More school trouble, Just was threatened.

[Mize]

So far our district gets excellent ratings though the elementary's math was low last year.

The other anti-bully thing is that both of my kids take Taekwondo 3x/week so their fear factor is low (and they know they'll die at my hands if they ever "use it" on another kid unprovoked).

DC: I totally understand your concerns. My kids did private montessori pre and kinder and my son had major adjustment problems with conventional school so I was ready for that 20k/year private school. Thankfully he's adjusted and kickin' butt in 2nd grade this year.

 

[epicstruggle]

so I'm the only one who went to a high school with serious gang violence, people getting the crap beaten out of them daily, things like that? admittedly, it was a high school in the middle of the projects (a holdover from segregation), but the experience can be quite good for a person.

Nope, I also attendend a pretty violent high school. Every so often, bullet holes would be patched on the outside, one of my friends pulled a gun on a teacher, and all sorts of fights in school.

I still got a pretty good education, but i attribute my sucess to my parents than to the school. Im lucky that my family is now quite wealthy, and dont have to worry about where to send my future kids to school. The main thing however is to keep an active eye on their education.

epic

 

[Sonic]

Demo, did you read the San Francisco magazine article about bay area schools from a few months back? It had some decent information on public schools form what I recall. it may have been rather early this year in February or possibly earlier, I do not remember.

When I have kids I will send them to the best schools I'm able to afford. I don't know how exactly schools are in San Francisco in terms of public school but it is something I will one day look into. I won't accept a school that resembles anything like I went to. The public schools in elementary were fine as I was in a district that had a good system for teaching. My mom got remarried when I was starting middle school and then I ended up in a crappy school district even though the suburbs we then lived in were really nice. The system there was just so deluded and there had to have been at least one fight a week if not more, and this was middle school. Some teachers did care, but they had too little power to even do anything about a failing student because parents would find some easy excuses as to why it was happening.

High school was a bigger joke. A few fights a week and during some years there would be at least two to three bomb threats a month. There wasn't any gangs there that I recall. There were the typical groups that form and cause trouble. In my four years of the high school there were only a handful of teachers that cared enough about their students to actually encourage and help along the path to college. One teacher I fondly remember didn't care about the pre-set curriculum the school hands out for the year and did his own thing. There would be little homework in the way of problems, but there was a gargantuan amount of studying to do and essays to be written on the weekly quiz.

The main thing I just want to say is that if I have the means to send my children (when I have them) to the best school possible I will. I want them to have better than I have and I want to be involved in their lives not as a control freak or as a passenger watching their lives pass me by.

 

[Nite_Hawk]

Hi Digi,

I went through a fairly rough grade/middle school when I was a kid (before my parents put me in a private highschool). They claimed that the most effective thing that stopped the other kids from bullying me was enrolling me in a martial arts class. Once kids found out I was doing that they backed off somewhat.

It sounds like this isn't a really chronic thing, but it may be something to keep in mind. I'll probably have my kids enroll in Judo just so they know how (and when) to defend themselves.

Nite_Hawk

 

[Mize]

Hi Digi,

I went through a fairly rough grade/middle school when I was a kid (before my parents put me in a private highschool). They claimed that the most effective thing that stopped the other kids from bullying me was enrolling me in a martial arts class. Once kids found out I was doing that they backed off somewhat.

It sounds like this isn't a really chronic thing, but it may be something to keep in mind. I'll probably have my kids enroll in Judo just so they know how (and when) to defend themselves.

Nite_Hawk

Not only that, but martial arts improve concentration and dicipline in school. Definitely an advocate after seeing the impact on my two kids.

 

[Cartoon Corpse]

i hate bullies. apparently they become president for some reason. our collective psychology needs an EMERGENCY adjustment.

 

[poopypoo]

Not only that, but martial arts improve concentration and dicipline in school. Definitely an advocate after seeing the impact on my two kids.

I third this option. I started martial arts as a kid because I'd seen kung fu movies and wanted to learn to whooop ass. But my sensei (never did study Chinese arts, at least not in a school) was the coolest man I'd ever met at that point -- way cooler than any of the other male role models in my life (no discredit to them!). So when he taught me that the important thing was to develop self-confidence and physical health, and to be able to not worry about confrontation so much, it taught me to essentially no longer require confrontation, for most of my life (so far!). It was perhaps the most pivotal moment of my development. Of course, the kid needs to want to, maybe get him to try it and see if he likes it? I also recommend judo or aikido, as they have cool, dynamic moves, and yet a rather perfect mindset for learning how to handle problems properly.

 

[Frank]

Digi, don't sweat it. It's what kids do. There isn't more violence involved in general than while playing a videogame or watching the news. That's how they learn. And Justin should learn to stand up to things like that.

 

[Deepak]

Student brawl turns ugly, 2 arrested

 

[rwolf]

Problem is that kids are not properly supervised. If a kid is uttering death threats where is the teacher? I had one school (grade 7-9) where the teachers would disappear for 10-20 minutes on occasion and then the trouble would start. I have a feeling that if schools had proper supervision then students wouldn't get out of line at all. We allow our schools to become torture for some kids so we can save a few bucks on staffing. Perhaps the solution is more parent helpers in the school on a regular basis.

Martial Arts is not the solution. You should not have to defend yourself to go to school. Kids should be safe and free from harassment.