One of my best friend's little brother just recently entered high school and has said that he is being subject to intense bullying, mostly verbal but sometimes physical (shoving and the like). The school's official policy is "Zero Tolerance" of violence of any kind -- including fighting in self-defense. I think this is crap and have told them as much in the past. (So far as I know, most schools have such a policy).
From personal experience, I've found that violence really is the most effective solution to dealing with bullies. They are mostly rational creatures: they only want to lord themselves over people who will easily submit to them, which is why bullies tend to form packs and pick on smaller, weaker kids. They always seek to maximize their rewards: if a kid fights back, then the reward for bullying is smaller compared to the effort put into it, and so the bully will move on to a more submissive target to again maximize the rewards for bullying. Obviously this is not efficient, but in the absence of a concerned and involved school administration, it's the only chance a victim of bullying really has.
The problem, of course, comes in with enforcing any other possible policy. If there were no Zero Tolerance policy, then the administrators would have to judge each instance of violence on a case-by-case basis to determine who started it and who was merely acting in self-defense. Of course, unless there's an administrator around at all times (and if there were, there'd be no bullying), they will have to rely on eyewitness accounts. As public schools are fetid pig ruts of conformity, nearby folks will almost always provide unbalanced accounts of what happened. The end result might be that either justice is not served or that administrators wind up having to enforce a zero-tolerance policy, anyway. I cannot, for the life of me, imagine how any fair and equitable system to deal with bullying could work.
Should schools keep or drop Zero Tolerance policies? If they should drop it, how should instances of bullying be treated by the school administration?
From personal experience, I've found that violence really is the most effective solution to dealing with bullies. They are mostly rational creatures: they only want to lord themselves over people who will easily submit to them, which is why bullies tend to form packs and pick on smaller, weaker kids. They always seek to maximize their rewards: if a kid fights back, then the reward for bullying is smaller compared to the effort put into it, and so the bully will move on to a more submissive target to again maximize the rewards for bullying. Obviously this is not efficient, but in the absence of a concerned and involved school administration, it's the only chance a victim of bullying really has.
The problem, of course, comes in with enforcing any other possible policy. If there were no Zero Tolerance policy, then the administrators would have to judge each instance of violence on a case-by-case basis to determine who started it and who was merely acting in self-defense. Of course, unless there's an administrator around at all times (and if there were, there'd be no bullying), they will have to rely on eyewitness accounts. As public schools are fetid pig ruts of conformity, nearby folks will almost always provide unbalanced accounts of what happened. The end result might be that either justice is not served or that administrators wind up having to enforce a zero-tolerance policy, anyway. I cannot, for the life of me, imagine how any fair and equitable system to deal with bullying could work.
Should schools keep or drop Zero Tolerance policies? If they should drop it, how should instances of bullying be treated by the school administration?
