Here is a short account of the bullying
problems my daughter encountered at school.
In April 2005, I removed both my daughters, 13 and 11 years old,
from school to educate them at home. My eldest daughter was subjected
to bullying during Year 5 and most of Year 6 in one middle school.
She preferred to stay at the school because she had several good
friends there. Unfortunately, towards the end of Year 6, one of
her friends turned on her and started to be spiteful and nasty like
most of the other girls. The teachers kept my daughter in at breaks
to do 'jobs' for them. Despite this, my beautiful academic talented
girl was coming out of school looking thinner and paler each afternoon.
When I gave her the chance to move to another middle school she
seemed to settle down well - for a while. Then a new girl joined
the school. This girl was from another area and, I suspect, had
been suspended from her last school. This child began to pick on
my child. Other children joined in on the subtle nastiness. Towards
the end of February this year, not only was my daughter ignored
in being selected for teams, left out of classroom pairs or threesomes,
but if she approached a group, the girls would move away from her
en masse. The school's answer was to offer to 'isolate her in a
classroom' during breaktimes. The same old song.
The above is a fraction of what my child went through. The bullies
at the first school were made librarians and were, obviously, teachers'
pets. My girl was blamed for the bullying. She was' too quiet';
she 'didn't speak up for herself' and she 'asked for it'. (These
comments came from an acting Head of Year Six). At that school,
the teacher recommended that my daughter should have a learning
mentor; this despite the fact that she is a first class student
who never shirked homework and always received great praise for
her work in every subject.
What kind of a society have we created? One where a child who has
a mind of her own, who is mature beyond her years, and full of gentle
consideration and deep sensitivity should be persecuted and tormented
in many different ways.
School has failed. Schools are seething breeding grounds of intolerance
and ignorance and hatred.
And we never fail to reward bullies. Note how children who leave
the system because it has failed and even damaged them are punished.
I asked our local LEA representative if there was any help for Home
Educators. She said 'no, you're on your own.' The bullies aren't
on their own. They are still being educated at my expense and at
the expense of people like me who remove their children from the
system to preserve their babies' health, their peace of mind and
their happiness. And my child suffers from a complete lack of confidence
and high levels of anxiety directly attributable to bullying.
We talk about how dreadful bullying is. We do nothing more. We hear
from the schools how they don't tolerate bullying, but the dinner
ladies say to the children who report incidents to them, 'Go away
and don't tell tales.'
We cling to the status quo while the status quo injures the brightest
and the best of us. How many innocents have to suffer and die before
we put things right?
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