Bullied Teens

First, the main interest in pretending the teen-aged bullies are children who should absolutely not be sued, is teachers pretending the so called children still "need" to go to school.

I say main, not as if the bullies and their parents didn't have an even greater interest, but because that one is more marginal (unless a parent to a bully is also a teacher).

Second, if the teens who bully should not be held responsible, someone else should be held responsible.

Like, if a girl got asthma from exposure to mold, the school would be held responsible big time.

But somehow, if she gets exposed to bullies, the school isn't.

Third, the reason the school isn't held responsible, is precisely the same reason the teens aren't held responsible. Teachers want to continue their work.

If some students could quit school voluntarily, to avoid bullies, or if other students could be expelled and have no extra classes, because the school wasn't allowed to have bullies on the grounds, or if the school had freedom to expel whom they wanted, without explanation, bully or victim, or just doesn't go with the teachers, or to prevent a teacher from sexually harrassing a student without turning him in, whatever, they had no need to say that, then it would be very easy to fix certain situations way before they got out of hand.

Fourth, obviously a licence to expel those one wants to expel could be abused for discimination, like a Protestant school board could abuse this to get rid of a Catholic student or vice versa.

That's only a problem if school is supposed to be secular, one school fits all, no confessional schools and no homeschooling.

Fifth, this should have been ending School Compulsion right after Columbine High School. For some reason, the media and others focussed much of the debate around gun control instead.

Not to the exclusion of Cassie "she said yes" Bernall or the joy and charity of Rachel Scott, but definitely to the exclusion of discussing whether teens should be forced to go to school at all.

Definitely to the exclusion of asking why fourteen year old girls aren't married, instead of having their courtship ruined by bullies.

Adriana Kuch

Bullied Teen Takes Own Life 2 Days After Students Took Video of Assault at NJ School | NBC New York
NBC New York, 9 Feb. 2023
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h7-dyTL9YII

Miss Wilson

Middle school girl 'jumped' by 3 students and stabbed 14 times
Fox News, 22 Nov. 2023
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=35kB9hvKmR4

A Country with Even More School Compulsion

Why can't Sweden get gang violence under control? | Focus on Europe
DW News, 10 Dec. 2023
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MwWMjxLrmVE

Sixth, some pretend, society would be even worse, if religion were allowed to be rampant, but the violence is really pretty harsh, which makes the claim dubious.

Seventh, some are, to make this claim, prepared to distort their own or their readers' perception of history.

Commentaries on Hebrew and Christian Mythology.
Ladd, Parish B. (justice at the San Francisco bar, the author)
P. Eckler, 1896 (probably the publisher).

On pages 203 to 204, what a Justice at the San Francisco Bar gets wrong includes:

• Main Protagonists of Heliocentrism, what they did, what order, what degree of proof, what relation to the Church (Copernicus, Bruno and Galileo are presented as in rising order of "discovery" Galileo, Copernicus and Bruno);
• what kind of justice killed Lucilio Vanini (it was secular justice, not the Inquisition), where he was killed (Ladd gave his birthplace in preference to Toulouse, and misspelled Taurisano as Taurisona), which connects, since Southern Italy (heel of the boot) would be likelier to have Inquisitors in 1619 than France, which means he gets to credit the Church with the cruelties of secular justice;
• how Hypatia died, how that relates to Justinian
• whether the Church has made for social progress of types that anyone today would identify with (he pretends his previous examples settle the question, even if he got all of them wrong).

So, has the case for secular schools, and the case for school compulsion, been done on false premisses?

Could fighting against bullying and other evils involve reevaluating that discussion? I definitely think so.

Hans Georg Lundahl
Paris
Chair of St. Peter
18.I.2024

Cathedra sancti Petri Apostoli, qua primum Romae sedit. Ibidem passio sanctae Priscae, Virginis et Martyris; quae sub Claudio Imperatore, post multa tormenta, martyrio coronata est.

It's also the feast of St. Volusian of Tours. Patron of Foix, in France.

Turonis, in Gallia, sancti Volusiani Episcopi, qui, a Gothis captus, in exsilio spiritum Deo reddidit.