Still Upset From the Movie

I was angry today while viewing the movie in class. I sat in the back of the room and fumed as I watched the vice principle deal with bullying in her school in an incompetent and completely unhelpful manner. Her methods of “correcting” the bullying were focused on making temporary peace between the two parties; not actually dealing with the bully and their actions. The bully was NOT sorry for what he did and would probably continue his ways the moment she turned her back.  By forcing them to shake hands (an outdated and futile attempt at reconciliation), she was essentially letting the bully off the hook if his punishment was only momentary physical contact with his victim. She then ended up treating the victim as if he had been the one bullying others because of his reluctance to touch his bully. If I was in his shoes, I sure as heck would not have wanted to touch him either. In another showcase of her lack of training in bullying, she took a boy out of class to question him about being bullied. She was questioning how he felt about it; I highly doubt she is a trained therapist and she shouldn’t be the one performing this task. Her job should be to ascertain the facts and deal with them in a timely and effective fashion. Asking how the victim felt when being bullied does not make a bully stop. Bully’s wanted their victims to feel bad about themselves- she was only reinforcing and causing the child pain by forcing him to bringing it up when she probably doesn’t know how to properly handle it. I found an article that illustrates what should be done in the situation of breaking up bullying. [http://www.stopbullying.gov/respond/on-the-spot/index.html]. Clearly, this administrator was not properly trained to deal with bullying and her students were suffering as a result. These ways of dealing with this situation need to be taught frequently so that all adults can spot and stop a bully. I just have a lot of feelings about that movie…pun intended…