Bus Monitor

I'm sure most of you have seen the video of the 68 year old bus monitor who was bullied by 7th Graders. I'm using the word bullied lightly here because really its terrorizing. If you haven't seen it, Here it is.Be forewarned its not for the light hearted. I watched about 5 minutes of it and couldn't take it anymore. The woman has since earned over half a million through an online charity that was meant to send her on vacation. She can pretty much retire. I assume this is why she was working a job that paid 15,000 at the age of 68 because she couldn't afford to retire. Now she can.

 Of course I have my view on this. Who doesn't? In the one day since it has shown we are  an internet nation in an uproar. I say bring it on!!! What upsets me the most is it takes something as horrible and as cruel as this being VIDEO TAPED to get these kids in trouble. This probably isn't the first time this has occured. My thoughts now turn from rage to, "How do these heathens end up like this??"  I see this in my classrooms sometimes. Children challenge authority. This, is natural. What is NOT natural is them overpowering authority. 

Odviously, this starts at home. When I call a parent and their child is misbehaving and did something wrong and they call back and try to say in a round about way I don't like their child it frustrates me to no end. Your child screwed up. He needs to be punished. YOU do your job and punish him there and I can do my job and punish him here.

I was generally a good kid in school. I wasn't a bully at all. To say that I was prefect would be far from the truth, but I was never cruel. Its not how my mom raised me. I know teachers and children are being bullied like this in schools and these kids can't get away from it anymore by going home because its online too. The laws haven't kept up with technology. It saddens me we have to even make seperate laws about bullying. Its just a breakdown in society.

In my classroom I have to teach students how to work in groups and how to treat each other fairly. Its a methodical approach that I have to reteach often. Children don't just know how to get along it is taught. Its taught from Day one of their lives on how they are treated and how they interact with family members.

In the end I hope these children end up in reform school for a year. They need a boot in their butt.
http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Society/2012/0622/Bullied-bus-monitor-Karen-Klein-case-shows-power-of-crowdfunding