Does anyone else feel all these anti-bullying policies are no more than words on paper?

Does anyone else feel all these anti-bullying policies are no more than words on paper?

Yes, yes, yes.

longman said:

There seem to be two types of bullying here: conventionally defined bullying with one or several agresssors, and collective bullying with the whole of his class or peer group turning against him.

I can see where you are coming from but real world situations are more complicated than this. There are children who are regular bullies and other children who rarely bully unless they are 'catalysed'. The majority of cases of collective bullying result from children who have been catalysed, more often than not by regular bullies and staff. Bullies bully in many different ways. Some use physical violence whereas others hatch plots or create smear campaigns.

What hasn't been mentioned is what goes on behind the scenes. A common mistake is to assume that the bully is acting under their own volition but in reality the mindset of many bullies is shaped by the people they associate with and that includes their parents. More than enough parents have their own prejudices towards people with AS and consider them to be nutters, freaks, liabilities, spoilers, or badly behaved, badly parented, arrogant, wayward individuals that deserve a kick up the backside to knock them into line. If they won't fit then beat them into submission. These parents therefore encourage their own children to be bullies.

Schools seem to have a mental block over bullying in respect of children on the autistic spectrum. If you are not socially competent you are likely to get ostracised by your peers for being different.

Schools tend to take the stance that the victim should toughen up, or if there is collective bullying, the victim is at fault and should change their ways - that shouldn't be applied to any victim let alone someone on the autistic spectrum.

This is very true. An inherent belief held by many teachers is that a hierarchy of children or pecking order is the natural system (it's what Charles Darwin says is true) in a school. Some children will always come out on top whilst others will be underdogs. School shows them their true place in society.

Another factor are teaching unions which represent the interests of teachers rather than children or their parents. They rarely say anything about bullying and generally have a poor understanding certain types of SEN, including ASD or dyspraxia. Certain ideologies held by teaching unions such as mixed ability classes rather than streaming; plenty of help available for children who are behind academically but nothing for high ability children or accelerated learning; and an unwillingness for schools to provide support services for social skills and life skills for children who are bullied or less socially competent all impact badly on bullied children. It's not uncommon for teachers who go out of their way to help and support bullied children to run afoul of teaching union bosses over issues like doing work without pay or work outside of their contract.

In my experience, teachers can and do enable the bullying of pupils w ASD's. They start by showing exasperation at unusual questions in class, progress to resenting the effort it takes to suppress bullying and end up saying things like "just ignore him; he's special"

Teachers don't like children that are too smart or ask difficult and unusual questions.

The way that schools work is that pleasing people is more important than being factually correct. Popular opinion and majority consensus trump the truth. A child who corrects a teacher who has made a mistake or got a fact wrong will almost always offend and hurt their classmates more than the teacher. They just don't take kindly to some smart kid who knows more than the teacher knows.

Does anyone else feel all these anti-bullying policies are no more than words on paper?

Yes, yes, yes.

longman said:

There seem to be two types of bullying here: conventionally defined bullying with one or several agresssors, and collective bullying with the whole of his class or peer group turning against him.

I can see where you are coming from but real world situations are more complicated than this. There are children who are regular bullies and other children who rarely bully unless they are 'catalysed'. The majority of cases of collective bullying result from children who have been catalysed, more often than not by regular bullies and staff. Bullies bully in many different ways. Some use physical violence whereas others hatch plots or create smear campaigns.

What hasn't been mentioned is what goes on behind the scenes. A common mistake is to assume that the bully is acting under their own volition but in reality the mindset of many bullies is shaped by the people they associate with and that includes their parents. More than enough parents have their own prejudices towards people with AS and consider them to be nutters, freaks, liabilities, spoilers, or badly behaved, badly parented, arrogant, wayward individuals that deserve a kick up the backside to knock them into line. If they won't fit then beat them into submission. These parents therefore encourage their own children to be bullies.

Schools seem to have a mental block over bullying in respect of children on the autistic spectrum. If you are not socially competent you are likely to get ostracised by your peers for being different.

Schools tend to take the stance that the victim should toughen up, or if there is collective bullying, the victim is at fault and should change their ways - that shouldn't be applied to any victim let alone someone on the autistic spectrum.

This is very true. An inherent belief held by many teachers is that a hierarchy of children or pecking order is the natural system (it's what Charles Darwin says is true) in a school. Some children will always come out on top whilst others will be underdogs. School shows them their true place in society.

Another factor are teaching unions which represent the interests of teachers rather than children or their parents. They rarely say anything about bullying and generally have a poor understanding certain types of SEN, including ASD or dyspraxia. Certain ideologies held by teaching unions such as mixed ability classes rather than streaming; plenty of help available for children who are behind academically but nothing for high ability children or accelerated learning; and an unwillingness for schools to provide support services for social skills and life skills for children who are bullied or less socially competent all impact badly on bullied children. It's not uncommon for teachers who go out of their way to help and support bullied children to run afoul of teaching union bosses over issues like doing work without pay or work outside of their contract.

In my experience, teachers can and do enable the bullying of pupils w ASD's. They start by showing exasperation at unusual questions in class, progress to resenting the effort it takes to suppress bullying and end up saying things like "just ignore him; he's special"

Teachers don't like children that are too smart or ask difficult and unusual questions.

The way that schools work is that pleasing people is more important than being factually correct. Popular opinion and majority consensus trump the truth. A child who corrects a teacher who has made a mistake or got a fact wrong will almost always offend and hurt their classmates more than the teacher. They just don't take kindly to some smart kid who knows more than the teacher knows.