Bullying

A disturbing report on the news : verbal and physical abuse aimed at old people, invalids and learning drivers is on the increase. 

Even if we can go to the Moon or solve the Fermat theorem, we are animals. As such, our ancestors, as do all predators, zeroed in on the weak, the young and the infirm. We no longer have to rely on the weak and the old for our next meal, but the instinct has not died out. It will never change, yet it could be improved by education.

Bullies start at the kindergarten and flourish in primary and secondary schools. Later, women who end up beaten to death become some of their ultimate victims. 

If teachers want to report bullying, they can only turn to the headmaster or headmistress. And then, what ? Heads of school will then tell you that expelling pupils (they never say “bullies”) or sending them to special institutions is bad for the reputation of the school. This cowardly approach means, in plain language, that the reputation they are so concerned about is, in fact, their own. They and their staff are supposed to hold the fort while young lives are being destroyed, but never mind that : it’s not so important as the sacrosanct veneer called “the reputation of the school”. 

Head teachers are not entirely wrong, of course : they are being judged and evaluated by powerful bureaucrats who are quite remote from the blackboard jungle, and are even less concerned about the general welfare of the silent majority of children, i.e. those who wouldn’t mind being able to learn something, for a change.

This vast conspiracy of silence creates a subculture of violence, knifings and control freaks. Shouldn’t it be time to attack the roots of the problem instead of letting it fester and expand ?