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National Anti-bullying weeks
National anti-bullying week is almost with us again, and it's been extended to almost two weeks from the 14th to the 25th November. Bullying makes kids' lives a misery, and in some cases, drives them to suicide. We MUST take it seriously. Students, please gently remind your senseis now that it's coming up. Senseis, I have already developed a whole bunch of awesome material so that you can deliver a bunch of fantastic anti-bullying classes. You can find it here: http://www.ilovegkr.com/senseis/lessons/bullying.html Over the years, I've seen many people bullied who brought it upon themselves, either by being bullies, or with other types of behaviour. I'm not saying we should love these people, or accept abuse from them, and goodness knows, some of them can be DAMNED hard to tolerate, but so often bad behaviour is not entirely the perpetrator's fault. Case in point; the other day I was at a skate park talking to someone about another skater with the nickname of "Speedy". Speedy is an 18 year old boy whose skating is really quite impressive thanks to endless hours of practice, but he has a pronounced speech defect, and he's not as smart as most kids by quite a long shot. But he's a thoroughly likeable guy. So I said to the guy I was talking to, "Speedy's really impressive." and the guy replied "Yeah, he's really come on, but I don't like him." I asked why and the guy said, "A while ago he sold a pair of skates to his friend for a pound, and then his friend sold them straight to me. Then Speedy came up to me and said he only sold them to his friend and that I wasn't supposed to have them." Now personally, I could see Speedy's point of view anyway. Selling a £150 pair of skates for a pound was doing his friend a massive favour, and then for the guy to immediately sell them on without even asking was a bit hurtful and ungrateful. But what the other guy didn't realise, was that Speedy has a condition like Aspergers, so he sees the world very much in terms of absolute rules, but because he doesn't really understand the rules, he misinterprets. He's trying so hard to be normal and manly that he sometimes offends. So poor old Speedy is being isolated over something that is so easy to understand, and it just highlights how easy it is to unfairly start judging and ostracising people over things that are not their fault. I'm not saying it's easy to be nice to people, or that I'm some kind of saint who always turns the other cheek, but perhaps if we were all just a few percent kinder and more tolerant, it might really make a life-changing difference to the victims. To find out more about this year's anti-bullying events go to: Kidscape - http://www.kidscape.org.uk/saynotobullying/index.asp Anti-bullying week - http://www.antibullyingweek.co.uk/ To get help if you are being bullied go to: |
