12 April 2014

"I Hope Their Feelings Got Hurt Really Bad."

Big graduation pep rally at North High School in Bakersfield, California.  Two truant officers read the names of 34 teens who would not be graduating and instruct them to come forward, look at their fellow senior friends and "say goodbye."

FOX News interviewed a "motivational speaker" who says that the teens should have been publicly shamed because they've demonstrated they're not even smart enough to graduate from a (said sneeringly here) public school.

"I hope their feelings got hurt really bad," he said, adding that this is going to really inspire these students to go to school every day it's open and complete their studies.

Here's a link given by the school's website about how teachers can avoid bullying.  Examples:  don't give any indication of a student's grade (um, hello, telling people "these kids failed" sorta violates that?) and never display a student's weakness so that others can see it (yeah).

I hope some heads roll with this one.  I'm disgusted not only by the behaviour of the adults in this school, but by the treatment of this topic in the news.

4 comments:

  1. I am kind of tired of the whole public shaming thing -- from making your children wear placards announcing their sins to the world, the People of Walmart website... or posting embarrassing photos of someone caught picking their nose... all the way to Honey Boo-Boo child. We don't lift ourselves up by putting others down. There are people with feelings behind all those pictures and they are worthy of our respect.

    And, a child who doesn't like school and skips already? Is this going to make them think, "These people are really on my side. They want me to succeed. I am so going to change my wicked ways!" Uh, not.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I KNOW!! Now... some of those "People of Wal-Mart" photos, you KNOW they are out for attention. But a lot of them are obviously of a "Grandma had an accident in her pants, why put that on the internetz" type nature.

      No good reason to do this to people. I looked up the school and it seems over 2,000 kids go there. Maybe if everyone doesn't know each other, and the struggles they go through each day, they feel empowered to just be nasty like we see so often online.

      Delete
  2. I don't think being insulted and shamed in public is going to inspire these kids to go to school, if anything it would drive them away.

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