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Teaching kids social responsibility – like how to settle fights and ask for help – can reduce school bullying

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By Jonathan B Santo and Josafa da Cunha

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Burning BushToday  07:20 am JST

Kids also need to learn how to handle stress and hardship on their own.

That's part of growing up and developing character and resiliance.

That's hard to do if they're abused at home, not to mention a school system where conformity is shoved down their throats.

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Teaching kids how to fight is probably a better option..... "Let's go and pick on that kid in the boxing club" is something you are unlikely to hear in the school grounds.

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Hard to say Ashley, as you will always stick out being a foreign looking kid in Japan.

But being different and having to adjust is not the same as being bullied, shunned, or even mistreated by the teachers.

Was your kid bullied for being foreign or was he being mixed simply an aspect of it?

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Do you truly want separate schools? Segregation? In that scenario, no one learns the benefits of empathy, curiosity, diversity. I’d rather those who continue to bully be schooled.

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Teaching them self difference is much more practical.

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Single child families are also sometimes partly to blame. growing up with siblings and their ribbing, teasing and name calling helps prevent the thin skinned wimps so common among todays kids.

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In the UK covid has seen some fall nearly a year behind, whilst other kids in the same class have actually learned more than they would have done in school, whilst home schooling. Social distancing has pushed the limits of class space and size. Few UK classrooms have air con.

The chance of implementing teaching concepts like this whilst underfunded, understaffed and trying to support the kids who have lost the most teaching, is close to zero.

When educationalists write these articles, they need to stop, go back and rewrite them to accommodate stressed teachers with no spare teaching time and no spare funding, who are happy to get through the day without seeing the emergency services arriving outside.

The ideas are sensible, but it would be a tough ask to try and implement them in a UK classroom on a good day. And there haven't been any good days for a couple of years now.

Adults can rationalise the bizarre mix of news, data, fear, isolation and restrictions by accepting them or running with conspiracy theories. It's tougher for kids, especially for those who had previously been escaping abusive or dysfunctional home environments when they went to school each day.

Where I live, some of the local kids continued to play together outside on the local park, maskless, through all the lockdowns. Yet when they went back to school, travelled on public transport or went in shops, they were ordered to stay apart and wear masks. Other kids were kept inside. Adults were supposed to stay at home but were on TV protesting in large groups. It was a pandemic, but the government didn't tell people to wear masks generally. Kids are quite logical, and the persistent failure of logic evident in the mix of restrictions and daily life must have seemed crazy. They must think the world has gone mad. Most of us don't trust our politicians any more and many have been doubting 'government scientists'. I doubt kids trust anyone any more. If I was a kid, I wouldn't.

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