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The anti-bullying issue has, once again, become front and centre. On December 2, 2011, both Chris Selley and Kelly McParland, of the National Post, wrote columns about this issue: both fall far short of the mark.
Selley’s main concern seems to be that gay students be protected. However, the school boards are so gay-friendly that gays, like other, favoured, usually “multicultural” groups, can get away with practically any kind of behaviour. People walk on eggshells to be as politically correct as possible so as not to offend students, teachers, or administrators in these groups. (In his testimony, one of the Shafia children, in the honour killing trial, has just admitted to this favouritism.)
Could it be that some bullying is a result of sheer frustration on the part of the “ordinary” student, who sees that certain students are favoured? How unfair! It would seem that Christians are disrespected all the time. Muslim prayers in schools? No problem. Promotion of the highly sexualized gay agenda? No problem again. Gaia worship? A-OK. Name Christmas? No way. The opinions of Christians are unwelcome and those who have the audacity to voice their objections are marginalized and stigmatized as bigots. So, Christians, in general, have learned to keep their heads down and their mouths shut. Speaking of bullying, Selley might think about THAT!
There’s a HUGE double standard. E.g., A mega-BULLY, an openly gay activist Toronto teacher, who helped write the gay curriculum, who ran for the NDP, and is now trying to silence/punish SUN News by dictating terms re what/how they’re allowed to express opinions—or else—is considered a member in good standing of his board. What if another teacher weighed in to challenge his despicable agenda and bully behaviour? That teacher would be disciplined—probably re-education sessions—and become an outcast, shunned and punished by that same board.
Christian teachers (and students) and those who appreciate the Judeo-Christian dispensation of the West are altogether marginalized. They tend to just get on with their difficult jobs. Administrators are joined at the hip to the “progressive” agenda and altogether ignore that teachers and students, not included in the favoured groups, are on their own—and expected to put up with it. The PC gulags, that are our public systems—hey, they mirror our “Me First” culture— MODEL bullying: then they wonder what’s gone wrong.
McParland likes the idea of expulsion. That’s going to work like a lead balloon! Spooked by the spectre of litigation—a critical mass of the parents of bullies are like rabid pit bulls—administrators are terrified to actually USE the Education Act sanctions at their disposal. Expulsion has always been available. Year by year—and, of course, “punishment” is frowned upon—serious consequences for anti-social behaviour in our schools has virtually disappeared. The kids who often need it the most are often members of the protected groups. Whoops, ’can’t go there! The paper work for expelling a student is also daunting and parents can appeal: that can be a long, drawn out, expensive, nasty process. Administrators are quite likely to give expulsion a wide berth.
And, what’s to happen to the expelled students: the thugs and anti-social misfits? “Boot” (reform) schools to deal with these bullies, who need some pretty stiff consequences, seem to be a good idea. But can one imagine that happening? The Charter would be invoked and boot schools would probably be deemed unacceptable.
A crucial aspect of the bullying issue, entirely ignored by both Selley and McParland is, “What about the parents?” All teachers note that a critical mass of the student body is increasingly arriving at school with no manners at all: too many kids are totally self-referential and out for number one. The schools are trying to teach generosity, empathy, respect, etc.—most schools promote “The Value of the Month”—to little avail: as someone once said, “Cosmetics on a corpse.” The whole, politically correct system is a petri dish for favouritism, intolerance, and punishment of those who don’t toe the line. The kids know this in their bones: lack of respect for true openness, diversity, tolerance, and fairness is all around them.
Unless the whole system—our secular, materialistic culture—makes some pretty radical changes, like tossing overboard the whole totalitarian, PC agenda, bullying will continue to proliferate. As C. S. Lewis wrote—in a book about education!—“In a sort of ghastly simplicity we remove the organ and demand the function. We make men without chests and expect of them virtue and enterprise. We laugh at honour and are shocked to find traitors in our midst. We castrate and then bid the geldings to be fruitful.”
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