Login / RegisterB.C.’s new anti-bullying plan gets mixed reaction
B.C.’s new anti-bullying strategy is a positive step but much work has already been done to tackle the problem, says the Vancouver school board chair.
Premier Christy Clark today (June 1) unveiled a 10-point plan intended to help ensure young students feel safe and respected in schools. Clark promised to take action against bullying when she ran for the Liberal leadership in 2011.
Key elements of the strategy include training for thousands of educators and community partners, and tougher school codes of conduct in line with the B.C. Human Rights Code, which has protections around race, gender, and sexual orientation.
Other elements include new options to anonymously report bullying online or by using a smartphone app, and creation of a provincial advisory committee of educators, police, and community representatives.
"We all want our kids to be safe, especially at school. That's why when I became Premier, I promised to address bullying in our school system as a high priority for my government," Clark said in a statement.
Vancouver school board chair Patti Bacchus welcomed the plan to help combat harassment in the province’s 60 school districts.
“We see this as a positive step. It’s great to see a strategy that isn’t just an overnight quick-fix, because we know it’s ongoing work that constantly needs to be done. But this does draw attention and focus to it,” she told the Straight by phone.
However, Bacchus said the Vancouver school district has already been working on the issue for years. She noted there is staff training on bullying and codes of conduct that reference the B.C. Human Rights Code, among other measures.
Bacchus also questioned the plan to introduce a system for reporting bullying anonymously, saying her district promotes an environment where students feel comfortable talking to staff.
“The idea of anonymous reporting, I do have some questions about that, if that is consistent with the rest of the work in terms of creating safe and caring schools where students are comfortable addressing adults,” she said.
New Democrat Opposition MLA Spencer Chandra Herbert accused the Liberal government of taking too much credit for their plan to fight bullying. He said school districts are already working hard on the issue.
“It seems instead the province is going to claim that their policy is brand new and that they thought up the ideas that the communities have already been doing for years,” Chandra Herbert told the Straight by phone.
“There’s some ideas in there which we should have been doing already and frankly I’m surprised the government would highlight, in a way, the fact that they haven’t been.”
The province’s anti-bullying strategy is set to launch when school resumes in the fall.
Kids need to learn that there are consequences for their actions. Cause there sure as hell are in the real world.
Kids these days are learning that they can bully, and they wont get suspended or expelled, and they dont have to do homework and the teachers still have to pass them. If a kid knows they can do something bad and there are no real consequences, they will do it.
Once kids know that bullying truly wont be tolerated, it will stop happening. It never happened when I was in school. There were kids that didnt have many friends, but they were not teased or picked on, and they especially were not assaulted.
I don't care who brings this kind of action to the table, it's necessary because the schools, boards, and teachers have failed miserably at doing anything about it.
You are savages, and history will regard you, all of you, who support this child abuse, as such.
is your son a nerd?
Is your son in a gang?
The issue is due process. Schools already lack independent judicial oversight of the ad hoc actions against children; this "anti-bullying" stuff is really nothing more than a way to avoid any questioning of the politics of the human rights code because that is "bullying." And note what the Government is doing with traffic tickets visavis administrative process.
They're removing people's right to due process before a competent (independent) judge---they're subjecting children to positive law instead of natural equity. How are the children to grow up and decide for themselves what positive laws should exist if they're not allowed to experiment in an environment (school) governed by natural equity?
So, to return to your idea, there is a problem with that. Nullus liber homo capiatur nisi per legem terre: no free man be captured except by law of the land, and that is the law of the land as understood on the date of that grant, june 15 1215. Children are free men, tho in the power of their parents or those who stand in loco parentis who nevertheless have a duty to teach the student to be free.
What "behavior codes" and all positive law in a primary school context represent is nothing more than illiberal education. And some illiberal education is required, but the purpose of this sort of anti-bullying policy is to render certain parts of life, where there are arguments for liberality as well as illiberality, and to suggest that it is verboten to debate such.
For example, a transsexual student is allowed to stand up and talk about how proud he/she is of its lived experience.
A student who believes in a positive law punishing trans-sexuals would not be allowed to advocate for such.
And it would be OK if we had a general freedom to dress ourselves and this was out of deep respect for that---but bullshit, bullshit, bullshit. Seatbelt laws, anyone? Nanny puts the harness on you, so clearly Nanny can put pants on you if you want to wear a dress inappropriately. That is a political question, and this is nothing more than a newspeaky way of annihilating the discussion of such questions.
Bully in schools needs to address the entire family. Otherwise, the cycle will continue and the bully will only pass those behaviours and value on to his or her children.