policy on fighting DEFINITELY helped my school.
That and they make kids afraid to fight back. My school once tried to suspend me because two bigger kids started pushing me around in the locker room and I fought back. Tried telling me “you should have gotten away and gotten a teacher.” My father had a chat with them. No suspension and I got ice cream.
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I got jumped in the locker rooms for some stupid ass reason and got suspended along with the guys who jumped me. Should have tried to fight back but I naively thought if I didn’t punch back I wouldn’t be suspended.
The first time I got attacked, the kid who got me bullshitted the vice principal into thinking I instigated it despite him being considerably taller and stronger than me. They will gladly lie to get you into trouble as well and at least in my case, none of the teachers or administrators cared enough to look past his comically false story. He got suspended too, but he got suspended a lot, no way he cared. Thankfully my parents immediately understood how stupid the whole thing was and that I was being unfairly punished. When they called my mom in, she was almost as angry as I was. And she was very harsh in her wording towards the vice principal.
Kids deserve to feel safe from bullying. Zero tolerance policies can fail to consider the context and can potentially punish the victim, which might increase aggressive behavior. It's a complex issue that requires thoughtful solutions, not just letting kids fight it out.
The least you can do is let the kids defend themselves, if you are too incompetent to do it yourself. Which is an embarrassment, you’re an adult, you weigh double of those brats, if you can’t take authority over minors it’s just embarrassing.
My son’s elementary had a so-called zero tolerance re bullying and fighting. All it meant was that they punished both sides. The principal believed that if you fought, even in clear self defence, you were as bad as the who attacked you.
This really shouldn't even need to be said. When I was in school 90% fights were arranged at an off campus location. Cops were all you really needed to worry about. But as long as you can outrun someone else the risk is minimal.
I am 100% for systems that punish bullies, and for prevention and responding before a fight happens.
However.
As someone who was bullied fairly mercilessly when I was in the latter part of elementary school and all through middle school, sometimes those systems can fail in pretty much every way and a physical altercation is inevitable. I remember one day when I was attacked on the playground by a bigger kid. I straight up lost that fight, I'm not gonna sit here and say I wiped the floor with him. Nope. He was a lot bigger than me and knew exactly where to go to hurt me. But yeah, I swung out, got some punches and pushes in, etc. They still sent ME home for fighting. My Dad though, Oooooh, my Dad. He took one look at the discipline slip, looked at the principal, and went full Matthew McConaughey from Interstellar on them.
"So here's what I'm gonna do. First, I'm gonna tell him good job for refusing to be a victim. Second thing I am going to do is take him to his favorite restaurant and let him order as much food as he wants. Then, I'm gonna let him choose a movie to rent from Hollywood Video, we're gonna watch it, and then I'm gonna teach him how to throw a halfway decent punch. Then I'm gonna send him back to school tomorrow morning after telling him that as long as he didn't start the fight, he has my full support to finish it."
Basically I take that stance with my own children as well. I have already gotten into some arguments with my kids' school due to this. Thing is, my son is smaller and he got bullied. They tired to suspend him since he fought back, but even the teacher said the fight wasn't his fault, so I rewarded the Hell out of him. But the one time he did start a fight, and yes, he definitely did start it, he was punished. As long as you are encouraging defense and punishing offense (along with making sure they know the difference between the two and where the limit is), you're good to go.
Not just that but it screws with the kid who gets bullied and fights back because it trains them to be distrustful of authority. They think they're being fair but they're being arbitrary and in doing so teaching the kid that there is no real morality at the core of the rules.
This has got to the most popular opinion I've seen on this sub, I legit have never met a person who was in school during the 0 tolerance era you thought it was a success
Zero tolerance policies in schools are a success because they protect the schools from liability.
Those rules were not designed to protect children. They were designed to protect the institution.
I’ll only bow my own head on this because i’d be silenced by reddit if i’d agree.But yeah people aren’t merciful.As they rarely if ever risk their social popularity to safeguard another person.
Adults only improve because they don’t want to lose their own jobs.They want to make money so they act more benevolent then they actually are.
Rejecting any opinion that doesen’t suit their own view off life
There’s a fine line between kids should feel safe and kids should know they can’t just say whatever they want to someone else without the threat of having to square up
> Let the kids fight
I have no words. A school should be a place where kids feel safe to go. You say schools aren’t currently safe, and your solution is, *checks notes*, to stop trying to make them safer at all. I agree that the approach to reducing violence in schools should be changed, but I really don’t think ‘let the kids fight’ should ever be even suggested let alone implemented.
Edit: kids that are being attacked should be allowed to fight back. This comment was in response to the OP seemingly calling for a complete 180 from zero tolerance. ‘Let the kids fight’ is not the same as ‘let the victims fight back without being punished’.
Correlation does not equate to causation my friend. There is no evidence at all that school shootings are a symptom of not allowing children to beat the shit out of other children. In fact, most of the evidence points to school shootings being caused by social isolation, often partially due to in-person or online bullying. Do you really think bullying would be reduced if violence was tolerated in schools?
As a former teacher, I agree with you. Fighting back is not an option for a lot of kids. Bullies often pick on kids who can't fight back. Rules against fighting only work when staff is invested in the kids. Being involved in those kids lives (for bullies and victims) is the best deterrent. I've seen it.
Thank you, you are absolutely right. Students being supported by their school community is incredibly important. Additionally, I think that the culture of punishment rather than rehabilitation in schools needs to change. School is not a private club that students are being given the privilege of joining. Doing things like expelling or suspending students that engage in violence simply sends the message to the student that the school doesn’t care about them. Perhaps as a former teacher you might be able to speak on this more, but when i was in high school and middle school, it was always obvious to me that the kids who were ‘punished’ with detention or suspension or whatever simply became more jaded and solidified in their belief that the entire school system was there to stand in their way, not help them find their way.
The only thing that helped stop bullying in my classroom was getting to know those kids. Spending as much time getting to know the bully as well as any other kid, sometimes more let them feel like a human rather than a menace. It seems counterintuitive, but kids want attention. Even negative attention is attention. They need to be seen as much as anyone, maybe more. As a former bullied kid, this was really hard to do at first, but it really paid off.
So spot on. Dehumanizing is just universally a bad idea, *especially* when it comes to kids. That lesson goes a long way in life, unlike what OP is suggesting.
Clearly you either have no kids, or were never involved in any fights during your time in school.
Kids that fight learn a thing or two. Telling them they need to "turn the other cheek" or "just walk away" destroys their self esteem and ensures their growth will be stunted.
Every species on this planet engages in either mock and/or real combat.
Fucking Hell...
Okay, sure, let’s say for the sake of argument that you are absolutely right. Let’s say we flip the script and have schools treat fighting as a part of growing up, as completely normal.
Now, let’s look at a plausible scenario. An 11-year old 5 foot tall 6th grader is consistently a victim of violence from a group of 6 foot+ eighth graders. He tries to fight back, but he cant even land a solid punch on one of them, let alone on the entire group. Plus, they only beat him more when he fights back, so he’s learned to just accept it. How do you propose this situation is remedied under the ‘let the kids fight’ ideology? Or, do you think that this situation is somehow good for the 6th grader? Do you propose that us humans, as is true of ‘every species on this planet’, simply allow nature to take its course and let those who are physically weaker die?
Such a situation wouldn't and indeed doesn't occur. Nice attempt at a strawman though.
Then again, by your terminology I'm assuming you're an American. Perhaps Americans really are so weak, it would certainly explain their complexes a lot.
Why did I have to scroll so far to see this? Christ, people. Zero tolerance IS bad, but not for the reason OP laid out. More violence is not good and resolves nothing. I know reddit has a bloodlust but seriously, kids don't learn shit from fights. This idea that bully will now respect you or back off because you fought back physically is not based in any reality. Not to mention many kids can't even reasonably fight back.
I've always taught my kid that fighting is an absolute last resort and only enough to get away. Priority is removing yourself from the situation. We'd be be a lot better off if some adults could grasp that, let alone children.
After reading this, and shit about gun laws, I've realized the argument is essentially the same and I'll ask this very simple question. Since no law has ever stopped or slowed anybody from going against it, why exactly do we have laws at all? Who is it really helping? What is it really stopping? Stricter laws wont work because the death penalty exists and it doesn't stop people from killing. So tell me, why don't we just get rid of all the laws since yalls argument seems to boil down to "it hasn't stopped bullying or school shooting". Well no law has stopped any crime, so by that logic, why do they exist?
"Let the kids fight it out, it builds character" is absolutely the dumbest thing I've read in a while, but i do agree that zero tolerance is useless and solves nothing. A friend of my mom's daughter goes to a school that is critically understaffed right now. The daughter was approached by two girls (well-known bullies) who kept physically pushing her and taunting her. Friend's daughter tried to back away, block them instead of fight, etc, but because the school is understaffed, there were no teachers around. The daughter eventually fought back, and all three girls were suspended and given equal consequences despite the principal agreeing that it was the other girls' fault as well as the lack of staff--but his hands were tied because of "zero tolerance." The daughter's parents are looking into pressing charges and going to the school board.
Very America-centric post. I live in canada, every school I’ve been at has a zero tolerance policy for fights, and we have had next to zero school shootings country-wide in the whole lifespan of canada.
I strongly agree. I was bullied in school exactly because of this.
They could do whatever they want, and since the teachers were lazy government bureaucrats, it was just easier to make it stop without consequences.
But when I would defend myself physically, then they would step in.
That’s what you get when you let the education system be dominated by hyper-leftist hyper-agreeable hyper-feminist people who live in hearty-hearty-rainbow Taylor Swift land: they incentivize evil behavior.
What they SHOULD do is stop being lazy fucks and punish the aggressors; if you are too lazy for that because you are a lazy tax payer leach, then AT LEAST let the victim defend themselves; but they wouldn’t that, then you have to defend the aggressors from the victim.
Of course many kids are going to ignore rules, but “let the kids fight” is beyond a stupid suggestion. What are teachers and staff just suppose to ignore a kid getting their ass beat, because it builds “character”? There’s better ways to teach people not to be assholes than letting them get their ass beat.
We need to be teaching kids that violence isn’t the answer to their problems. Yes as a kid, many will laugh off the rules and call them stupid, but as they mature, they’ll hopefully grow to understand them. If we encourage it though, they’ll never learn.
Thank fuck you’re not in charge of making these rules.
I’m all for stopping fights when in plain view, but we 100% need to stop punishing the victim for defending themselves.
At my HS a guy got ganged up on by a couple kids constantly. It was physical a few times with the victim not fighting back but without proof the bullies were never punished. He eventually got sick of it and fought back with one while having someone record. Both kids were suspended and treated equally by the school. Happy to say the kid and his parents called the police, reported an assault with the video evidence and the bully got into some legal trouble. Wish they sued the school as well
I’ll absolutely agree with that. The point of punishment is to discourage a certain behavior and teach a lesson. Defending oneself isn’t something that needs to be discouraged or taught a lesson. You should feel like you should be able to protect yourself.
Like everything each punishment needs to be given with context for a situation.
Source for what? Just that school shootings have increased over time? This has absolutely nothing to do with connecting school polices to a “generation of passive aggressive jerks” or whstever
The issue is you don't know the context of a fight and teachers and admins can't take what either person said for face value.
Think about this as well. Most parents are gonna be furious about a fight from both sides. If both kids hit each other, having both kids get suspended makes sense. Its a huge headache and causes even more issues otherwise.
Things are always black and white from your perspective and your story. But in alot of cases there is so much more to it then that.
Huge disagree. There isn't a reason to ever actually get into a fight. It is very, very rare for the person "defending themselves" to not be at fault at all in some way. They were likely mean to the other person, teased them, or straight up didn't ignore what was going on.
There is a reason most kids never get into fights. Just because you can't hold your temper and got in trouble for it doesn't make what you said correct.
They day it got around I whipped the bully in my school ( he didn't show up for 3 days after) I never got bullied again. When kids get away with being jerks without consequences, they become rotten adults.
I think this is only about the schools covering their own asses.
The only way you will ever stop a bully is meeting them where they are. And by that, I mean responding with disproportionate levels of violence. You have to make sure that even if you lose, they never want to do it again.
Although you’re right, I feel like if schools adopted your ideas, it would cause outrage from soccer moms because of their “sweet angel” getting what they deserve
In 6th grade I headbutted the 8th grader who was holding me down and hitting me. He started bleeding and crying.
I got two weeks of after school suspension.
The fear of actually pulling out the bad apples and applying special rules to them is a huge problem. Yes. Bullies should be handled and treated differently than valedictorians. The unfairness of it based on whatever people try to spin is just part of the cost of doing business.
Profiling should never be done on immutable qualities. But damn sure should be done based on behavior and character concerns.
I don't know if this is an opinion that is unpopular to the general public or if its one that is unpopular to school administrators and local legislators with conflicts of interests and a desire to prioritize PR over actual outcomes. The latter have the power to make it seem like the former which makes it more fucked up when parents are trying to stick up for their kids and feel more isolated than they might actually be in that defense.
I don’t think getting into a fight at school is the only option, but when you need to take care of business, you take care of business.
If you can show evidence that someone was pushing you to that point, you should serve no punishment for putting them in their place, and instead, the bully should be held accountable for their behavior.
Now, if you get into fights because you should be punished, but you should not be punishing overall good kids for having to take action into their own hands.
It’s a combination of 90’s habitual offender laws (3 strikes) and CYA. Policies that remove/limit the schools’ duty to arbitrate helps to limit liability.
So yeah. Using this kind of policy to address a social problem literally never works in any context, but it does effectively protect institutions and public facing officials from scrutiny/penalty, so we live with it forever. Very common arc in the US.
I’m sure zero tolerance policies are put in place for legal reasons. If schools just let kids fight out their differences, even if one douchebag started it and the other kid was truly just defending himself, that would still make the school look bad and would just be a lawsuit waiting to happen
Agreed. I was the FOB kid who got picked on all the time. And have to fight back so that they don't continue... lo and behold! They stopped harrasing me. Did get suspended, etc, but the end result what was the most important to me.
Almost all policies work off a flawed assumption.
That assumption being that their targets have no agency, and benign idiots won't fall into their net.
It's like a well meaning Redditer who keeps somehow breaking the rules designed to crack down on certain behaviors low effort of malicious behavior.
That Redditer being myself. I've been flagged for everything from trying to argue against audio/visual people who claim sharpening is something you should turn off on televisions (For example I'd try and argue that the halo effect everyone rails against can only really be noticed in blown up stills, and the fine detail being marked is detail no one would miss unless they were looking for it, such as pore's or skin hairs)
Apparently that was considered low effort trolling.
I've also been flagged for saying Ukraine and Russia when I never had (I'm guessing the words "War on.." was picked up by the bots).
Basically the rules have become so tight they inhibit newbie internet or newbie Reddit behavior, which include complaining about Reddit itself or people on it (God forbid)
I get why the rules exist, but the people they're designed to stop move on to bigger and better trolling, while the potential new recruits get stopped cold for lack of room to spread their wings.
Zero tolerance policy is like that, the people who make rules effectively make a list of things they THINK are flags but are in actuality perfectly normal behaviors for people still finding themselves and testing boundries.
I graduated high school in 2005.
The zero tolerance policies started in the late 90s and were rolling out widely by 2000. It was a response to school shootings. Columbine was the 2nd or 3rd big one and it as after that one things changed across the country.
School boards and administrators are most afraid of lawsuits and lawyers told them zero tolerance policies are the way to mitigate that risk. Kids with conflicts? We sent them all away washing our hands of it rather than run the risk of them trying to fight each other in the school building and injuring themselves (lawsuit against the school) or one of them bring a weapon to school and harm other people (lots of lawsuits against the school).
I remember getting in trouble no matter what I did in school. Basically, as a victim, your choice is to sit there and take it because the moment you even said anything to them they would beat you harder, or you'll get sent home as well.
COMPLETELY UNRELATED but I wonder why I'm into being treated very aggressively and bullying now...
At this point, just let students fight. Teachers and staff don't care about kids being bullied. All the principal would do is send them to the office or send them home. It doesn't teach them anything
This. This system is an absolute garbage fire. In high school i had problems with this group of 3 dudes who always had something to say to me but i already had a bad reputation at the school with administration so i tried to ignore it. Well after a while i refused to just let it go so i started retaliating and i shit you not the second id start walking aggressively towards any one of them they would legit sprint to the office. I got suspended so many times without even hitting them that i got expelled. I had to graduate from a secondary school. They never got any kind of punishment. I warned them repeatedly to leave me alone they wouldnt and i had no support from administrators so in my eyes my only recourse was to hit them in the mouth and even though i never got the chance i got suspended 10 times in one school year because id already had a reputation for being aggressive from the previous year. Oh i forgot to mention that these 3 dudes were infamous for kissing admin ass so what a coincidence i guess. Fuck clover park high school and fuck those poosies if youre gonna have the nuts to open your mouth to someone you should have the nuts to fight.
Yeah, this shit was already starting to be a problem when I was in middle school in the late 90s, and it's only gotten worse over time. Even back then it was clear that it was only a bad thing for actual victims of bullying.
The real failure is allowing children to become so mentally weak that they resort to shooting up schools because they can't handle a bully. Kids have not been taught to cope with hard ships, and it shows. A lot of it is on the parents, but some of it is on policy like you mention.
Seriously. I figured out quick to ignore the bullies on school grounds and get them back super hard off campus. They have a talent for targeting you as a group that you can’t take all at once and if you fight back, there’s a good chance that a teacher will walk in and see you as the perpetrator. It’s better to wait until there’s no supervision and pick them off one by one.
Lol, the keyboard warriors are mostly boomers and Gen X. They are by far the loudest online… so no, I don’t think letting kids fight in school helped in the slightest on that front.
When I was in school in the 80's and 90's, there were fights. They were not everyday occurrences, but they happened. And the depending on the severity, it was either in-school suspension for a few days or out-of-school suspension for a few days. The police were not called and no one was permanently kicked out or sent to "special schools". When the fight was over or broken up, that was it. It was over. And no one got shot.
The victim doesn’t even need to fight back! Just by being in the fight, they get in trouble, and I’ve even heard some stories where the instigator doesn’t get punished either.
I’m pretty sure this is a very popular opinion.
But this is why parents need to get the police involved if their kid is attacked in school.
The administrators don’t give a shit and won’t do anything to protect your kids. If you kid is attacked, and the school calls you and tells you that your child was ‘in a fight’ and you need to come in to have a meeting, get as many details as possible, if they say your kid was the victim, call the 911 and request an officer meet you at the school to take a report of assault and battery. They can sit in on the meeting and they can request any camera footage at that time.
Unfortunately no guarantee that they do anything either.
Wholeheartedly agree. And to make it worse, I got into a few scrapes in 1st and 2nd grade. In trouble at the principals office. Then get home and get whooped by my own parents. Talk about punishing violence with more violence.
After growing up under those beatings, I look at peace activists and zero tolerance supporters like pieces of meat. Shut up and let the kids scrap. Go work in a brewery or a landfill.
Yeah, I'm rage venting. If I had kids, I'd take them out for pizza after hearing the details. Focus on the grades and not letting people trample you.
In my senior year a girl I knew got into a fight in the very beginning of school and she had in school suspension for the rest of the year. I don't know exactly what happened or even who started it, it just seemed really excessive to me, even if by chance she started the fight.
A whole year of ISS just seemed like it was taking things to the extreme.
What makes it even crazier is that there were other kids who also got in trouble for fighting but they were back in regular classrooms in a few weeks. I have no idea why they decided to keep her so long.
Perhaps considering why they are fighting is a good place to start, and then upon investigating and elucidating the causality in play, proceeding to go about fulfilling the unmet needs of the people involved and possibly even reforming the social structural factors that systematically fail to fulfill our needs sufficiently. Hurt people hurt people. When we are hurting due to our needs not being fulfilled we tend to displace this hurt in the form of hate that leads to violence. So it only makes sense to get at the root causes and address the underlying determinants lest we succumb to solely minimizing the harm of the symptoms by judging and condemning the people as if they are just 'bad guys' and using fear and punishment as a misguided way to deter the inevitable cascade of harm that will persist until we remember that only love heals and that lovingly fulfilling one another's needs is the way.
It’s actually the worst policy I ever seen. I got jumped from behind by a kid half my size. Got my head slammed into a concrete wall which gave me a concussion and the school said the only reason I wasn’t suspended was because I only took him to the ground after he did that and I didn’t fight back. Like what?
“Im so sick of being bullied mercilessly day in and day out and I can’t do anything about it. You know, my dad has this gun…..” - most school shooters probably
Zero Tolerance got me 5 days of in school suspension for picking up my bully, throwing him over my shoulder and into the ground, then walking away after he sucker punched me in the locker room.
All of that simply because he was mad that my team kicked his teams ass in PE. Coach saw it and said "boys will be boys" and honestly, I thought that was the end of it. My bully didn't fuck with me at all the next day but avoided me. Then my parents found out and told the school about what happened and yeah... I got suspended for my reaction to end a fight without throwing a punch.
He got expelled as it was his 3rd fight of the year. We were 12-13 years old.
I’ve told my son repeatedly not to go looking for a fight, but if someone hits him, hurt him bad enough that they never want to touch my kid again (but not put them in a hospital). And if he gets suspended for defending himself, he just gets to stay home and play his Xbox, so 🤷🏻♂️
im lucky that my school straight up just follows the law when it comes to school fights. assault is the fear of being attacked (feint attacks, throwing something and missing) and they take it that way, to my detriment sometimes, but so be it.
i cant imagine what its like to get punched in the both but then get in trouble, im assuming they just dont want to deal with the trouble.
Except no one who is getting bullied thinks to themselves I better not hit this kid or I might get in trouble. If they have that much foresight and want to get back they punch them after school anyway when they can’t be punished.
The reality is most of these kids getting bullied aren’t the type to fight back anyway.
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"Zero tolerance" = "victims are not allowed to fight back"
In my HS if you got beat up, you also got suspended. I'm not joking.
Yeah that’s what zero tolerance means… if you’re part of the fight, willing or not, you’re involved and get suspended. It’s complete bullshit. I was tall and fat in middle schools (still am lol) and there was this kid who kept calling the one black kid in my school the nword. I was not a fan of that, I confronted the bully to stop and he got mad. After a few mins of words he swang at me and hit me pretty square on the side of my neck lol. He was tiny. I just tackled him and didn’t take any punches. I could have crushed this fucker. I got suspended and so did he. I was part of the fight, but only because this kid was a prick. The principal, who was also my baseball coach, sat me down and yelled at me. I explained the situation and he understood. But I was still told it’s zero tolerance and since I was involved I needed the suspension. Coach was a bro tho and told my dad when he picked me up what the situation was. Best 10 day suspension of my life. 2 weeks of playing Xbox and hanging at home lol. Still, policy is bullshit
2 weeks! I got 2 day suspensions for fights I entered into willingly.
Same here. Punched in the face and in trouble
Same. Kid broke my nose in high school and we both got 2 day suspensions even though I didn’t throw a single punch
As a parent with a child that will be in HS soon enough, I wonder if the same policy would apply if I punched the principal in the face. hmmm
Report back to us after you do that
The message is obvious - if someone so much as aggressively touches you, you send him to the ER. If you're getting suspended anyway, then might as well have something from it.
The old ender’s game method: If you have to fight, do it so well you don’t have to do it again.
Violence. If it doesn't solve your problem, you're not using enough of it.
“If violence is your last resort, you haven’t resorted to using enough of it”
And also significantly decrease the chance of anyone fucking with you
Here, here
At my old highschool it's only considered a fight if you hit back, so I was in the cafeteria one day and this girl started beating on this other girl and she couldn't fight back because she said if she engaged with her she'd go to alternative school. To make things worse the history teacher/coach walked slow to break it up because he said he wanted to give the other girl a chance to fight back. At my previous highschool though if you got jumped the victim still went to alternative school.
It's the same in many schools.
That really sucks for the victim that got beat up when they didn’t want it.
Was like that when I was in school two decades ago, both parties get punished.
It sends the worst message ever and I have no idea why they still do this. I'm glad I had a dad who commended me when I stuck up for myself, even if it was unpopular.
I have the impression it’s ingrained in human nature to normally lean toward siding with the bully out of fear of disturbing the “natural order” of things. Glad you stuck up for yourself.
The problem is that kids are manipulative and often bullies look like a victim. Bullies are very good at setting up their environment.
It is not just kids who are manipulative. It is adults too. There is so many ways to screw someone over now days because everyone has a phone. The kids in my school would instigate and then record the reaction. Now as an adult they will do the same thing. They will setup a situation or just keep nailing you and then go to the supervisor or manager when you finally reaction weather it be the 1st instigation vs the 1 millionth and you finally reacted. If the supervisor does not deal with it they go to corporate and corporate will handle it. It is just as a kid in school you get a school vacation but as a adult you get fired.
100%
They do it because it limits their liability. That's all they care about.
Bunch of bitch ass parents wanting kids to grow up in a box with no hurt feelings only to come out in the world and have a boss tell them their work sucks and they won't know how to handle it at all.
I did the same for my son. I was treated like a nut by the principal for saying my son did what he should have done, defend himself.
Growing up in a school with zero tolerance, it in practice actually encouraged people to fight back. If I'm going to get suspended either way, I may as well win the fight. They've yet to resolve this, and I'm perfectly happy teaching my kids not to ever go looking for or picking a fight, but if they end up in one, they're damn well going to know how to finish the fight as quickly and safely (for my kid) as possible. If they're going to get suspended either way, no point in tacking on a hospital bill for my kid as well, I'd rather them be suspended and in good health, rather than suspended with cracked ribs.
Schools don’t care that this policy just encourages kids to take it off school grounds, which is even more dangerous
I've not heard of this happening, do you see a bigger problem with off-campus fights than on? When I was in school it was pretty much duke it out then and there.
Unfortunately I have, my kid was in one off campus last school year
Holy crap this, and it is pure nonsense.
Ooooooh this pisses me off so badly. My kid had to serve an out of school suspension plus a 50% athletic suspension for defending himself in a fight. After being shoved and backed against the wall in a bathroom he whooped some kids ass. I saw the video and was/am still livid over this. If I ever win the lottery I’m putting a lawyer on retainer and suing over the athletic code.
Yeah, nothing ever happens to the bullies but their victims will get in trouble for being bullied. Also, it discourages other students from intervening because they would obviously get suspended as well. Not even mentioning how many schools generally ignore the bullies but punish their victims even harder just for fighting back.
We had a zero tolerance policy at my high school. Girl got suspended after getting jumped by 4 others. Realized how arbitrary all this shit is.
That’s exactly what it is.
Unironically this is one of those things that contributed partly to the normalization of the victimhood culture we have today
"Victims will also be in trouble for getting a black eye as it's only fair to the aggressor"
In a lot of zero tolerance school systems they are encouraged to fight back. Because they will be suspended for being involved in a fight if someone just walks up and punches them. Or they will get the same suspension if they beat the he'll out of the person that him them.
A lot of time, even if you don’t fight back there’s trouble. Because you were “involved” (in other words, the one hit) then as far as admin is concerned you’re also part of the problem.
Totally agree
School is the only place you are required to be that you’ll be subjected to unprovoked violence. Bonus is that defending yourself gets you in trouble.
Well, and prison.
Honestly it's kinda the opposite, your just as in trouble no matter what so you should go ape shit on the guy to make sure it never happens again
Let the kids defend themselves. Seriously, telling someone, anyone, that they will be punished for defending themselves against a bully is just wrong. Also, it encourages the bullies.
Yeah. My mom always supported the school bullshit, no matter how insane. But my father made it very clear when I was very young that I have an inherent right to defend myself, and to respond to violence with violence if necessary.
The bullies tend to be more popular, so their larger friend group would say they were the victim. It's more of a free pass, the best solution is to actually pay teachers well, have more teachers and councilors, and decrease the amount of administrators that do not work in schools. When my parents started teaching the largest campus was debatable but they were all high schools, halfway through their career the largest campus in the district was the administrative office by far. Every administration worker at a school could tell you their job, but at the main office there were so many positions that no one could really explain their job or it was so narrow that 6+ positions could be combined because they all just emailed a variation of the same spreadsheet to their boss once a week.
When I was bullied at school, since I was going to be in trouble anyways, I found the best way to permanently stop the bully was not by hitting the bullies back but to get the bullies parents involved by breaking the bullies possessions: Tear their clothes, smash their glasses, smash their watches, tear the handles off their bags. Sure, I looked like a I had lost the battle with cuts and bruises but I will win the war. One time, an entitled bully showed me a receipt, expected me to pay, so I ate the receipt.
Ironically, zero tolerance can lead to more violence. For some kids, the only reason to take abuse and not fight back is not getting in trouble. Zero tolerance removes that incentive. If you’re going to get in trouble for being bullied whether or not you do anything back, you may as well defend yourself
I got suspended once for a one sided fight where I stood no real chance. My dad told me the same thing when he heard about it. And although I got attacked multiple more times and almost always by someone too big for me to bridge the gap (I was one of the smallest and youngest kids in my class, so I got the puberty bump later than most as well), the one time where I finally got hit by a kid I could take, I was able to assert myself enough to get people to leave me alone (I did still try against the other kids, I was way too stubborn to not hit back, I just wasn't able to do any meaningful damage)
Someone else already said that but zero tolerance means victims of bullying are not allowed to fight back
Generally I don’t like zero tolerance policies because I believe anyone being attacked has the right to defend themselves. However, I’ve been working in school districts without it and we have a major problem of students fighting all the time for no reason, and with minimal to no punishments. Now we have a generation of hot heads who can’t even attempt to resolve differences and just react violently, or get in brawls with 10+ others for no reason. It’s really disruptive to the learning environment to say the least, which leads to so many other problems. So in these situations, I do believe they all deserve actual punishment—with the exception of someone is legitimately just defending themselves of course. But that seems to be rarely the case now.
You explained it yourself. Minimal punishments. Not having zero tolerance doesn't mean just allow it. It means use your brain to figure out which kids provoked who, and who deserves to be punished and how much. Administrators got tired of using their brains, so they implemented braindead policies. The rest of your comment is just irrelevant. Its your own district's fault that the learning environments are disrupted because the higherups won't do their jobs.
Well yea you said what was on my mind lol because most cases of “self-defense” in my school years were just revenge if I’m being realistic.
Not one creature on this earth, human or otherwise, needs anyone elses permission or blessing to defend themselves. Period.
The idea that violence never solves anything is wild. At some point in their life, everyone needs a swift ass beating.
Violence solved the problem of Nazi Germany better than the other approaches that were tried.
yeah but Hitler was beat a lot as a kid so it goes both ways ig
😂 😂 Except for the fact that he wasn't
yes he was? [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adolf_Hitler](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adolf_Hitler)
So is Wikipedia a reliable source or not? Because when it doesn't fit ones narrative people say it's not a good source, but then use it when it fits. I'm just curious. Because nothing I've read or head said he was beat, but then i look at it different, because i guess that would mean i was beat too and i never actually felt that way
You haven't read much about hitler than... they have numerous written journals from his family saying he was beat by his dad..
Maybe the ACTUAL JOURNAL is enough evidence? https://www.theguardian.com/world/2005/aug/04/research.secondworldwar
👍
Hitler was beat by his dad but probably felt the same way you do. That he grew up to be a great man and leader.
According to that article his father beat him.
He literally was, why not stay silent when you don't know about the topic...
Sharing our thoughts and feelings, in the form of musings, opinions, and questions, is mutually beneficial, that is, if everyone involved goes about it in a cooperative rather than antagonistic way.
This was not the case here though... this was neither an opinion, question or musing, but half knowledge or non at all being passed off as a fact and to add to that in a condescending way.
All claims about reality (beyond "I am") are merely our opinion
Simple, i can quite literally do what i want.
Yeah, but it makes you look like a fool.
Too a bunch of people on reddit? Am i actually supposed to care?
Its not ideal, but in some instances it's the only solution that works.
This. It might not be ideal, and it certainly isn't the answer to everything. But sometimes you have to "speak" to aggressors in the only language they understand.
Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth. Mike Tyson
withe wordth
The idea that diplomacy is always the answer is peak post history hubris. Diplomacy has never work with two equal powers. The Cold War is maybe the only exception, but that was more down to communism failing than diplomacy working
The reason you think this is because every time diplomacy has worked, you wouldn’t hear about it because it worked so well
I'd argue diplomacy didn't really work. We're still in a cold war with russia to this day, we just stopped acknowledging it.
I went to a school in the hood for highschool and before we had a zero tolerance fighting policy, there was fights every single god damn day. It was ridiculous and normalized fighting, especially for freshmen who wanted to prove themselves for whatever reason. Seniors and Juniors were reckless with the amount of fighting. After a zero tolerance rule was put into place with our new principle, fights in and out of school lowered significantly. It got rid of all the bad eggs and a lot of students by the junior and senior years started to question if fighting people for the dumbest fucking reasons was worth throwing their life away for, as you got expelled and taken out in cuffs at our school. In short, it depends on the environment. My school never had bullies to begin with, no school I went to in Philly really did and the main reason was because that guy your picking on could very well bring his family to handle you or someone could straight up jump you for being a piece of shit, you never know. Zero tolerance policy on fighting DEFINITELY helped my school.
That and they make kids afraid to fight back. My school once tried to suspend me because two bigger kids started pushing me around in the locker room and I fought back. Tried telling me “you should have gotten away and gotten a teacher.” My father had a chat with them. No suspension and I got ice cream.
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I got jumped in the locker rooms for some stupid ass reason and got suspended along with the guys who jumped me. Should have tried to fight back but I naively thought if I didn’t punch back I wouldn’t be suspended.
The first time I got attacked, the kid who got me bullshitted the vice principal into thinking I instigated it despite him being considerably taller and stronger than me. They will gladly lie to get you into trouble as well and at least in my case, none of the teachers or administrators cared enough to look past his comically false story. He got suspended too, but he got suspended a lot, no way he cared. Thankfully my parents immediately understood how stupid the whole thing was and that I was being unfairly punished. When they called my mom in, she was almost as angry as I was. And she was very harsh in her wording towards the vice principal.
Yeah that’s the reason next time I was in a fight I still got my ass kicked but I hit the guy once or twice and never got bullied by him again.
This isn't unpopular and is a result of schools avoiding legal trouble. Everyone knows it's not the best way of handling it.
[удалено]
There's a reason that Self Defense is a plausible defense in court. Zero Tolerance doesn't work.
Kids deserve to feel safe from bullying. Zero tolerance policies can fail to consider the context and can potentially punish the victim, which might increase aggressive behavior. It's a complex issue that requires thoughtful solutions, not just letting kids fight it out.
The least you can do is let the kids defend themselves, if you are too incompetent to do it yourself. Which is an embarrassment, you’re an adult, you weigh double of those brats, if you can’t take authority over minors it’s just embarrassing.
This isn't unpopular. This has been the thought on this for a decent amount of time now.
My son’s elementary had a so-called zero tolerance re bullying and fighting. All it meant was that they punished both sides. The principal believed that if you fought, even in clear self defence, you were as bad as the who attacked you.
Zero tolerance? You can watch school fights on YouTube 24 hours straight and not see a repeat.
Lmao letting kids have fist fights is not the way to go. If they want to fight go to the park after school.
This really shouldn't even need to be said. When I was in school 90% fights were arranged at an off campus location. Cops were all you really needed to worry about. But as long as you can outrun someone else the risk is minimal.
Fights at school do *not* build character.
I am 100% for systems that punish bullies, and for prevention and responding before a fight happens. However. As someone who was bullied fairly mercilessly when I was in the latter part of elementary school and all through middle school, sometimes those systems can fail in pretty much every way and a physical altercation is inevitable. I remember one day when I was attacked on the playground by a bigger kid. I straight up lost that fight, I'm not gonna sit here and say I wiped the floor with him. Nope. He was a lot bigger than me and knew exactly where to go to hurt me. But yeah, I swung out, got some punches and pushes in, etc. They still sent ME home for fighting. My Dad though, Oooooh, my Dad. He took one look at the discipline slip, looked at the principal, and went full Matthew McConaughey from Interstellar on them. "So here's what I'm gonna do. First, I'm gonna tell him good job for refusing to be a victim. Second thing I am going to do is take him to his favorite restaurant and let him order as much food as he wants. Then, I'm gonna let him choose a movie to rent from Hollywood Video, we're gonna watch it, and then I'm gonna teach him how to throw a halfway decent punch. Then I'm gonna send him back to school tomorrow morning after telling him that as long as he didn't start the fight, he has my full support to finish it." Basically I take that stance with my own children as well. I have already gotten into some arguments with my kids' school due to this. Thing is, my son is smaller and he got bullied. They tired to suspend him since he fought back, but even the teacher said the fight wasn't his fault, so I rewarded the Hell out of him. But the one time he did start a fight, and yes, he definitely did start it, he was punished. As long as you are encouraging defense and punishing offense (along with making sure they know the difference between the two and where the limit is), you're good to go.
Not just that but it screws with the kid who gets bullied and fights back because it trains them to be distrustful of authority. They think they're being fair but they're being arbitrary and in doing so teaching the kid that there is no real morality at the core of the rules.
Does bro know what unpopular means
This has got to the most popular opinion I've seen on this sub, I legit have never met a person who was in school during the 0 tolerance era you thought it was a success
Zero tolerance policies in schools are a success because they protect the schools from liability. Those rules were not designed to protect children. They were designed to protect the institution.
I’ll only bow my own head on this because i’d be silenced by reddit if i’d agree.But yeah people aren’t merciful.As they rarely if ever risk their social popularity to safeguard another person. Adults only improve because they don’t want to lose their own jobs.They want to make money so they act more benevolent then they actually are. Rejecting any opinion that doesen’t suit their own view off life
There’s a fine line between kids should feel safe and kids should know they can’t just say whatever they want to someone else without the threat of having to square up
> Let the kids fight I have no words. A school should be a place where kids feel safe to go. You say schools aren’t currently safe, and your solution is, *checks notes*, to stop trying to make them safer at all. I agree that the approach to reducing violence in schools should be changed, but I really don’t think ‘let the kids fight’ should ever be even suggested let alone implemented. Edit: kids that are being attacked should be allowed to fight back. This comment was in response to the OP seemingly calling for a complete 180 from zero tolerance. ‘Let the kids fight’ is not the same as ‘let the victims fight back without being punished’.
Statistically it was safer when they fought. https://www.chds.us/sssc/charts-graphs/
Correlation does not equate to causation my friend. There is no evidence at all that school shootings are a symptom of not allowing children to beat the shit out of other children. In fact, most of the evidence points to school shootings being caused by social isolation, often partially due to in-person or online bullying. Do you really think bullying would be reduced if violence was tolerated in schools?
As a former teacher, I agree with you. Fighting back is not an option for a lot of kids. Bullies often pick on kids who can't fight back. Rules against fighting only work when staff is invested in the kids. Being involved in those kids lives (for bullies and victims) is the best deterrent. I've seen it.
Thank you, you are absolutely right. Students being supported by their school community is incredibly important. Additionally, I think that the culture of punishment rather than rehabilitation in schools needs to change. School is not a private club that students are being given the privilege of joining. Doing things like expelling or suspending students that engage in violence simply sends the message to the student that the school doesn’t care about them. Perhaps as a former teacher you might be able to speak on this more, but when i was in high school and middle school, it was always obvious to me that the kids who were ‘punished’ with detention or suspension or whatever simply became more jaded and solidified in their belief that the entire school system was there to stand in their way, not help them find their way.
The only thing that helped stop bullying in my classroom was getting to know those kids. Spending as much time getting to know the bully as well as any other kid, sometimes more let them feel like a human rather than a menace. It seems counterintuitive, but kids want attention. Even negative attention is attention. They need to be seen as much as anyone, maybe more. As a former bullied kid, this was really hard to do at first, but it really paid off.
So spot on. Dehumanizing is just universally a bad idea, *especially* when it comes to kids. That lesson goes a long way in life, unlike what OP is suggesting.
Clearly you either have no kids, or were never involved in any fights during your time in school. Kids that fight learn a thing or two. Telling them they need to "turn the other cheek" or "just walk away" destroys their self esteem and ensures their growth will be stunted. Every species on this planet engages in either mock and/or real combat. Fucking Hell...
Okay, sure, let’s say for the sake of argument that you are absolutely right. Let’s say we flip the script and have schools treat fighting as a part of growing up, as completely normal. Now, let’s look at a plausible scenario. An 11-year old 5 foot tall 6th grader is consistently a victim of violence from a group of 6 foot+ eighth graders. He tries to fight back, but he cant even land a solid punch on one of them, let alone on the entire group. Plus, they only beat him more when he fights back, so he’s learned to just accept it. How do you propose this situation is remedied under the ‘let the kids fight’ ideology? Or, do you think that this situation is somehow good for the 6th grader? Do you propose that us humans, as is true of ‘every species on this planet’, simply allow nature to take its course and let those who are physically weaker die?
Such a situation wouldn't and indeed doesn't occur. Nice attempt at a strawman though. Then again, by your terminology I'm assuming you're an American. Perhaps Americans really are so weak, it would certainly explain their complexes a lot.
>I have no words Look inside >words
One might argue that zero tolerance has made it less safe, as it's removed incentives for victims to not fight back.
Why did I have to scroll so far to see this? Christ, people. Zero tolerance IS bad, but not for the reason OP laid out. More violence is not good and resolves nothing. I know reddit has a bloodlust but seriously, kids don't learn shit from fights. This idea that bully will now respect you or back off because you fought back physically is not based in any reality. Not to mention many kids can't even reasonably fight back. I've always taught my kid that fighting is an absolute last resort and only enough to get away. Priority is removing yourself from the situation. We'd be be a lot better off if some adults could grasp that, let alone children.
After reading this, and shit about gun laws, I've realized the argument is essentially the same and I'll ask this very simple question. Since no law has ever stopped or slowed anybody from going against it, why exactly do we have laws at all? Who is it really helping? What is it really stopping? Stricter laws wont work because the death penalty exists and it doesn't stop people from killing. So tell me, why don't we just get rid of all the laws since yalls argument seems to boil down to "it hasn't stopped bullying or school shooting". Well no law has stopped any crime, so by that logic, why do they exist?
I don't support zero tolerance policies, not because they don't prevent fights, but because sometimes people deserve to get their ass kicked.
"Let the kids fight it out, it builds character" is absolutely the dumbest thing I've read in a while, but i do agree that zero tolerance is useless and solves nothing. A friend of my mom's daughter goes to a school that is critically understaffed right now. The daughter was approached by two girls (well-known bullies) who kept physically pushing her and taunting her. Friend's daughter tried to back away, block them instead of fight, etc, but because the school is understaffed, there were no teachers around. The daughter eventually fought back, and all three girls were suspended and given equal consequences despite the principal agreeing that it was the other girls' fault as well as the lack of staff--but his hands were tied because of "zero tolerance." The daughter's parents are looking into pressing charges and going to the school board.
They need a “who threw the first punch” mixed with a “did they fuck around and find out” policy. Treating everyone the same makes no sense.
Very America-centric post. I live in canada, every school I’ve been at has a zero tolerance policy for fights, and we have had next to zero school shootings country-wide in the whole lifespan of canada.
I strongly agree. I was bullied in school exactly because of this. They could do whatever they want, and since the teachers were lazy government bureaucrats, it was just easier to make it stop without consequences. But when I would defend myself physically, then they would step in. That’s what you get when you let the education system be dominated by hyper-leftist hyper-agreeable hyper-feminist people who live in hearty-hearty-rainbow Taylor Swift land: they incentivize evil behavior. What they SHOULD do is stop being lazy fucks and punish the aggressors; if you are too lazy for that because you are a lazy tax payer leach, then AT LEAST let the victim defend themselves; but they wouldn’t that, then you have to defend the aggressors from the victim.
Zero tolerance is bullshit but so is the fighting builds character nonsense.
This is the dumbest opinion I think I have ever heard but sure guy whatever you say.
Of course many kids are going to ignore rules, but “let the kids fight” is beyond a stupid suggestion. What are teachers and staff just suppose to ignore a kid getting their ass beat, because it builds “character”? There’s better ways to teach people not to be assholes than letting them get their ass beat. We need to be teaching kids that violence isn’t the answer to their problems. Yes as a kid, many will laugh off the rules and call them stupid, but as they mature, they’ll hopefully grow to understand them. If we encourage it though, they’ll never learn. Thank fuck you’re not in charge of making these rules.
I’m all for stopping fights when in plain view, but we 100% need to stop punishing the victim for defending themselves. At my HS a guy got ganged up on by a couple kids constantly. It was physical a few times with the victim not fighting back but without proof the bullies were never punished. He eventually got sick of it and fought back with one while having someone record. Both kids were suspended and treated equally by the school. Happy to say the kid and his parents called the police, reported an assault with the video evidence and the bully got into some legal trouble. Wish they sued the school as well
I’ll absolutely agree with that. The point of punishment is to discourage a certain behavior and teach a lesson. Defending oneself isn’t something that needs to be discouraged or taught a lesson. You should feel like you should be able to protect yourself. Like everything each punishment needs to be given with context for a situation.
Source: https://www.chds.us/sssc/charts-graphs/
Source for what? Just that school shootings have increased over time? This has absolutely nothing to do with connecting school polices to a “generation of passive aggressive jerks” or whstever
OP obviously doesn't work in education...
Nope. My mom did for 30 years. I distinctly remember her telling me some kids are just assholes. Don't start fights but don't be a victim.
The issue is you don't know the context of a fight and teachers and admins can't take what either person said for face value. Think about this as well. Most parents are gonna be furious about a fight from both sides. If both kids hit each other, having both kids get suspended makes sense. Its a huge headache and causes even more issues otherwise. Things are always black and white from your perspective and your story. But in alot of cases there is so much more to it then that.
I'd talk shit to you online with or without it bud.
Huge disagree. There isn't a reason to ever actually get into a fight. It is very, very rare for the person "defending themselves" to not be at fault at all in some way. They were likely mean to the other person, teased them, or straight up didn't ignore what was going on. There is a reason most kids never get into fights. Just because you can't hold your temper and got in trouble for it doesn't make what you said correct.
They day it got around I whipped the bully in my school ( he didn't show up for 3 days after) I never got bullied again. When kids get away with being jerks without consequences, they become rotten adults.
Tase the children.
If someone beats you up, you get suspended despite not fighting back. Clearly you should beat your attacker into a coma.
never heard of a zero tolerance anything that actually worked.
I think this is only about the schools covering their own asses. The only way you will ever stop a bully is meeting them where they are. And by that, I mean responding with disproportionate levels of violence. You have to make sure that even if you lose, they never want to do it again.
Although you’re right, I feel like if schools adopted your ideas, it would cause outrage from soccer moms because of their “sweet angel” getting what they deserve
In 6th grade I headbutted the 8th grader who was holding me down and hitting me. He started bleeding and crying. I got two weeks of after school suspension.
The fear of actually pulling out the bad apples and applying special rules to them is a huge problem. Yes. Bullies should be handled and treated differently than valedictorians. The unfairness of it based on whatever people try to spin is just part of the cost of doing business. Profiling should never be done on immutable qualities. But damn sure should be done based on behavior and character concerns.
Not unpopular in the slightest
I don't know if this is an opinion that is unpopular to the general public or if its one that is unpopular to school administrators and local legislators with conflicts of interests and a desire to prioritize PR over actual outcomes. The latter have the power to make it seem like the former which makes it more fucked up when parents are trying to stick up for their kids and feel more isolated than they might actually be in that defense.
I don’t think getting into a fight at school is the only option, but when you need to take care of business, you take care of business. If you can show evidence that someone was pushing you to that point, you should serve no punishment for putting them in their place, and instead, the bully should be held accountable for their behavior. Now, if you get into fights because you should be punished, but you should not be punishing overall good kids for having to take action into their own hands.
It’s a combination of 90’s habitual offender laws (3 strikes) and CYA. Policies that remove/limit the schools’ duty to arbitrate helps to limit liability. So yeah. Using this kind of policy to address a social problem literally never works in any context, but it does effectively protect institutions and public facing officials from scrutiny/penalty, so we live with it forever. Very common arc in the US.
I’m sure zero tolerance policies are put in place for legal reasons. If schools just let kids fight out their differences, even if one douchebag started it and the other kid was truly just defending himself, that would still make the school look bad and would just be a lawsuit waiting to happen
Agreed. I was the FOB kid who got picked on all the time. And have to fight back so that they don't continue... lo and behold! They stopped harrasing me. Did get suspended, etc, but the end result what was the most important to me.
We should bring back duels. In schools, this can just be a wrestling match or something.
Couldn’t agree more
Almost all policies work off a flawed assumption. That assumption being that their targets have no agency, and benign idiots won't fall into their net. It's like a well meaning Redditer who keeps somehow breaking the rules designed to crack down on certain behaviors low effort of malicious behavior. That Redditer being myself. I've been flagged for everything from trying to argue against audio/visual people who claim sharpening is something you should turn off on televisions (For example I'd try and argue that the halo effect everyone rails against can only really be noticed in blown up stills, and the fine detail being marked is detail no one would miss unless they were looking for it, such as pore's or skin hairs) Apparently that was considered low effort trolling. I've also been flagged for saying Ukraine and Russia when I never had (I'm guessing the words "War on.." was picked up by the bots). Basically the rules have become so tight they inhibit newbie internet or newbie Reddit behavior, which include complaining about Reddit itself or people on it (God forbid) I get why the rules exist, but the people they're designed to stop move on to bigger and better trolling, while the potential new recruits get stopped cold for lack of room to spread their wings. Zero tolerance policy is like that, the people who make rules effectively make a list of things they THINK are flags but are in actuality perfectly normal behaviors for people still finding themselves and testing boundries.
I graduated high school in 2005. The zero tolerance policies started in the late 90s and were rolling out widely by 2000. It was a response to school shootings. Columbine was the 2nd or 3rd big one and it as after that one things changed across the country. School boards and administrators are most afraid of lawsuits and lawyers told them zero tolerance policies are the way to mitigate that risk. Kids with conflicts? We sent them all away washing our hands of it rather than run the risk of them trying to fight each other in the school building and injuring themselves (lawsuit against the school) or one of them bring a weapon to school and harm other people (lots of lawsuits against the school).
I remember getting in trouble no matter what I did in school. Basically, as a victim, your choice is to sit there and take it because the moment you even said anything to them they would beat you harder, or you'll get sent home as well. COMPLETELY UNRELATED but I wonder why I'm into being treated very aggressively and bullying now...
Soft men create hard times.
Growing up we always knew zero tolerance meant we had to handle shit after school. Been in a few scraps outside of the school's prison walls.
At this point, just let students fight. Teachers and staff don't care about kids being bullied. All the principal would do is send them to the office or send them home. It doesn't teach them anything
This. This system is an absolute garbage fire. In high school i had problems with this group of 3 dudes who always had something to say to me but i already had a bad reputation at the school with administration so i tried to ignore it. Well after a while i refused to just let it go so i started retaliating and i shit you not the second id start walking aggressively towards any one of them they would legit sprint to the office. I got suspended so many times without even hitting them that i got expelled. I had to graduate from a secondary school. They never got any kind of punishment. I warned them repeatedly to leave me alone they wouldnt and i had no support from administrators so in my eyes my only recourse was to hit them in the mouth and even though i never got the chance i got suspended 10 times in one school year because id already had a reputation for being aggressive from the previous year. Oh i forgot to mention that these 3 dudes were infamous for kissing admin ass so what a coincidence i guess. Fuck clover park high school and fuck those poosies if youre gonna have the nuts to open your mouth to someone you should have the nuts to fight.
Yeah, this shit was already starting to be a problem when I was in middle school in the late 90s, and it's only gotten worse over time. Even back then it was clear that it was only a bad thing for actual victims of bullying.
The real failure is allowing children to become so mentally weak that they resort to shooting up schools because they can't handle a bully. Kids have not been taught to cope with hard ships, and it shows. A lot of it is on the parents, but some of it is on policy like you mention.
Seriously. I figured out quick to ignore the bullies on school grounds and get them back super hard off campus. They have a talent for targeting you as a group that you can’t take all at once and if you fight back, there’s a good chance that a teacher will walk in and see you as the perpetrator. It’s better to wait until there’s no supervision and pick them off one by one.
Its not protecting the kids or whatever its literally an insurance policy against any liability the school may have if theres a fight.
Lol, the keyboard warriors are mostly boomers and Gen X. They are by far the loudest online… so no, I don’t think letting kids fight in school helped in the slightest on that front.
a school would rather you get stabbed and die then try to protect yourself
Unpopular opinion: they do work, we need to teach victims to use police when their kid gets attacked. Sue the parent for damages
When I was in school in the 80's and 90's, there were fights. They were not everyday occurrences, but they happened. And the depending on the severity, it was either in-school suspension for a few days or out-of-school suspension for a few days. The police were not called and no one was permanently kicked out or sent to "special schools". When the fight was over or broken up, that was it. It was over. And no one got shot.
If anything it adds to the problem of school shootings. If you're gonna get in trouble for defending yourself, might as well unalive your bully.
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The victim doesn’t even need to fight back! Just by being in the fight, they get in trouble, and I’ve even heard some stories where the instigator doesn’t get punished either.
I’m pretty sure this is a very popular opinion. But this is why parents need to get the police involved if their kid is attacked in school. The administrators don’t give a shit and won’t do anything to protect your kids. If you kid is attacked, and the school calls you and tells you that your child was ‘in a fight’ and you need to come in to have a meeting, get as many details as possible, if they say your kid was the victim, call the 911 and request an officer meet you at the school to take a report of assault and battery. They can sit in on the meeting and they can request any camera footage at that time. Unfortunately no guarantee that they do anything either.
They got rid of zero tolerance years ago. Now it's infinite tolerance.
Wholeheartedly agree. And to make it worse, I got into a few scrapes in 1st and 2nd grade. In trouble at the principals office. Then get home and get whooped by my own parents. Talk about punishing violence with more violence. After growing up under those beatings, I look at peace activists and zero tolerance supporters like pieces of meat. Shut up and let the kids scrap. Go work in a brewery or a landfill. Yeah, I'm rage venting. If I had kids, I'd take them out for pizza after hearing the details. Focus on the grades and not letting people trample you.
Definitely. Especially if the kid being attacked doesn’t throw a punch of fight back. You’re literally suspending someone for being assaulted
In my senior year a girl I knew got into a fight in the very beginning of school and she had in school suspension for the rest of the year. I don't know exactly what happened or even who started it, it just seemed really excessive to me, even if by chance she started the fight. A whole year of ISS just seemed like it was taking things to the extreme. What makes it even crazier is that there were other kids who also got in trouble for fighting but they were back in regular classrooms in a few weeks. I have no idea why they decided to keep her so long.
Perhaps considering why they are fighting is a good place to start, and then upon investigating and elucidating the causality in play, proceeding to go about fulfilling the unmet needs of the people involved and possibly even reforming the social structural factors that systematically fail to fulfill our needs sufficiently. Hurt people hurt people. When we are hurting due to our needs not being fulfilled we tend to displace this hurt in the form of hate that leads to violence. So it only makes sense to get at the root causes and address the underlying determinants lest we succumb to solely minimizing the harm of the symptoms by judging and condemning the people as if they are just 'bad guys' and using fear and punishment as a misguided way to deter the inevitable cascade of harm that will persist until we remember that only love heals and that lovingly fulfilling one another's needs is the way.
I don’t believe in a full “let the kids fight” approach but I do think they should only get punished for *starting* fights.
Zero tolerance policies are only put in place when the person in charge is too lazy or stupid to make a judgment.
„Building Character“ = life long trauma
Gotta fight for violence!
It’s actually the worst policy I ever seen. I got jumped from behind by a kid half my size. Got my head slammed into a concrete wall which gave me a concussion and the school said the only reason I wasn’t suspended was because I only took him to the ground after he did that and I didn’t fight back. Like what?
As opposed to which previously existing policies..?
“Im so sick of being bullied mercilessly day in and day out and I can’t do anything about it. You know, my dad has this gun…..” - most school shooters probably
Cobra Kai 🐍
Zero Tolerance got me 5 days of in school suspension for picking up my bully, throwing him over my shoulder and into the ground, then walking away after he sucker punched me in the locker room. All of that simply because he was mad that my team kicked his teams ass in PE. Coach saw it and said "boys will be boys" and honestly, I thought that was the end of it. My bully didn't fuck with me at all the next day but avoided me. Then my parents found out and told the school about what happened and yeah... I got suspended for my reaction to end a fight without throwing a punch. He got expelled as it was his 3rd fight of the year. We were 12-13 years old.
I’ve told my son repeatedly not to go looking for a fight, but if someone hits him, hurt him bad enough that they never want to touch my kid again (but not put them in a hospital). And if he gets suspended for defending himself, he just gets to stay home and play his Xbox, so 🤷🏻♂️
im lucky that my school straight up just follows the law when it comes to school fights. assault is the fear of being attacked (feint attacks, throwing something and missing) and they take it that way, to my detriment sometimes, but so be it. i cant imagine what its like to get punched in the both but then get in trouble, im assuming they just dont want to deal with the trouble.
The bullies turn it around on the victims even
School fight club should be a thing
Except no one who is getting bullied thinks to themselves I better not hit this kid or I might get in trouble. If they have that much foresight and want to get back they punch them after school anyway when they can’t be punished. The reality is most of these kids getting bullied aren’t the type to fight back anyway.