Randy Hillier Wrong On Bullying Bill

Randy Hillier, MPP in the Parliament of Ontario, has opined against the current Liberal government’s anti-bullying legislation: “Bill 13, Accepting Schools Act, 2011”

Sticks and Stones

Writes Mr. Hillier:

Unlike many of those who have announced support for Bill 13, I have read the complete bill and the relevant sections of the Education Act that it amends.

A dubious claim, at best. For example, he accuses the bill of “not providing schools with any additional tools to reward or punish behaviour.”

Well, let’s look at the bill that Mr. Hillier claims to have read.

In the last section of the bill, paragraphs are added to Section 310 of the Education Act, adding that bullying is grounds for suspension and, therefore, subsequently expulsion.

That sounds like a new tool for punishing bad behaviour, or at least permission to use an old tool for a new reason. I don’t know what bill Mr. Hillier read.

He further writes:

Bill 13 mandates creating a host of new school clubs which could identify people in the club as being: “lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgendered, transsexual, two-spirited, intersexed, queer (or) questioning.”

Go read it. There’s nothing in that bill requiring the forming of clubs. School boards are required to support students who want to create their own clubs for promoting awareness of sexism, racism and other forms of discrimination.

Personally, I think that forming such clubs would be a good idea. A lot of people think so, including – it turns out – Mr. Hillier.

I know. Weird, huh? Let me explain.

He starts by saying that these clubs will single out students who join them and that this will make bullying worse. This ignores the fact that gay students are already being bullied into suicide and that the purpose of the clubs is to create alliances between the bullied gay kids and the straight kids who want to stand up for them.

But later in the article, he tells us:

The depth of a child’s understanding is amplified not only through reward or punishment, but by learning compassion and empathy. The difference between adults and children is that adults are expected to have already learned the lessons of life and developed conscience and compassion on their road to maturity.

Strange, isn’t it?

Here he is railing against the clubs and awareness groups that the law will permit – not require, but permit – and at the end of his article he writes about how important it is that children develop empathy. Gee, I wonder how they could do that, Mr Hillier. Maybe – could they – just possibly – learn it from groups of other students who promote awareness of these issues?

If you really want to understand Randy Hillier’s problem though, it’s located right in the middle of his article:

Bill 13 does the exact opposite of what is needed. Rather than minimizing differences, it helps segregate and highlight the differences between people.

What is needed, according to Mr. Hillier, is to minimize our differences. We need to get those gay kids to just stop acting so … god … damned … gay! Just act like straight kids! Play sports! Break things! Get out more! Except the girls … you lesbians need to stop dressing like boys, stay inside and take up sewing. Buy a dress and put on some make-up. We’re trying to minimize differences here, people! Get with the Randy Hillier program!

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Freedom of Speech vs. Bullying

This decision sounds wrong.

One student made a youtube video denouncing another girl as a spoiled brat and a slut.

The victim, crying, complained to a teacher. The school took it up and had the offender suspended for two days.

The case was brought to a judge, who wrote the following:

“To allow the school to cast this wide a net and suspend a student simply because another student takes offense to their speech, without any evidence that such speech caused a substantial disruption of the school’s activities, runs afoul [of the law],’’ judge Stephen V. Wilson wrote in a 60-page opinion.

“The court cannot uphold school discipline of student speech simply because young persons are unpredictable or immature, or because, in general, teenagers are emotionally fragile and may often fight over hurtful comments,’’ he wrote.

That sounds well and good. But this isn't merely "taking offense" by one student. This is meant to attack and humiliate another student. And no one is preventing the bullying classmate from posting more screeds on the Internet. What the school is doing is making a decision regarding how students are to treat one another. Stepping outside those bounds is grounds for suspension.

I'm going to guess the judge has never been a teacher. Keeping discipline in the classroom can be difficult. The school has a right and a responsibility to keep the classroom an open and peaceful forum where every student feels welcome. This judge has now decided that schools don't have that right. In other words, even if the school knows that cruel bullying is going on, the school can't do anything about it because that would be infringing on the bully's right to be cruel.

I've said it before and I know I'll say it again: the rules are designed to protect bullies. That's because bullies are the ones with the aggressive natures that get them in to the position where they can make rules.

This situation is no different from many others throughout schools in North America.

h/t to Freddy Stubbs democratic underground.

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Sanity with Bullying

There's never been a good system for dealing with bullying. Out of sight and out of mind until the victim fights back is the current policy.

So I was glad to see that the Asian kid who was suspended for fighting back against a racist bully has had his suspension canceled.

Victory, of sorts, although I think this is the funniest part:

He also would like to know why the school board sent a letter saying it would recommend the 15-year-old be expelled [from all regional schools], only to say three days later that the letter was sent in error.

Error? What kind of error is that?

"We meant to say that your son could be smelled from all schools in the region. Hygiene issue. Simple spelling error."

Or maybe: "We send out so many of these Regional Expulsion Letters that they go out by accident to the wrong people on occasion. Our bad."

One could only hope that they frequently come down this hard on actual bullies, but I doubt it.

Meanwhile, I dance the Happy Victory Dance. Hurrah for justice.

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Systems for Bullies

The way we handle bullying in schools has always been archaic. In the rest of our civilization, we are not expected to put up with threats of violence. Threats of violence are considered "assault" and the perpetrators can be arrested and jailed. In school, though, local authorities have long expected victimized students to simply suck it up. Victims should either roll with the punches (i.e. capitulate to violence) or stand up for themselves.

Of course, they'd better not stand up for themselves too much, because then they get arrested. For example, we have this 15 year old Asian kid in Keswick, Ontario. He faced off against a racist bully. The bully punched first. The Asian kid punched last, breaking the bully's nose.

It'd be as well at this point to explain why I'm taking the story at face value. Why do I believe that, as written, the white kid was an aggressive, racist bully? Why do I believe that the Asian kid acted with the absolute minimum force at the last reasonable moment? Because I read the story. Keswick has a racism problem with documented assaults. 400 students came out to protest the Asian kid's suspension. The Asian kid has a 90% scholastic average. All relevant implications lead me to believe that the story is accurate.

I also believe the story because it is absolutely par for the course.

As far as authorities - police as well as school administration - are concerned, bullying is not a problem. The bullies only perform their assaults and batterings out of sight. There is rarely obvious bloodshed or broken bones. The victims are frightened in to silence. If the victims don't fight back, authority can blithely pretend that there is no violence in the school, that any rumours are just boys working things out for themselves, and fill out reports to that effect.

When the victims fight back, the problem is different. It is rarely effective for a smaller boy to wrestle or idly punch at a bully. Small amounts of pain are rarely a deterrent to large, aggressive people. To stop a bully, you have to stop a bully. And at that point, you often have blood, a broken bone or a concussion. Now the administration's "boys will be boys" ignorance falls on its face. They have an obviously damaged kid and another who damaged him.

So punish the kid who did the damage. Ignore all historical facts, torment and accumulated damage in the opposite direction. Wipe your hands and walk away. Done.

So that's what they did. They not only suspended the victim, they also had him arrested for assault. How ignorant is this? Let us take the punch completely out of context. Let us pretend that this Asian kid just whaled on the white kid for no reason. The Asian kid isn't bleeding, right? His nose isn't broken. So it must be his fault.

Kudos the kids at the high school for walking out and protesting on his behalf. I never saw the likes of that when I was growing up. If there's hope for the future, it's those 400 kids right there.

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Cyberbullying Not a Homicide Case

We have a thirteen year old girl named Megan. She was emotionally unstable to the point where she had already made an attempt on her own life.

We have a 49 year old woman named Lori Drew and her thirteen year old daughter, Sarah, who created a fake online personality. They used this personality, named "Josh", to harass and manipulate Megan in to committing suicide.

They eventually mocked her and told her that the world would be better off without her. Megan shortly thereafter committed suicide.

This is what gets me:

Defence attorney Dean Steward told jurors ... she [Lori Drew] was not facing charges dealing with the suicide.

“This is not a homicide case,” Mr. Steward said.

Why not?

What on earth would it take to make it a homicide case? You went after a vulnerable, mentally unstable teenager and basically told her to kill herself. And this isn't murder?

Suppose you walked out on a balcony of an apartment building and found a mentally disabled person standing against the railing. Suppose you then told this person that he could fly and you encouraged him to jump to his death.

Wouldn't you be guilty of murder?

Even then, that's only (only?) murder in the second degree or manslaughter or whatever. In the case of Megan's death, we're talking about legions of planning and days or weeks of manipulation. This is premeditated. If this isn't first-degree murder, what is?

I'm aware that I lack lawyerly expertise and that there is probably some technicality through which, by virtue of not actually physically being anywhere near Megan, a conviction of murder would violate some centuries old definition. But let's be prepared to acknowledge that the world is a changing place.

There's still a dead body. There's still someone obviously to blame for it.

What about that isn't murder?

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Bullies Are Sadists: Study

I don't want to get in to the Sarah Palin "fruit flies in France" pit of ignorance, but I really do have to wonder what people are thinking when they do studies like this one.

There's no way to expose the stupidity except to quote the opening lines of the article.

Brain scans of teens with a history of aggressive bullying suggest that they may actually get pleasure out of seeing someone else in pain ...

it is not what the researchers expected ...

"It is entirely possible their brains are lighting in the way they are because they experience seeing pain in others as exciting and fun and pleasurable," Dr. Lahey said.

Can I break from my normal calm and professional blogging manner and curse for a moment?

Thanks.

I'm going to lead with, "No shit, Sherlock."

Are you telling me that the reason that we haven't evolved strategies to correctly deal with bullying is that the people developing those strategies weren't aware that the people doing the bullying are doing it for their own enjoyment?

I've got my own kids now. At some point, growing up, I realized that there are two really important things I wanted to develop in my children. The first is delayed gratification. The second is empathy. If my kids grow up with willpower and the ability to understand people, it doesn't much matter to me how much money they make or what fame they achieve, I know they'll be good people. I know they won't hurt others and I know they won't hurt themselves.

But this? This nonsense? After all these years of "cracking down" on bullying in schools, the social workers and psychologists are just now scientifically concluding that a bully has a failed sense of empathy that enables him to enjoy the suffering he inflicts?

We should have realized decades ago that we were producing and harbouring little sociopaths, not figuring out just last week.

Maybe now the geniuses behind this study can start producing real strategies for dealing with bullies. Of course, the strategy already exists and it's the only one I've ever known to work. It is elucidated most clearly by Gina and Mercer Mayer in their book "Just a Bully". I highly recommend it to be read as a bedtime story to all children that might ever have to deal with this problem.

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