chhotii | (no subject)

(no subject)

What is the definition of "bullying" in public schools? Does it include saying mean things, or does there have to be actual physical violence involved for it to qualify as "bullying"? If merely saying mean things doesn't qualify as bullying, then what the hell is "cyber-bullying"? I mean, there isn't an IP protocol for hitting people over the Internet, is there? (If so, please quote me the RFC, thanks :)

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Sadly, not yet. Every April I think about writing up an RFC for RDSP, the Remote Dope Slap Protocol. One of these years...

I do believe Robert Sparks proposed some years ago that we do these conference calls inside a "Quake" multiplayer game. That at least provides part of the non-verbal communication I'm talking about. If you get blown off the podium by a hail of rocket fire during a presentation, you can assume that the topic is controversial. You can also resolve conflicts via death-match procedures. -- Dean Willis

As used in the Boston Globe (for whatever that's worth), it's anyone saying or doing anything that makes anyone feel bad. This would seem to be comically touchy-feely, but a year or two ago, a high-school girl hanged her self more or less due to non-violent bullying by a clique of mean girls.

Your school district is legally required to have filed a plan describing how they deal with bullying incidents. So there's probably a definition of "bullying" in there.

As I've understood the term, bullying has never been presumed to involve actual physical violence. As it was used in our youth, there had to be an element of physical threat for the word to be applied, but the threat didn't necessarily have to be carried out; these days, what would have then been called "teasing" or "picking on" would also be termed bullying, at least when coming from someone (or ones) with more social power toward those with less.

Which evolution in terminology makes sense to me, since it's quite possible to make a kid's life a living hell without hitting, or even threatening to hit, them. Especially when the kid is not legally allowed to leave the vicinity of their tormentors.

If it doesn't include verbal harassment, it damned well ought to. I might have some strong feelings on this matter stemming from things that might have happened in my distant past.

To get the exact definition of bullying, I'd have to look back at the materials I was given. But the brief answer is, yes, "bullying" as defined in Newton Public Schools (and probably statewide) most definitely includes a whole lot of non-physical actions.

Yeah... We had a seminar on the subject of dealing with bullies at the karate dojo last night, and it was explained that bullying is a range of behaviors, physical violence being an end of that range.

Judging by how compelling Sophia found the subject, it's apparent that she's gotten picked on a lot, poor kid...

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