Hooligan Headgear

Somewhere in the prairies a quiet revolution is growing. These days, anybody with school aged kids will tell you that bullying is slowly getting out of control (In many cases it's already there and people are pretty much oblivious). It's not that kids haven't been bullied before, but these days it seems as though it is far beyond simply teasing somebody for a funny shirt or a couple of fistfights. In our brave new world these kid are taking weapons into the schools and in some cases possibly provoking other kids into extreme measures like suicides or shootings.

I am pretty hard line on this stuff and applaud the actions of a teacher in Manitoba for taking some bullies and forcing them to wear helmets with "loser" and "I'm stupid: I bully." written on them while submitting to roleplaying where the rest of the students got to poke fun at them. The parents of the bullies complained that the punishments were unethical and that the school went too far. I find it pretty good that the school actually put the kids through what their victims went through. One bully's parents actually admitted that their son was not likely to bully anytime soon without thinking about wearing his helmet again.

The schools have decided that the helmets are probably not going to happen again but the role playing will very likely be used again. It's about time the schools give some control back to the schools. People are getting out of control in our school systems here in Canada. Parents who have spent years focusing on themselves and taking blame for nothing are teaching this to their kids, helping to further our society that has become less and less accountable over the years. They reinforce that fact that these bullies can do whatever they want by taking any punishment to their children to the media and the school board. How about understanding your child is a bad-ass and sorting it out.

Once they perfect this system we need to implement it in the real world as well. Picture being able to take the aggressive drivers on our roads and making them drive in a compound with each other. After a day or two of cutting each other off and generally driving like morons they would either realize that they need to chill out, or end up dead by the hands of each others' miserable driving skills. Yeah right, let's be honest. They would leave the compound at the end of their sentence and take it out on everybody else. Very likely these really calm folks would even die in the compound as a result of a massive coronary brought about by their super mellow nature.

Ah well, I've got to go put on my helmet and let the workers ridicule me for a while. I haven't bullied anyone, but it sounds like it could be fun.