Should Idaho School District 91 Suspends Students For Self Defence?
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I came across this article from Channel 3. A junior high student was suspended for defending himself when another student was beating him up. They both received the same punishment. District 91’s policy is both wrong and illegal. It is lawful to use force to defend yourself to the extent that you use only that amount necessary to stave off the attack.
The fact that Dist 91 let the bullying go on shows that they don’t really care to take action until physical violence ensues. The student did the right thing to defend himself. This is what we should teach our students–to stand up for themselves and have the courage to stand up to predators. Interestingly, our “educators” want to teach kids to be weak and rely on the government (schools) to protect them.
We can plainly see the results of this experiment. Students get neither safety or the ability to stand up for themselves. This is a terrible combination.
http://www.kidk.com/news/27837464.html
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0 I updated the article to the correct author. This was in an email I received from Bundy.
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0 0 Great find, Bundy
I remember when I was going to school it was the same way. If a bully starts picking on someone and they have to walk (or run) away. If they stick up for and defend themselves, they get suspended.
I always thought this was very backwards.
Self defense is a legal defense for adults, why should kids at school be any different?
We also want to build self esteem in kids. How is teaching them to not stick up for themselves and requiring them to run away teaching them self esteem?
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1 0 When my daughter was in high school, there were a few incidents. Some were not her fault, some probably were, like any teenager.
On one occasion we had to meet up with the principal. I can’t recall exactly what had happened, but there were several girls harassing her in back of the high school,and she had tried to defend herself. That principal told my daughter in front of me and her father, that she could not fight back or she would be the one in trouble.
As parents, both of us were taken aback and asked the principal to repeat what he had just said to make sure that we had heard him correctly.
We had. The principal basically told her that her only acceptable defense was to run away.
Wrong or right, as we were leaving, we both told our daughter that she was not expected to simply accept a beating. Whatever the school said, we would stand behind her if she had to defend herself.
This incident played a major part in her dropping out of school.
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1 2 Hello Alice, your post brings new light on home schooling for me. It certainly would provide a safer enviornment for children to learn in. I know that I will never teach one of my kids, or anyone else for that matter, that they need to turn and run if the need to stand and defend themselves, family or other loved ones arises. Our constitution provides us the right to do just that, protect ourselves and family.
I do feel the need to lend an understanding ear to the school district. When an incident of self defense arises, the attacker(s) will most usually say they are the ones that were placed in a self defense position so who do you believe, the liar or the victim? I would like to see it taken a step further than just the school district dealing with it. It is a crimminal act and should involve the Sheriffs Office or the Police Dept. and the individuals that are found at fault for starting, harassing, hazing or any other type of behavior as this to be prosecuted. The individuals that are involved in crimminal behavior need to be accountable for their depraved acts of violence, in any form.
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2 1 I was usually the tallest in school and also really quiet (I had a significant stammering problem that I no longer have). Once or twice a year another guy would mistake my quietness for weakness. I had a brother 7 years older than me so that toughened me up pretty good since we didn’t get along well when we were younger. The fact that I never lost isn’t because I was the toughest guy in school but partially because I never started a fight - it was usually some stocky but short insecure guy who wanted to boost is ego by beating up a tall guy. The toughest kids are rarely the ones picking fights or challenging people in fights all the time because they’re more secure in themselves.
My brother didn’t teach me much and was no substitute for an absent father, but he did teach me one thing that I thanked him for once after I got out of the army and started college (we were closer by now): “When you know a fight is going to happen no matter what you say, flip that switch inside you (no more mister nice guy), hit first and hit as hard as you can, and don’t stop until they’ve had enough.” I remembered that word for word at the time even though I was just about 8 years old. When you’re not getting alot of advice from any male role models, you tend to soak up the little that you do get.
That always served me well and when someone took too much advantage of my otherwise shy nature, I turned vicious really quick in self defense.
That said, the same rules applied when I was school. When you got involved in a fight, you knew what the risk was. You knew you would both get in trouble. You didn’t wimp out and even care about the punishment. After getting in trouble once, you learned to take it off school grounds. For example, “Meet me after school at the park.” If there’s a kid who doesn’t have enough sense to start a fight away from teachers, he’s probably not going to amount to much in life anyway- so pity the fool.
Given that it’s so difficult to sort out who started what in most fights, I personally understand why the rule of equal punishment exists - it’s just one person’s word against another most times. Furthermore, punishing both might not always be fair, but welcome to the real world. It’s not about fairness, it’s more about discouraging the behavior.
Now if there’s clear evidence of a pattern of bullying (a problem that DOES exist and needs dealt with), that’s different and there should obviously be different punishment. When it’s just one kid’s word against another or another parent’s word against another, then I can understand the “equal punishment” thing. Otherwise you’d have to hold court every time you had a school fight! If no one gets seriously hurt, then don’t make such a big deal out of it…punish both kids so they can move on ASAP and learn some Math. Again, it’s not about fairness, it’s about what works. When it’s difficult to know what the history is and exactly what happened, punishing both equally “works” by sending the message that no matter what happened, there is a price to pay for being involved in a physical confrontation. I wouldn’t run away either, but when you choose not to run away, you have to have enough personal responsibility to accept whatever consequences go along with that.
The ones that are always starting fights eventually get their due. There was one kid in particular who had to get beat up 3 times before he no longer wanted to fight me (so he moved on to others)…his name was Eric Miller. His ego was based on fights even when he lost. Guess what, he was one of those people who was just slow to grow up and realized that when you’re an adult you can’t go around challenging people to fight all the time like a little punk kid or you end up either dead or in jail. Eric Miller (not in Idaho) is now in jail the last I heard .
Of COURSE you have a right to self defense (not the same as starting a fight). Whether you get a little punishment at school or not has nothing to do with that. The punishment at school teaches you and reminds you to do everything you can to avoid a fight - you will learn the same thing in any decent martial arts class. It also teaches you that you can choose to learn the most useful lesson from a punishment. If after school detention or suspended from school for a few days teaches you “I can’t defend myself”, then you’re not driving your own bus. No offense to my friends here who disagree. 
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1 1 Ditto BluerNote. I thought you made a good point about the nature of the incident….if one of the parties is known bully, this can and should be taken into account for the administration to hand out harsher punishment to the bully and lesser (or no punishment) for the “victim” in the fight. Your comments were down to earth and I think many of us certainly remember Eric Miller’s of the world we went to school with!
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0 1 Sounds like the school’s communications specialist, Rene Miller is one of those “zero tolerance” morons who is incapable of making rational decisions. If I were the parent I would file a police report to get it on record then, if the situation repeats, file a complaint against the school for failing to act to prevent bullying.
I don’t buy the idea that nobody knew exactly what happened. Those incidents rarely happen without numerous witnesses since that is why the idiots start fights to begin with - they want attention.
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1 0 CafeDelSol,
No one is saying that no one knows exactly what happened.
One thing is very clear though - you don’t know what happened and are in no position to know who knows what happened and who is not telling the truth.
This is very much the same position the school can find itself in. Could they spend a lot of time and resources investigating every single incident? Sure they could, but I’m sure glad they don’t. Save that for the more serious incidents. If it is that serious of an incident, the parents would have already filed a police report. You would not have to suggest it.
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0 0 Am I the only one who recalls that it was rarely one-on-one? The bully always has a few friends as back-up. How does one just run away when there is more than one individual trying to kick his tail around the playground? I always told my children that if they could walk away, they should walk away, and they should never throw the first punch, but after that, under no circumstances were they to stand there and take a beating. My oldest son told me years later that about once a year, due to his small stature, he had to prove himself - always to a group of bullies, never just one person - and from there things were fine. But what happens to the kid who can’t take a beating or defend himself?
Is there anyone posting from the school who can comment on:
1) how often they call the authorities after a fight, and
2) is a suspension really effective in the battle against bullying?
Thanks
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0 2 In school you must know how to defend yourself. Whether it be against the dark arts you need much defense against evil things is what I’m trieing to say. Students should not be suspended if there is self-defense involved. If you need to defend yourself, you should be allowed to bring knives and guns if you are planning to fight for your right to party. As the name bully implies, you must take a red cape and say “Torro Torro!” as this will stop the person from saying nasty things you. Also, these people are attracted to red and they will focus on the red cape and try to tease it. When I was a teacher, I would use self-defense when I was telling another teacher off. It works and you must learn the methods to do it correctly. In my town of Gertruesseldorf, Germany, I learned to self-defend myself from the evil that lurked in the school. Studenten or students would pick on me I only knew the nerd defense by squeeking a lot. But then I learned from my powerful and ultimate my father who put down the gavel and told me to fight him. I thought he wanted to turn me to the dark side of the force. But he was teaching me things about the force and I figured and became successful in the art of defense. Hopefully, that what I’m saying will be taken seriously and not as a big gigantic mass of a joke which it is not.
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0 0 Hans, like we say in America “you’re a few frys short of a happy meal”.
Kids, this is why we don’t do drugs.
Good luck with those dark forces of yours. Big gigantic mass of a joke about sums it up. But thank you for sharing.
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0 0 RE:11 Hans, your english is improving. And overall, good point.
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1 0 I try and teach my 6 year old daughter that she needs to defend her self in any situation where she feels a threat. I think the kid had a right to fend off the bully and suspention is sending this kid the wrong message about what to do when someone is attacking you. Punish the bully and praise the victim for protecting himself. Its that simple.
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1 0 Bullying is often not just between two kids but is rather part of a bigger, interconnected chain. Bullies beget bullies who pick on weaker bullies.
Parents should teach their kids (on this subject)
A. How to defend themselves, and
B. Why to not beat up on people
If every kid went out armed with both sides of that coin, maybe kids would find another way to figure out who’s the Alpha. I said maybe.
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2 0 Fingernail - it’s exactly those smaller incidents that can escalate and cause the big problems - like Columbine. It’s the school’s business to determine who the problem kids are and either help them or throw them out on their assess if they can’t be fixed. If this doesn’t happen then you have a small number of bad apples poisoning the entire school and you end up with a war zone like most public schools in any big city today. But this is exactly what I would expect from the current crop of lazy do-nothing school administrators we have who can’t even make the students put down their cell phones long enough to finish a class.
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I read this article, and I am hoping that there is something we aren’t being told, or that I am missing. Guest Writer, I thought the article sounded more like it happened in a high school instead of junior high — mainly because of the “back to school dance”. Do you know for a fact that it was Junior High, and do you know what Junior High if it was?
IMO, if the kid was defending himself, he shouldn’t have been punished. I attended a “Back to School” session last evening at Eagle Rock Jr High, and they did a session on bullying. I wish I had known about this incident before, and I would have asked some hard questions. At the time, everything they told us seemed reasonable and like District 91 was on top of cyberbullying and bullying.