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Klondike's avatar

Thanks for the perspective, that just sounds horrible. Maybe with your experience you can tell me where the high school boys are at in all this? Its certainly because I'm old but any kid openly assaulting girls at 2, not one but TWO schools, would've gotten his ass beaten, thoroughly. I mean, it wouldn't even have had to be the girls boyfriend or whatever, it'd just been considered a public service.

Is it a zero tolerance atmosphere on fighting or something? Fear of prosecution? I'm, of course, not saying that's how it should've been handled, I'm just saying it would've happened that way, years ago, especially in the south. It just seems an odd missing piece of the story.

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Tennessee  Jed's avatar

That’s hard to answer because I just can’t see this happening in my district. I haven’t seen a situation like this. I mean this would have been taken to our sro right away and then taken by the the police department from there. As far as when the student was involuntary transferred to another school. If kids got wind of what happened maybe there might be some repercussions.

This just would have never happened in ANY school in our district. That kid would have been detained immediately and removed from school grounds. The way this was handled the *first* time this happened was reprehensible and these admin were clearly criminally incompetent. That it happened a second time is mind boggling.

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Klondike's avatar

Fair enough and thanks for the reply. I guess I just thought that students would engage in more "self policing" than that or just more fighting. I mean, its been a while but I couldn't imagine that teenagers had changed all *that* much.

Though, come to think of it, a friend who does actor combatant training at the local high school drama club starts out his seminars by asking who has been in an actual fight and he said not a single kid raises their hand. So, maybe I am just that old and out of touch.

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Tennessee  Jed's avatar

Yeah I’m 50..there were more fights when I was growing up. 90% of them were off school grounds. Students don’t seem as inclined to be as violent as my past experience. I don’t see a lot of bullying (probably because it’s gravitated towards social media). Interestingly enough most fights (in fact the vast majority) that occur in my school are between females . These happen fast and are over just as quickly. In fact this year there have been about a dozen fights and only one was between to guys. That’s pretty much been the case every year I’ve taught. Anecdotal of course but that’s my experience.

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Tyler's avatar

Schools cannot allow vigilantes to roam the halls attacking students. Especially based on often murky acquaintance rape allegations.

But your scenario would make a cool 1980s action movie (Schwarzenegger or Van Damme as a high school principal)

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Klondike's avatar

Lol Well, I wasn't suggesting they should, just recognizing that it didn't take that much for fights to break out over small slights when I was in school, so I find it difficult to imagine teenage guys watching another teen abuse girls in the open and nothing being done. Like I said, maybe it was a different time.

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AT's avatar

This is so interesting. I asked my husband, who grew up inna working class neighborhood where fights were common, if students would have taken it upon themselves to “discipline” a rapist. We both agreed that it would only have happened if the girls had brothers or very close male friends who felt they were defending her. He said there were girls you did not dare insult because their brothers were violent.

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Petula's avatar

I'm guessing that if there is a whiff of trans around this kid, no other kid would want to touch him, much less beat his ass. Remember, kids can come out as trans at any time, and everybody around them is expected to accept they were *always* trans

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Tennessee  Jed's avatar

As a teacher you don’t have to tell me that lol. I’m corrected by kids who switch identities on a monthly basis..names and all. I was emailing another teacher about a student of mine and it took me a minute to figure out who the hell he was talking about. I’ve just defaulted to calling the class “people”. It’s whatever. I truly believe this will all go the way of some of the crazes in the past that Jessie and Katie have talked about on previous episodes.

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Klondike's avatar

I suppose and even if the abuse was in the open it may not have been obviously unwanted. It could be like stepping into a domestic dispute. Even if you’re trying to stop a guy beating his girlfriend, you could end up fending them both off, for your trouble. Maybe, the ambiguity made it seem not worth the trouble.

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grufinprog's avatar

Kids simply do not engage in physical fights in the not-super-fancy public schools my kids go to. I was surprised by it too having been physically bullied throughout school (until I got bigger and it suddenly stopped).

Must be all that soy…

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Klondike's avatar

I mean, that sounds better to me, cause I didn’t fare well in that culture of violence. That said, there’s that uncomfortable truth that the male tendency for assertiveness & aggression *can* serve a beneficial purpose, if harnessed.

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Tennessee  Jed's avatar

Yeah I remember kids literally bringing knives and baseball bats to fights in the park near our junior high after school. Just like the socs and the greasers in the outsiders lol

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