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What rights do school-children have?

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Dániel Boros

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In grade school I was always told that "the one who hits back is just as bad as the one who hits first".

Don't children have a right for self defence? I mean it's not like they will carry guns so obviously kicks and punches are what's left.

Running isn't always an option and it's not even a good option if you know you will meet the same bullies tomorrow again. You can't run away from school...

Aren't teachers making potential victims out of innocent children by telling them to not fight back, so that they the teachers will have to deal with less?

It seems to me that teachers are willing to defend bullies just not their victims. I have asked a few people and I have never heard of anyone getting kicked out from school for bullying, even though there were plenty of bullying from where they come...

If there are no consequences for bullying and you can't even fight back, what can you do?

School is like a heaven for sadists, although most bullies aren't violent outside of school. I wonder why...

peace

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It is a sad situation sometimes. I don't think it was so strictly enforced at the school I went to, but I'm sure it differs depending on where you go. I guess it all depends on who is in power. If they want to exploit their position, they potentially have the ability to do so. if you fought back from a fight with a bully or someone who started it, you could probably get out of some of the "consequences" of it, depending on who your parents were (if they were popular in the community) or how much of a fuss they made about it. The reason the rule is there is because minors don't have natural rights at school, and they have to have a way to discourage fights. They have to supposedly provide a "safe environment" for the child and not allowing self defense is part of that.

They once had a mentally ill assistant principal at my school for a time, who would out of spite for having to deal with it, threaten to charge victims of being the bullies themselves. SHE was actually a bully who also used her power and school rules to excessively punish many students for things that were null. She purposefully screwed up my schedules multiple times, and then tried to get out of fixing them! You can gather from this that the power structure in public school is often corrupt and exploited by teachers and administrators. The only thing that will shut them up is if you threaten to contact the school attourney hehehe :twisted: .

Edited by AbsoluteReason
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"Don't children have a right for self defense?"

Yes, they do. But as in the adult society, the right of retaliation should be restricted by supervision of objective law. In case of the school children it should be delegated to the teachers and parents. Besides, children's faculties of judgement are not fully developed, they don't really distinguish between retaliation and initiation of force. They often retaliate after the smallest provocation with the full force. In the case when the teachers or principal are unjust, parents have to intervene and some times even police.

Edited by Leonid
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