Teacher Response to the Bullying Incident

My daughter's teacher responded to me very quickly. That made me feel much better. Open communication between parents and teachers is so important. She was not aware of the incident but would ask B about it after lunch. She and B spoke in the hallway and B said that some boys had teased her but at first couldn't remember which ones. To me that sounded odd, but I thought about it and she really doesn't know all the boys names in the class yet and does mix up a few of them.

Finally they narrowed down who they might be and all involved went into the hall to talk it out. My daughter's teacher handled it very well. It wan't blown out of proportion and B felt so much better because something was being done. Her teacher told me that she would keep an eye on the boys interactions with B and also would meet with the bus aid to make sure nothing happens on the bus.

When I was in elementary school I don't think this would have been handled as seriously. It is so easy to say boys will be boys or that they are only in first grade and don't know any better. It is our job as adults, parents and teachers to make sure they know better. Until we all work together to teach our children tolerance and positive behavior bullying will be an issue. Unfortunately there are some adults, parents and teachers who don't believe they should do this or don't take it seriously.

Last year I had an ethics debate with another adult. I mentioned in the debate that I hope when I am a teacher I can teach the students to be more tolerant than he was. He was adamantly putting down other religious groups, one that he did not believe in, ones that he felt needed to be suppressed. He responded that it wasn't a teacher role to teach students morals. I firmly believe that he and anyone else who believes that is wrong. Parents of course have the primary responsibility to teach their children ethics and morals, but it also need to be reinforced in school, taught by the teachers and shown by example from adults in general. If we don't do that we have failed our children and allow bullying to continue.