Defense against School Scuffles

[Enviroman]

There's a whole lot of bad advice in this thread.

Violence never "solves" anything. It may "settle" something for the time being, but it surely won't solve a problem unless you kill the other person or cripple him (mentally/physically or both). At best, you'll "win" a battle that'll resume later on...probably at your disadvantage.

My advice is to try and talk your way out of it. If you can't, just try and walk away. If the other person is hell bent on beating you, then you have no choice but to defend yourself. My advice is to keep as much distance between you (them if he's packing buddies) and attempt to leave. Being thought of as a "coward" is a hell of a lot better than getting suspended, having something on your permanent record, dealing with parents, having a potential mar on future college applications, etc. Any friends you might lose for this show of "cowardice" were not friends anyway.

[Sam]

i think to say violence NEVER solves anything is wrong.... maybe it doesnt do it often, but it cna solve things pretty finally.

[Enviroman]

Like I said, if you kill or maim the person badly enough that they don't fight back, then yes it can solve something. But doing that can almost never be construed as the correct option, can it?

[JusticeZero]

At the school level, violence solves a LOT. Sad but true. The reason is because bullies, by definition, only want to harass people who they know won't fight back. One fight and you've demonstrated that you are not that person. Furthermore, a young student has effectively no viable legal recourse, zero societal protection, and virtually no liability. Society in schools is -messed up-.

[Enviroman]

"zero societal protection"

How's that? Tons of schools (especially post-Columbine) have zero tolerance policies concerning bullying/harrassment.

[jnpnshr411]

I think anyone who says ""run and tell a teacher" has not been in school lately. (no offense) that never works. If a person pushes you around then see you as a weakling so you have to stand up, dont seriously hurt the guy but do something. Running to tell a teacher only gets you the reputation of being a coward so it will happen more often.

BTW even if you think he can take you down fight back!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Menjo]

Like I said, if you kill or maim the person badly enough that they don't fight back, then yes it can solve something. But doing that can almost never be construed as the correct option, can it?

Also i think violence does solve some things unfortunatly, but killing someone would cause way more problems then anything else i can think of really....

[Sam]

Just to clarify - im not advocating people going out and killing people to "settle" things...

i didnt mean it's the right option, just that it is an option that is there.

[JusticeZero]

"zero societal protection"

How's that? Tons of schools (especially post-Columbine) have zero tolerance policies concerning bullying/harrassment.

This may be so, but once again, the ones I have seen have been pretty absurd and hampered by the unusual legal status of minors. As a rule, zero tolerance means zero intelligence. Zero tolerance for drug use means the school will hand out a suspension or worse for taking an advil to stop a migraine, for instance.

There was a case on the news not that long ago where an eight year old basically terrorized a classroom for half an hour - the school didn't have anything they could legally do so they called in the police who ended up coming in with stun guns. (The national networks just sensationalized the last sound bite of the police tasering a little, meek looking kid, but the local networks had the expanded version that showed everyone involved working their way up the threat spectrum.) The school was helpless. They can't do a lot of things they need to to deal with things like that.

[Sam]

yeah but thats slightly different, but in essense i agree - there isnt a huge amount schools can do about bullying in the long term