Picking on others

I used to teach in a fairly large school and just this year have moved to a VERY small school. One of the biggest differences I have noticed is the increased amount of picking on that I see. In every school there is plenty of picking on but in my new school it is so constant you can never get away from it. It is a constant battle to try and stop it every second of my classes. It has become so accepted.

I expressed my frustration at this with my mentor a number of weeks ago and her response was that this is just how it is in a small school and that many of the kids act in a way that they are asking to be picked on. It really bothered me the way she just saw it as normal and instead felt the kids being picked on were to blame. I don't care what these kids are doing to provoke it is never OK for a kid to make fun of and pick on another kid. School should be a safe place for kids especially realizing that for many kids it may be the only safe place they have. I realize that we will never get rid of it completely. But if we pass it off as normal instead of stepping up to the plate to try and fix it then we are saying we don't care about these kids and providing that safe place for them.

Well we have now had some incidents seriously escalate and administration is scrambling to deal with it. I just wish someone would have realized how important it was to stop it years ago before it got all the way to the high school. Now that they are in high school it is so ingrained in them and so accepted even in the classroom that I fear we are fighting an uphill battle to stop it.

These kids deserve better. All of them deserve better. They deserve to learn how to interact with one another in a way that is positive and productive. They deserve to feel like someone actually cares about them. They deserve a chance to develop skills and attitudes which will help them be successful in the future. Are we giving them those opportunities?