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Originally posted by Technick@Nov 21 2004, 10:26 PM CJ...you go to school to learn a lot of things...one of the most important is a set of social skills. Diversity is vital in an educational environment. I thought the United States did away with segregation in the 60's.
Technick, we aren't discussing how things *should* be, we are discussing how they are ...
We are talking about a school for people who have so much trouble fitting in, who are picked on and violently abused so much that they can't focus on their education as they are too busy trying to survive.
Maybe you didn't see any of this at your school ... most of us didn't ... but for there to be only 1 school in the entire of new york for a few hundred cases that just couldn't make it work is a pretty small number ... and we are saying they don't have a right to have that school? ...
Originally posted by Technick@Nov 21 2004, 10:26 PM CJ...you go to school to learn a lot of things...one of the most important is a set of social skills. Diversity is vital in an educational environment. I thought the United States did away with segregation in the 60's.
Yeah, but the problem, at least in U.S. public schools is that a whole group of folks (not necessarilly gay) get their ass kicked every single day just because they don't happen to fit in. Some of them, like me, finally (around 10th grade or so) realize that they are bigger then most of the assholes and learn to stand up for themselves and kick some ass... Many though end up suicidal or living many many years under the shadow of an inferiority complex.
If the schools showed a basic understanding of what it was like for many students and dealt with it then I would be all for the "ideal" of learning the social skills etc in the school... But the schools turn a blind eye to it and basically tell the kids (and parents) to "deal with it". Many students end up missing out on all the fun that education and school should be and instead learn to dread their lives.
I am usually against segregation of any kind but in these kind of cases I am all for students finding a "safe" place to get an education.
I don't think it's fucked up at all. Everyone gets picked on for something at school. A sure way to make kids feel gay people are weird and different is to drag them out of regular school and put them somewhere on their own. I mean they don't have special schools for fat kids or kids with big noses do they? And they are abused just as much.
Originally posted by Technick@Nov 21 2004, 10:41 PM I don't think it's fucked up at all. Everyone gets picked on for something at school. A sure way to make kids feel gay people are weird and different is to drag them out of regular school and put them somewhere on their own. I mean they don't have special schools for fat kids or kids with big noses do they? And they are abused just as much.
No, not everyone gets picked on.. There are all sorts of groups of kids and some end up down at the bottom of the pecking order through no fault of their own, or their parents for that matter.
If the schools are not going to deal with the issues then there is no way to guarantee that all kids get an equal opportunity of an education.
I went through it... I watched helplessly as my son went through it until I finally pulled him out of the school he was in and put him into a private school for as long as I could afford it.
I watched him (who tests in the 99th percentile across the board) fail at basically everything because he was scared shitless of the other students. If he stood up for himself he got in trouble everytime because undoubtedly he was bigger than the kid(s) picking on him. If he didn't stand up for himself, he got spit on, harassed and beat up. He was in a lose-lose situation no matter what and no matter what I did with teachers, principals or school boards didn't help one bit. They were not going to do a fucking thing about it. He went through school as a loner and still has trouble with people because the only thing school taught him was to be afraid.
Originally posted by Technick@Nov 21 2004, 10:41 PM I don't think it's fucked up at all. Everyone gets picked on for something at school. A sure way to make kids feel gay people are weird and different is to drag them out of regular school and put them somewhere on their own. I mean they don't have special schools for fat kids or kids with big noses do they? And they are abused just as much.
>>Everyone gets picked on for something at school.
This is bullshit ... *everyone* does not get beaten up, have their heads flushed, etc. There's 'picked on' and then there's abuse.
>drag them out of regular school
Um ... technick ...
who dragged anyone out of school?!
We are talking about a few hundred students in the whole of new york ... who HAVE CHOSEN TO GO TO THIS SCHOOL because they feel their safety is threatened in a regular school.
Are you saying they should be forced to go to a regular school or miss out on an education?
Originally posted by Nickatilynx@Nov 21 2004, 10:42 PM Do you know what its like at a British Boarding School?
Oh, I imagine for many students it is hell as hell can be....
But I would bet that there is a more strict pecking order.. Upper classman can peck downward but lower classman can not peck upwards, that sort of thing, but I could be wrong...
Yeppirs on the psychiatrist bills I would imagine....
I loved college, but that was after a 9 year break between High School and College during which I was in the military. After the Navy, college was a breeze.
That's not the point CJ. if a person's safety is at risk the schools should do their job and protect their students. What about students who aren't gay whose safety is at risk? Where do they go? Don't go separating the victims.....why not pull the bullies out and put them in a special school?
Originally posted by Technick@Nov 21 2004, 11:06 PM That's not the point CJ. if a person's safety is at risk the schools should do their job and protect their students. What about students who aren't gay whose safety is at risk? Where do they go? Don't go separating the victims.....why not pull the bullies out and put them in a special school?
CJ..straight people and gay people need to learn about each other from an early age. People fear what they don't understand. Do you think VP Cheney would be against the Federal Marriage Amendment if his daughter wasn't gay? Gay people will never win equal rights in the US if straight people never get to know us. Growing up with gay friends is one of the best ways to do that.
Originally posted by Technick@Nov 22 2004, 01:09 PM Interesting post CJ. I have worked for Whitcon for seven years or so...a couple of years before I met my boyfriend. P8 and some of the other guys have visited me in San Francisco and they didn't seem at all concerned. I've also never had the slightest problem in the Vancouver office, although if my shoes and dress clashed, I am sure I would get a reaction
Originally posted by Technick@Nov 21 2004, 11:06 PM That's not the point CJ. if a person's safety is at risk the schools should do their job and protect their students. What about students who aren't gay whose safety is at risk? Where do they go? Don't go separating the victims.....why not pull the bullies out and put them in a special school?
good idea technick, why don't they do that?
have a think about who the bullies are ... usually football team, usually the biggest revenue generator for the school. popular kids, attractive kids, rich kids etc ... all 'valuable' to a school community.
I can't believe, as a human being - nothing to do with your sexuality - that you think its better for kids to drop out of school or be beaten up than it is to give them an opportunity to learn somewhere they would be nurtured ...
If there was a school for fat kids - what would be the weight cut off? 10 pounds overweight? 20 pounds overweight? There are already schools for black kids, even if they aren't officially labelled as so ... There are schools for kids who are good at music, computers, chess etc ... there are schools for kids with learning disabilities ... there are schools for kids with down syndrome and schools for kids who are deaf.
How is a gay school different from a chess club or a sporting team where people with similar interests get together to learn about and live life?
People group together based on their interests in life - it happens as adults so what's wrong with it happening as a teenager?
What about san francisco or oxford st sydney? Gay people live, work and play in segretated communities all the time ...
THAT'S LIFE! Not being forced to do something that is harmful to your life or counter productive to your happiness.
You seem to WANT people to be put through hell just to prove some stupid point about everyone being the same ....
As parents say they want more done to protect children for school bullies, Haley Birks from County Durham tells how setting up her own anti-bullying project helped turn the bullies away.
"One day I just got sick of it, being ignored and that, and they'd been really nasty calling me names," says Haley, 15.
"I couldn't put a brave face on it any more, so I told a teacher and then it got worse because they thought I'd grassed them up.
"I was spat on, I had chewing gum put in my hair, letters were passed round the class about me, they used to sit outside my house in the evenings because they live nearby.
When the bullies realised I wasn't bothered any more, they eased off
Haley Birks
"It was really intimidating, I didn't want to go to school, I didn't want to go out and I was really scared, it was horrible."
The bullying went on for about a year, but what put a stop to it was Haley's idea to set up a special project to campaign against bullying.
She even received a grant of £600 from Community Education at Durham County Council to promote her work.
The work takes her into local feeder primary schools to talk about any concerns children may have about bullying and she takes lessons with Year 7 and 8 pupils at her school to get the anti-bullying message across.
Youth work
She is on the school anti-bullying committee and works as a peer mentor. She is currently planning a workshop for her local youth club.
"It's helped to build up my confidence and I've met loads of new people and made new friends.
"And when the bullies realised I wasn't bothered any more, they eased off."
Haley is taking her GCSEs next summer and hopes to go on to study A-levels and then to university.
But the year in which she was bullied certainly had an effect on her school work.
"My Sats results were not what they should have been.
"I had loads of catching up to do because I wasn't in lessons. I went to school, but I did my work in the library and missed lessons because I couldn't cope with it."
A safe haven
It was stories like Haley's that drove Cambridge-based educational consultant Dr Carrie Herbert to set up a charity to educate children who were missing school to avoid the bullies.
"I constantly found a child had stopped coming to school because they were being bullied," says Dr Herbert, who opened the Red Balloon centre in the city.
If we don't deal with bullying between the ages of 11 and 17, then we are storing up problems for the future
Dr Carrie Herbert
"A lot of children are bullied, a lot cope and put on a stiff upper lip or find it stops after a few weeks, but for some there's such a significant impact that they say they're not going to school."
Dr Herbert says the centre, which offers the usual academic curriculum alongside therapy and support work, takes children who are at their wits' end.
"I would say 50% of our children have attempted suicide. We take children who have really had it - reached the end of whatever tether they had."
To give some indication of how bad the bullying can be in some cases, Dr Herbert recalls how one child had been hit over the head so badly that he had to have a metal plate inserted.
Another boy had been forced to swallow a sharpened coin which made him very ill. He was too scared to tell his mother and doctor and it was only when he was x-rayed in hospital three weeks later that the problem came to light.
Dr Carrie Herbert: Angered by tales of bullying
And a strikingly pretty girl had been threatened with being slashed in the face because she was so attractive.
The Cambridge Red Balloon centre has 12 places for children aged between 12 and 16 years and the charity is planning to open three new centres in Norwich, Colchester and north-west London.
Children generally stay a year at the centre before being re-integrated into mainstream school.
Dr Herbert says it is crucial to stop bullying in schools so that lives are not ruined.
"It has a terrible effect on people's lives. I've met adults who say they don't form relationships, can't trust people, can't hold down a job and so on because they were bullied at school.
"If we don't deal with bullying between the ages of 11 and 17, then we are storing up problems for the future."
a question for straight guys ... when you are around a gay man, how many times do you think/act a certain way because you think that guy is going to hit on you because he likes men?
a question for straight guys ... when you are around a gay man, how many times do you think/act a certain way because you think that guy is going to hit on you because he likes men?
a question for straight guys ... when you are around a gay man, how many times do you think/act a certain way because you think that guy is going to hit on you because he likes men?
11-21-2004
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